More ATCs

I was at the post office today, mailing the beauties below and these beauties, and this guy in front of me had a piece of clothing in a plastic bag. He gets up to the window and tells the mail person he wants to mail this to this address and have it there by Saturday, the mail person told him his options, but said he needed to put it into a box first and then come back up to the window. It was like the guy just thought the mail person would do it all for him. I bet mail people have a few stories to tell.

Anyways, like I said I was going to mail these pieces below. They are from two different swaps in the new group I'm in.
The first is a Ladies Vintage Wallet, we had to make a wallet out of paper and decorate it in Victorian style, and because Blogger spit out my pictures backwards, the first picture is of the inside of the 'wallet'.
I took a piece of white paper and distressed it with a Mellow Moss inkpad from Stampin' Up, then I took a script stamp and stamped all over it. I took some gold printed vellum roses and glued them onto the 'wallet'. I also added the pink lady, the stamps, the nostalgia tag, and the ceramic square.

The next picture is the outside of the 'wallet'.

The outside is distressed with the mellow moss ink and the script stamp as well as adding some gold mesh rectangles. On the front, I cut out the "Life's Journey" from a piece of packaging, and then pieced together the "MY" with clear stickers onto a neutral background and affixed it to the wallet. I piled three mini shells beath it. On the back I added the green button and the two paper beads (I'm not really sure if that's what they are, I got them a long while back from someone), I also added the blimp on green paper and the green doll dress.

This next picture is of the whole wallet with tags, ATC's, calling card and Victorian letter all tied up together and ready to be sent. To see the tags and ATC's, go here.

This next picture is of the cards I did for the Queen of Hearts swap. We were supposed to do our artist's rendition of a queen of hearts card. My first set had nothing to do with the queen of hearts except for the fact that you could tell I used a queen of hearts background. I decided that didn't fit the theme, so I tried again. I remembered I had some American Doll paper dolls and thought if I could find 6 regal outfits I could use them as my 'queens'. I originally was going to just mount the head and shoulders of each doll as that was all that would fit, then I thought it would be cuter if I scanned the whole doll and shrunk them to ATC size. So I scanned them onto photoshop and then used GIMP (free program, if you don't have or want to pay for photoshop) and shrank them to the correct size. I glued them onto actual playing cards that I had covered the faces of. I stamped the "Q" and a heart in the correct places and they were done. I'm very happy with how they came out.

Flying Away

I am so behind. I totally meant to update on the 6th or 7th, but I was dealing with relationship issues, then I was dealing with cleaning my apartment last week, and this week has just begun.
Anyways, here are my cards from my CollageATCs Yahoo Group August's Flying Things Swap:
In the lower left hand corner I used the bluebird with the red ribbon (it was a stamped image that I colored. In the upper left hand corner I used the bat button, it may be a little hard to see as it's a black button on a black background. In the upper right hand corner, I used the toucan image. In the lower right hand corner I used the UFO, the dinosaur, and the little brown image, it's actually a bear in an airplane.

On the left side I used the two ladybugs, the red one's an eraser, and the bee. I wanted to create something really cool with the bee, as I have been reading this blog lately (and she loves bees, so I wanted to be noticed by her), but I couldn't wrap my mind around something really neat, and I was the last one to make these, I wanted to get them done Friday night, so I could swap everything out and get it in the mail on the 5th. In the upper right hand corner I used the balloons and the kite. I've had that image of the boy hanging around awhile and decided this was the perfect time to use him, I embellished the image with actual string for the balloons and a wire for the kite. In the lower right hand corner I used the 3 lady bug images, enhancing their spots with brads, and the tiny silver bug.

In the lower left corner I used the green ladybug, the green butterfly, the blue dragonfly (inside the butterfly) and the white foam bug (who's been stamped with swirls in green). The green butterfly started out as a hairclip, but I couldn't think of something really cool to do with it. Upper left corner, I used the airplane and the kite flyer. Upper right corner, I used the dragonfly (on a sunglasses lense), the blue butterfly gem and the butterfly ribbon. Lower right corner, I used the owl, the bee and the bug.

