ATCs and other stuff

I have been busy lately. I finished a kit for Altered Pages. The Butterfly pins are something I threw together for Spring. I am so ready for the sun to shine here, and those little flowers brought a smile to my face. If you visit my blog and like to work with collage sheets, go visit Altered Pages. They have many collage sheets, but they have a lot of other stuff that you can use to make your own art. And I'm on the design team. *shameless self-promotion*

On to the ATCs I recently made.

These were done for an ATC swap, Words of Wisdom. They're titled Stop and Smell the Flowers. I used Twinkling H20s for the background of each, painting a purple, a blue, and a aquamarine on randomly then placing plastic wrap over it to dry. When I peeled the plastic wrap off, I stamped some flourishes in purple and tel. The paper flowers were something I made from book pages. Very simple. I had a tutorial, but I'm not sure of the link. If someone sees this and knows the link, please share in the comments. It was very easy to make them. The other one, I stamped with Memento ink then used Twinkling H20s to color them in.

Add a little bling and you've got two very serene ATCs that really are a great reminder that we all need to stop and smell the flowers.

Butterfly ATCs

Using alcohol inks on encausticbord. I love this stuff, by the way. The encausticbord. It's heavy, board (not paper) and I really like handling it much better than I do little 2.5 x 3.5 inch pieces of paper.

This was for a swap on Art for the Creative Minds (great group, by the way!). Butterflies were the theme. I love alcohol inks, the rich colors. Love!

ATC Swap -- Fall theme

It's been insane here, as usual. Maybe a little more than usual. I finished a set of ATCs for a swap with a theme of Autumn Voices. I call the ATC "Fall's Fire", because when I think about this season, I think of the look of the trees and how they remind me of fire.

This was done with artist pastels on a good quality watercolor paper. I used Prismacolor NuPastel sticks. There are six or seven colors on it, blended with my fingers because they were the best tool for the job. Robin's Nest dew drops glued on top after I sprayed the ATC with a workable fixative. I have to make an extra for my daughter. She really likes these.

An ATC for a swap

Since I can't sleep, I figured I'd share an ATC that I just finished for a swap. I belong to a Yahoo group called Painting With Radiance, basically for anyone who likes shimmery and sparkly things. Things like Twinkling H20s and Pearl Ex, Lumieres, glitter, all of them qualify. I also think Angelina Fibers qualify. They shimmer and sparkle too!

I made the "paper" the image is stamped on from three colors of Angelina fibers - a yellow, a white with purple-ish highlights and a blue. I laid them out, little bits of the fibers, mixed them up so they were all intermingled, and blasted them with my heat gun enough to melt them. I laid parchment paper over top and rubbed to make sure they were flat. I stamped the fairy image (from Artful Inkables) with black VersaMagic ink. Chalk ink, sits on top, and I needed something that would be able to really hold the image on the slick surface. I colored her in with Prismacolor markers. The background of the ATC is the Cling and Scrunch tech, with Pearl Ex watercolor paints. The butterfly is a stone bead that I inked with Versamark and added Perfect Pearls. Really easy card once I figured out what I wanted to do. I hope Pat likes it!

ATCs from Debbie's Die Cuts (or is it for?)

I'm not sure which preposition it is. Debbie Bankston sent me ATC die cuts and I made ATCs out of them. So they are from her. But I made them for her design team. So they are also for her. The first one is a DTP with Ranger pigment inks. I then stamped with the cloud stamp from Artful Inkables and the bird stamp is from TAC. The dragonfly die cut is from Debbie and it has sparkly Stickles on it. The clouds were heat embossed with SU! embossing powder, Iridescent Ice, so it sparkles too. Oh, and the wings of the dragonfly are colored with a silver leaf pen.




This is an SU! image, from a retired stamp set. I'm having a really hard time remembering the names of this stuff tonight, so there is no way I'll pull the name of the set out of my head. The background is silver and red. I stamped a TAC flourish and heat embossed with Iridescent Ice (SU!) and then outlined with green marker. I colored the flower with with a red Prismacolor marker. A few beads, a couple of pretty die cut flourishes from Debbie that I painted silver, and then edge with silver leaf pen and add microbeads from PennyWise Arts. It will be on its way to Debbie in tomorrow's mail! I love her die cuts. If you hate to cut out ATCs or come up with fancy flourishes or frames on your own, her die cuts are wonderful and you get so many for the price!

An ATC and a pretty flower

I made an ATC for a swap. I actually made an extra 5 of them for another swap, but I've been too lazy to send them. I'm pathetic sometimes. This is a Technique Junkies technique called Createx Creation. If I got that wrong, I'll fix it when I find out. You take Createx paint, which is a pretty thin paint used for airbrushing, and smear it and smoosh it and voila! You get a really cool image. Only I didn't use Createx paint. They belong to my husband and he doesn't have good metallics. I used Molten Metals and regular acrylic craft paints. Mix them with a bit of water to make them thin, and you get some cool effects on paper. Images are from Artful Inkables. Love these stamps.


