Last of the ATCs

for a while, anyway. Here’s one more from the Surface Design Techniques swap, from Elizabeth:

 

I received the following ATCs in exchange for my geckos; these are from Annie, Cat, Diana, Jane, Judy, and Wil:

And finally, from Alis, not only a lovely ATC, but a beautiful little book to go with it:

I’m continually amazed by how much work and heart people pour into these tiny pieces of art!

Mailbox Surprises Continued

More ATCs, this time from the Surface Design Techniques swap, from Marga, Mags, Judy, Jan, Debbi, Britta, and Aynsley:

Thanks to all of them for sending me such beautiful ATCs for my collection!

Mailbox Surprises

I am way behind on thanking everyone for their ATCs from various swaps. Here are a few I’ve received:

This one is from Alis Clair in exchange for one of my gecko ATCs. She included a lovely little handmade book, as well:

These are from the Cloth Paper Studio Yahoo group Signs of Spring swap. They’re from Marci, Aynsley, and Meridel:

More to come!

Earth Day ATCs

I’ve signed up for the Earth Day ATC swap through a Yahoo list I’m on, and even though the ATCs aren’t due until the end of this month, I wanted to get them finished and mailed off.

• I started these by fusing scraps of the transformed ugly fabric (see the last post) to a black background.
• I sprinkled this with Bo-Nash powder, heated it, and rubbed a blue-green foil onto it.
• I laid an interesting piece of sheer fabric over that (that’s the blue, green, and purple fabric you see); it’s more sheer in some places than in others. I have no idea what it is, since I got it from the clearance bin at Jo Ann’s. Then I stitched it down with black cotton thread.
• I burned away the sheer part of the fabric with a wood-burning tool.
• I stitched painted Tyvek over the fabric and a layer of batting, then ironed it (with a piece of parchment paper on top, of course) until the Tyvek shriveled and melted.
• I sewed beads and broken shells on.
• I added hand-dyed fabric to the back and free-motion satin-stitched around the edge (I wanted a little “rougher” feel to the satin stitching to match the card, which is why I dropped the feed dogs. I actually liked this better than satin-stitching with the feed dogs up!).

Here are close-ups of each of the cards:

I think these ATCs are particularly appropriate for "Earth Day," since they remind me of Earth's strata (and the beads represent the gems and minerals found in the various layers).

As usual, my sweetie claimed one, and the other three will go to the swap (I need to remember to always make TWO extra now: one for her, one for me!).

ATC Details

I’m pretty new to ATC swaps on a large scale, so I keep forgetting that it seems to be the custom to describe in some detail how the ATCs are made. So, to embellish on any earlier post, I’m providing more information about how these ATCs for a swap were made.

The background is Tyvek that I painted with Golden quinacridone colors; I love those acrylics because they are translucent, but heavily pigmented for beautiful color.

The birds started with watercolor paper that I had previously painted with fabric dyes.

I stamped the birds with a clear Versamark stamp pad, then embossed them with ultra-thick embossing powder. I sprayed Adirondack color wash sprays onto the paper, then laid newsprint over the top and ironed the paper until the embossing powder was absorbed. The strips along the side were created the same way, but one set of leaves was stamped with green acrylic paint, embossed, then ironed to remove the embossing powder.

(Btw, I have an article on eHow with detailed instructions and pics of the above process; if you visit and read the article, please be sure to rate it!)

I added details to the birds with Micron pens. Then I glued the birds and the strips onto the Tyvek, then glued the whole thing to illustration board so that it would be sturdy.

I wanted to dip the edges into ink and embossing powder, but I completely forgot that Tyvek MELTS with heat, so when I started heating the embossing powder, the Tyvek started pulling away from the edges. I decided instead use a Krylon gold-leafing pen to color the edges.

Signs of Spring

I haven't had much time to work on anything this weekend, but I did make these paper ATCs; 3 are for a swap with the theme "Signs of Spring" through a list I'm on, my sweetie claimed 1 for her board at work, and the other 2 will go in my file.

I used tyvek for the background and watercolor paper for the birds and the leaf stripes along the sides.

Weekly Square #3

Here's my weekly 6x6" square. Since I made so many gecko postcards and ATCs last week, I thought that would be an appropriate theme for this week's square. Plus, the weather is warm and springlike, so I used spring-colored fabrics.

ATC Frenzy

I've been making lots of ATCs the last couple of days, partly because I needed to get some out for two swaps, and partly because I've discovered that making ATCs is a great way to use my "experiment" paper and fabric--you know, those pieces you make to try out some wonderful new technique, but that you never make large enough (at least I don't) to actually use in a project.

These ATCs are for a yahoo group swap; I used the fabric I made a couple of weeks ago from scraps.






The others came about because I wanted to try out my new Tsukineko inks. I stamped geckos onto fabric, then used the inks and Fabrico markers to color them. Then I very lightly spritzed the fabric with water, and dripped some transparent fabric paint around the geckos (the paint ran since the fabric was wet, but didn't really affect the ink-painted geckos).







I cut the fabric up into ATCs, and used three of them for another yahoo group swap. These had to be embellished, so I added lots of beads and some french knots with embroidery thread; and, they had to have a fabric back, which I'm not crazy about. I like the stiffness that cardstock or watercolor paper gives to a card, so the others are backed with cardstock. They're all sandwiched around craft felt, because I've really been obsessed with using that lately instead of batting for small projects.

So . . . now I have 9 gecko ATCs available, if anyone wants to trade. Leave me a comment with a way to get in touch with you, or email me (see the "email" link on my Profile over to the right). Feel free to specify which ATC you would like (Row 1, Column 3 for example), but I can't promise you'll get the one you ask for if someone else requests it first. Here are the available ATCs:

ALL THE ATCs HAVE BEEN TRADED; THANKS EVERYONE!

Something Old, Something New

Here is an ATC I made to exchange with Terri Stegmiller (Stegart). I had some really UGLY fabric I had painted a while back, so I covered it with Angelina & sheer fabric, all fused together with Mistyfuse, which was cool because then I couldn't see the ugly fabric anymore (I've noticed that if I have something I don't like, I can usually keep adding stuff to it until it looks good!)

I stitched the paper heart on, then hand-stitched some tiny seed beads. The first pic shows the seed beads better, the 2nd one the color.

I made 2 of these and had an extra to trade, but my DP immediately claimed the other one and seemed a little miffed that I hadn't thought to offer it to her.

I haven't made an ATC in forever, so I went looking for some I made a long time ago. I might as well post those here as well (the first one some of you may recognize as my icon on various sites):