More goes into making an Island Breeze Native Card than may immediately meet the eye. Created entirely from natural Philippine materials and with a strictly handmade process, each card is the product of much personal care, and carries with it not only a taste of the islands from which it came, but also of the people themselves who helped make the card. Even the aroma of the cards themselves, for those with a discerning sense of smell, transmits a bit of the island experience.
Island Breeze Native Cards begins with the card itself. Made of a combination of abaca and banana fibers, both native to San Miguel and Cagraray Islands, the cards blend the two materials together to give the “patch-work” style characteristic to the cards. The lighter portions of the card are abaca while the darker are banana. At present the cards stock is made off of the island, though Island Breeze hopes to start its own card stock production in 2010.
Once the card stock is ready, the other materials have to be collected. A large variety of natural materials are used. Though a few are imported from off the island, such as raffia mat from Aklan, Philippines, and the glitters from Manila, the vast majority of the materials can be found on the islands themselves or produced from materials found there.
Some of the materials native to the islands include coconut bark/fiber (a dark brown crisscross-fibrous material), dried banana leaves, abatex (abaca fibers woven together in a loose mesh) by a resident of San Miguel Island, sinamay (a thinner strand of abaca fiber bleached and woven into a delicate lacework pattern), and karagumoy (a long thin tough leaf that is most often used by island folk to make woven sleeping mats).
Of all these materials, the process of preparing the karagumoy for the cards is one of the most interesting.
Karagumoy leaves are first harvested from groves of the plant. Because the leaves are covered with spines, the harvester has to take great care in cutting the leaves off near the base.
Next the leaves are cut into strips depending on the size of the strands wanted. For most of our cards, we have them cut them very thin (1/4”) which gives them a delicate appearance. The leaves are then dried under the hot island sun for 1-2 days to bleach them white. After this colors can be added through using a variety of dyes if so desired. Dying involves soaking the leaves in a pot of boiling water in which the powdered dye has been placed.
Once dyed and dry, the long strands of the karagumoy are placed under a heavy coconut log supported by two wooded stands, which is rolled over them repeatedly until the strands of karagumoy become soft and pliable for weaving. An expert island weaver, of which most of the women are, then goes to work creating the woven mat used on many of the Island Breeze cards.
The Christian youth from San Miguel and Cagraray Islands are the ones who take over from here, cutting out each material needed for the cards by hand and gluing it carefully to the card. The length of time required for each card varies depending on the intricacy of the design. The fastest take about 20 minutes to create, while the most difficult can take 1 - 1 ½ hours. Checkers oversee the process to make sure that each card is of high quantity. The encouragement to each youth is to make each card as if it was the one they were going to send to the person they most loved.