And now my pretty flower picture. We inherited several very large rhododendron bushes when we bought the house. This year, they are blooming like crazy after a few not so stellar years. I took this picture when I was just out walking around taking lots of pictures. I like the way the lighting on this looked, and I love the color. Rhododendron are so pretty. We have a few different colors, but this was the one where the lighting was just right. There is no altering of the light in the photograph to get it dark at the edges. It's how the picture came out just from the where the sun was.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet here. Life is wonderful.

Easter ATCs

These are the Easter ATCs I made for a swap I'm in on the SS Reflections yahoo group. All three are done on Stardreams Chiara paper, sparkly and very pretty.

The first one is egg shaped on a pretty peach paper. I used an SU stamp, Morning Marigold ink, and clear detail embossing powder. The lid to the egg is hinged and of course you can see the little chick. I got this idea from another group I'm on, The Artists' Circle. They did an ATC workshop last month that I didn't participate in, and they did egg shaped ATCs. I had to do one for Cindy. I think these are so adorable, and when I found the little chick, I knew it belonged in this ATC.



This ATC background was put through the Big Shot with a Cuttlebug folder and then I used a chalk applicator to put inks on the flower and leaves. I got the little girl from a Dover clip art book. I edged everything with gold marker, added ribbon and a flower charm, and ta-da! Easy, but kinda cute too. I like the background best and it's kind of too bad I had to cover some of it up wiht an image. The little girl is really cute, though, holding her flower basket and dressed in pink and yellow. Very Easter-y. Not at all like me.






This ATC was done with a background stamp from Cornish Heritage Farms. I stamped with Versamark and added Kiwi Perfect Pearls. A few rose and butterfly stickers, some ribbon and some green bling, and again, a simple but cute ATC. The background shimmers. I didn't want to cover too much of it up.

I've still got a sick child (Dylan) and interestingly enough, I got an email from someone saying they represent a major pharmaceutical company, urging me to make sure we all get flu shots, and telling me I'm welcome to link to a flu information site from my blog. I feel a tad creeped out by the fact that someone trolled the web, saw that my family was sick, and used it to market their medical products to me. How exploitative and just creepy. Really friggin' creepy.

The problem with glue

Okay, there is a darn good reason not to use glue. It takes a long time to dry, and by the time it's dry enough for you to realize that the part didn't turn out the way you liked, you have to start over and the project takes days instead of hours. My project still isn't done. I'm waiting for yet another iteration with glue drying. It's maddening. But I think in the end, it will be worth the hassle. So far, so good.

I finished ATCs for a swap I'm in. Here are two of them. I took them at an angle so you could see some of the details. They both have a color wash background, though one used a different ink (I think the one on the left was chalk inks). The stamp is a clear stamp from Autumn Leaves (?) that Michele Kovack sent me. There are three flowers cut out and popped up on top of each other. The background is a TAC stamp, embossed in silver. I punched the corners, added twine, and some pretty little bling in the center, and voila. Simple, but very shimmery and pretty. You can see the shimmer very well in the photo on the right.

Oh, and I stamped those flowers on Basic Grey Periphery. Love that paper to death. I just love it.

I'm getting sick. Sore throat, stuffy head. Yikes, I don't have time to be sick. Maybe it will go away soon. It probably would help if I'd go to bed, but I want to go visit the sisters, and I have to add the rest of them to my SBS blog roll. Maybe tomorrow.

ATC Swap

I joined an ATC swap on SCS called Pumpkin Pals. If you're in this swap, close your eyes (unless you're like me and don't mind being "suprised" online rather than surprised in person). This card uses a new stamp set from The Angel Company (at least I think it's new, if it isn't, let me know and I'll edit this) called Full of Sweetness. This card uses two of the stamps, the cutest two, I think, but there are others in the set that you'll be seeing in one form or another very soon.

I used a gorgeous shimmer white paper called Malmero Perle Sparkle in Blanc. I bought it at CutCardstock.com. I also got the green shimmering paper I used in this card (the scalloped mega oval sitting behind the image - punched with the giga scallop oval). I used stickles around the scallops, added the little pumpkin and wire in the corner, used stickles to make the stem, and then glued leaves on to the bottom of the ATC. I really like this ATC more than I thought I would. I'm not the cutesy type, or at least I didn't think I was. This set might have changed my mind completely. Wow, is it precious! Oh, I guess I could tell you that I used Gamsol Magic technique for the coloring - loved it with this image, and I colored the pretty little wings in with a Sakura Star Dust pen, for sparkle.