I totally planned to have wicked cool cards, but since I was working at the bookstore from the 18th of Aug through the end, I was just so tired at the end of the day. I know, I had from the 1st through the 18th, but it was a pretty busy month, my brother came back on his way to Okoboji, among other things.

Don't get me wrong, I love my cards, I wouldn't have used them for the swap if I didn't, I just wanted them to be better.

Quick Post

I will be doing a post on some of the items I've been making for the Yahoo! group I joined not so long ago, I've just been so busy with work lately that my few hours of free time are spent relaxing and falling asleep.

New Art Group

I joined a new art group on Yahoo. I felt I needed an outlet to making more art than just the one time per month for my CollageATCs group. I already joined 5 swaps, the earliest due on 9/20 and the latest due on 10/15. My plan was to join swaps that weren't due anytime soon as next week I will be starting work UBS for 3 weeks and working about 8 hours there everyday and the 3 hours at my other job every day, so I wouldn't be very energized to do anything in the evenings.
The other day I was in my art closet and decided to start on some anyway. OK, it really started at the event I was working at Hilton on Thursday when I was a little bored and started sketching out ideas for the upcoming swaps on my information sheet. One of the swaps I'm in is called a Ladies Vintage Wallet swap. Basically, we're creating a simple 'wallet' out of paper, decorating it and filling it with a few things that will be swapped out. We have to create, in addition to the wallet, 2 vintage decorated ATC's, 2 vintage decorated luggage tags, 1 vintage decorated calling card and 1 vintage decorated/written letter to ourselves, as if we were living in that time period. I had to scan an ATC I did for a sale on etsy, so thought I'd scan the finished (or so I thought) pieces I had for the swap.
These are the lugguge tags. I took the dimensions given (2" x 3"), cut the tags out, rubbed a Really Rust Stampin' Up ink pad on them, and then added images I thought made them look vintage. Clock: I found the clock image on a collage sheet, cut it out and wrinkled it up, I did the same with the two kids bicycling in the corner. The bead is a paper bead I did when I was younger. Leaves: The top leaf is a ginkgo leaf that was sprayed with ink and then pressed onto a piece of paper, the other is from a piece of patterned scrapbook paper, I then layered the button and brown flower embellishment in the corner. After scanning these, I added a green tinged image of a boy on top of the leaves and added a twine to the clock tag and a green yarn to the leaves tag.

These are the Vintage ATCs for the swap. The one on the left has an image I took out of a dictionary of the occult that I bought at a bookstore in New Orleans when I went there in 2003, I distressed it with the same rust ink pad as I did the background and the two luggage tags. I also wrinkled it up to make it appear older, it is mounted on a green paper and then onto the ATC. There is a piece of gold mesh across the corner with a tannish button and a green button on top. I decorated the wallet with the mesh and green so I was trying to tie those colors in. The card on the left has a napkin for a background. The lady image was stamped with bleach into some green paper, the "INSPIRE" was also stamped this way.

I'm still in the process of finishing the wallet and the calling card. I'm having a hard time figuring out what a letter to myself in the Victorian age would be.

The other swaps I joined are: a charm swap, I've never done charms but it sounded so neat, plus I'm psyched to see what other people did. For this swap, I wrapped some puzzle pieces in tissue paper and covered them with tacky glue, kinda decoupaging them and then stamped an interesting texture stamp into them. I need to paint/color them in something bright as they're stamped with black onto a darker teal and blue tissue papers. I had also planned on doing the Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel on some matboard, but I don't have the supplies, and I'm not sure how to keep the holes in the pieces as I'm making them. I might borrow the supplies from my mom, not like she's using them now anyway. This one's due on 9/20, I will receive as many charms back as I send (8 or 16) on a charm bracelet.

Tag swap: I'm supposed to make 5 tags ATC sized or ATCs with tags on them. I've already finished these, they're distressed with the same ink pad to paper technique as the above cards/tags.

Chain Swap: I have to make a paper chain of 3 people/animals/whatever and decorate as I wish. I found a really cute alien chain pattern online and did that decorating the head and legs. I then made a single one for me decorated the same way.

Queen of Hearts Swap: Basically I take 6 Queen of Hearts cards and alter them to whatever I want. I can also make my own cards. I'm having the hardest time on this one, but it's not due until 10/15, so I have some time.

