Nature Collage Card - Inspired by the Art of Haiti

You can learn a lot about a culture from its art work!  On my recent trip to Haiti, I learned that the Haitian people are both resilient and resourceful.  Their resourcefulness is easily seen in their artwork, especially these collaged note cards that they make and sell, using local organic materials to create simple scenes of everyday life.

Materials:

• leaves, pressed in a book until flat and dry
• scissors
• YES! Paste
• stiff brush or popsicle stick for applying paste
• 5” x 8” index card, unlined
• black ball point pen
• 7” x 7” copy paper (for envelope)

Directions:

1. At least a week before you do this project, gather some leaves and press them in a phone book or under a stack of heavy books.
2. When your leaves are flat and dry, cut them with scissors (like you would paper) into whatever shapes you need to create a scene from everyday life or from your imagination.
3. Use YES! Paste to glue these shapes onto a folded 5” x 8” card. (YES! Paste will hold much better over time than a glue stick will, especially when gluing anything that is thicker than paper and not perfectly flat.)
4. Add details with a black ballpoint pen.

Three authentic Haitian collage cards - and my sample, made with leaves from my back yard








In my next post, I'll show you an easy way to make hand-made envelopes to fit this, or any size card!