I was playing with my camera outside tonight, taking pictures of the moon through the trees and the stars up in the sky. I got a couple of weird looking shots - probably because the lens was open so long to get the image that I moved a bit. None of them came out very clear, so that means practice, practice, practice. I love the sky, especially at night, and I will learn how to do a good job photographing the moon and stars. I could get lost in the night sky and I want to be able to capture that feeling of being so tiny, so insignificant in such a vast universe.

Another post, 5 minutes later

Yes, I think I have officially gone off the deep end of the art pool. I decided to try an oil pastel technique on a piece of glossy and got the neatest ATC out of it (or at least I think so).

I really think this is a cool ATC. Artsy and different, the flow is very fluid, lots of movement and lots of color. It was an accident, which is the best kind of art. Click on it to make it larger. It will give you a feel for the texture that is on the paper and the movement of the pastels around the oily surface of the paper. It was so much fun to make!!

NOW it's goodnight for real.

A few new ATCs for a swap

This post is going to be quick. It's late. I'm tired, and making some dumb mistakes! Here are three ATCs I made for a swap. I'm getting the hang of it, I think. Let me know if I'm far off the mark, and any suggestions to make them better will be appreciated!!

Thanks for looking!

This one is stamped with the Magenta stamp that I love so much, Mother and Child. The background is Silken Mist, done with Twinkling H20s.


This one is done by painting the cardstock first. As it dried, I crumpled up the tissue paper and smoothed it out. I stamped this Starving Artistamps Artful Inkables image onto the tissue and let it dry. Then colored in with Gelly Roll pens. I slapped some different pieces of phone book papers over the card, painted over them with the same yellow/brown color, then with extra thick gel medium, I stuck the tissue paper on the card. When it dried, I added a few leaves around for a little extra effect, added the cord, and voila!



This image came from AlteredPages. It was a transparency I purchased last week. LOVE them!! The base is done using the silken mist technique, stamped on some ledger paper (from Blockhead Stamps) with a stamp from Starving Artistamps. The frame was made with my Big Shot using Cuttlebug dies. Going to bed now. Please let me know what you think! I'm new at ATCs and feel like I'm starting to get it, but I need some feedback. Thank you all and good night!!

My first ATC

I talked about this ATC awhile ago, but have had a booger of a time trying to get a picture of it that is accurate. It is a light blue Silken Mist piece (again, Techinique Junkies newsletter), with the image of the woman (Cherry Pie Arts) stamped in Midnight Blue Palette Hybrid ink and the moon (Non Sequitir??) stamped with Brilliance ink (the silver color) and then stamped over with the Midnight Blue. It is a cool effect with the shimmer of the Twinkling H20 background and the shimmer of the moon contrasting with the starkness of the Hybrid ink. Of course, this picture doesn't show the shimmer or the sheen well at all. The silver ink looks white. The image panel is mounted on a piece of Sapphire Stardreams Metallic cardstock. My husband hates the sentiment. I thought it fit the imagery. Oh well, you can't please all the people all the time, right?

More painting fun!

I made ATCs tonight (among some swap cards that I have to get done next week!!). These are so much fun. They are so creative and make me feel free to do things I could never do on a card. I know I've read people saying they don't "get" ATCs, that they look weird, that they aren't miniature cards. I would say that two weeks ago, I didn't get ATCs. I didn't think they looked weird (well, some of them do) and I like that they aren't miniature cards. The point of an ATC is the art. It isn't the finished product so much as it is the process getting to the finished product. It is not important that the piece look put together. It is not important that the finished piece have a sentiment and can be given to grandma. What is important is there is a card in existence upon which someone created. I've been able to give in to some of my more basic creative nature. I uploaded a couple of ATCs for my class. I'll load them here for you guys to look at and tell me if they are weird.


Tomorrow I should have a good ol' fashioned card.


This card isn't a finished ATC, but I guess it could be. I freehanded the seaweed and the angel fish with silver leafing pen. I can't draw, so for me to get images that actually look like what I wanted them to is an enormous accomplishment. The colors aren't as dark as they look in the picture. The upper colors are Cool Caribbean and Buckaroo Blue. There is some Night of Navy and Vintage Violet near the bottom.






This is my Queen card (for the princess who wants to be queen someday!). This one was fun. I took different papers and pasted them onto the ATC. Then I added dye inks (marigold morning, cameo coral, and distress ink in tea dye (??) - Tim Holtz). Put a light yellow glaze over it, then rubbed Opalites into the mixture after stamping my lovely Queen in India ink. This is so shiny, in oranges and golds and reds. I am definitely feeling the stretch as I work with colors and mediums that I don't normally touch.

Oh, we have a chicken named Birdy. One day old, and sickly looking. I think he might have some mental deficiencies. He can't seem to stand up easily, and he peeps ALL the time. If he turns out to be as mentally challenged as I think he is, he will have to be a house chicken. The other chickens will kill him. He's cute, though. A little bald on his back, but black with white tips on his wings (they will go away as he gets older). We're hoping for a silkie. They're gorgeous chickens.

Thanks for visiting!