I'll scan and post lengthier descriptions on the other projects soon.

I joined a new art group on Yahoo! called TheSumOfAllAtcs. I felt I needed an outlet to making more art than just the one time per month for my CollageATCs group. I've already joined 5 swaps.

Sparkly Gemstones Glittery July 2009

July's CollageAtcs theme was Sparkly/Glittery/Gemstones.
I thought I'd try to make my cards the same but different, a few of my group members do this, and I try but it's so much more fun to do them all different. I found a group of postage stamps in my stash and that's what sparked the cards. This month I succeeded in making the same but different, maybe I can do it again for August's theme of Flying things.
Pink card: I used the pink butterfly, the pink ribbon and the pink gem in the corner. Purple card: I used the purple cord (under the tree), and the purple gem in the corner.

Dark green Card: I used the 3 gold beads and the dark green gem in the corner. Silver card: I used the sequin trim (underneath the button), the silver tinsel (on top of the button) and the silver glittery paper. Brown Card: I used the glittery paper across the corner, and the black bead in the center of the card. Light Green Card: I used the glittery paper across the corner and the light green gem in the corner of the card.

Blue Card: I used the blue raffia along the edge of the card and there's a blue gem in the corner that doesn't really come out in the picture. Red Card: I used the background card with the crown on it, the red ribbon on the edge and the red gem in the middle. Purple card: I used the purple sequin trim underneath the butterfly, the butterfly, the clear gems on the edge and the clear bead in the middle. Red/yellow Card: I used the glittery paper in the corner, the red raffia on the edge and the yellow gem in the corner.

I always encourage my players to use more than one item on their cards just to see how they figure to use them together. I made sure I used at least 2 items on each of these cards.

Exciting announcement

I'm so excited, I finally got a return customer on one of my etsy stores. It was my supply store, not the art one. I can't wait until I get a return customer on my art etsy store. I plan to give my first return customer on the art store a 10% discount, like I did for my supply store.

I have also created fan pages for both stores on Facebook, I am hoping to bump up my promoting. Here's the supply store, and here's the art store.

Is it sad that I became a fan of both of them, just so it could say I had fans? I now have 2 fans on each page, me and someone else.

It was like lightening

The June swap for my CollageATCs Yahoo! Group was Body Parts. I sent out a packet of stamped faces, bone buttons, googly eyes, stamped lips, magazine cutouts, diecut people, stamped dress forms, diecut hands and lips, a plaster face, a vellum dress form clip art, a heart, stamped footprints, and yarn.
On this first photo, starting in the bottom left hand corner, going clockwise, I used: a stamped face, that I cut out to fit the flower. The googly eyes, and the lips. The stamped face in the flower and the bone button. The die cut person.

On this photo, starting in the bottom left hand corner, I used: the stamped face and the handprint sticker. The stamped doll parts and the die cut lips. The plaster face in the flower and the footprints stamp. The man's face in the flower and the die cut hands.

On this photo, left to right, I used: the face on the flower, the face on the flower.

A few ladies in my group make multiple versions of about the same card. Since I don't send out 20 of the same item, they can't make the exact same card, but they are all very similar, I like that approach and tried to do that with the June cards, as you can see they all have the flower head, but that's about as far as I got.

I'm thinking about doing fabric cards sometime in the future. I know they will require a little more thought and planning, but I think people would be very intrigued in them.

July's swap is Glitter/Sparkly/Gemstones. I sent out an ATC sized piece of wallpaper with glittery crowns on it, a piece of silvery glittery flower paper, two sequin trims in silver and pink, six different ribbons: red metallic, blue metallic, pink sparkly, silver tinsel, purple and gold ribbon, and a piece of gold ribbon; gold beads, clear and black metallic beads, safety pins, yellow, light green, dark green, pink, purple, red, blue and clear gemstones, purple stones, mirrors, purple and pink metallic butterflies, red, white and blue sparkly stars in two sizes, brown, orange and green glitter glue painted on paper, a piece of blue sparkly paper, and two pieces of metallicy raffia in blue and orange that I got from my friend Loretta. I can't wait to see what people produce with those items.

Come back in about a month, and I will have my July's cards posted.