ATC trades

 Michael was gone all day at a gun show so I had the time to play; I finished my fall trades. I know how busy I am going to be with the start of school and getting ready for the Tim Holtz trip so I worked ahead. September is "Asian," October is "Kings and Queens"  and November is "Tag Art" (I made extra of my cruise tag swaps).

Cards, Swaps and a Tour

I have been a bit slower posting because it's back to school time. I have some cards and the packaging of my cruise swaps and even a tour of my craft room (while it's mostly clean). For the last week I have been in my classroom cleaning and organizing there; maybe I will inlcude a tour of it one day.  On my last day of freedom, I accomplished one of my summer goals: I finished the monster quilt top and backing. It's off to the shop for quilting because it's too big for me to enjoy doing on my home machine--it's 110 in square. I can't show you yet; it's a Christmas present. 

These are two of the cards I made using the blended background stamping. Directions are on the Stamping page. I like this style card. The base of the card is the underneath and the flap is only the area of the background/message with an additional paper inside for the message.

Next I have my last ATC design for the cruise swap. I rubbed and spritzed straw, lipstick and concord on a craft sheet and dragged the tag and string through to blend the colors. A key charm from my stash (and Jan's) was tied to the string. The stamped images are mostly from Tim's designs. I accented the heart with stickles for a bit of bling and the crown is a Tim die cut design cut from grunge board that I "rusted." To do this you apply embossing ink to the grunge and emboss with distress powder (vintage photo). After rubbing off the discharge crystals apply distress ink. I think I used rust (or maybe vintage photo).  

 I used a Holtz stamp design for the labels on the back of all my ATCs; computer generated the info, stamped complimentary images from my collection and blended the edges with distress ink.

 I packaged the charms in a little matchbook style box. (I am concerned that the flip-flop beads will break in transit.) Basically this is made from the directions for the nugget box from splitcoaststampers and edited for size. I attached the charms to tags that I made from paint chips. I used the slit punch and a small circle to hang the lobster claw. I stamped palm trees on clear acetate with stazon for the wrap around.








Next is the tour of my mostly cleaned craft room-minus members of the "Stampin Cult" that are often present.

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Our next 'cult' project is designing group tee-shirts using a technique that Anita learned from a class several years ago. I loved my first shirt and was sad when it didn't fit anymore (but not sad about loosing all the weight)

July ATC for the KY group

Finally finished my trade for the "Seashell" theme. I think the problem was that I had too many ideas and choices. I also did not want to mail any real shells; they just don't travel well.

The girls were over last night and helped me make decisions; thanks ladies. I used heavy acrylic in the embossing folder for the overlay; I really like the look.  I have already finished the August trade for masking so now I am ahead. I want to get the next two themes done early because I am so busy (and tired) from the beginning of school. Then of course, it's cruise time with Tim! I can't wait.

Another cruise ATC done!

Finished up my second ATC to swap on the cruise. This is the one I created (in my head) when floating in my pool while trying to keep cool. I really like how it turned out. I sanded distress color core'dination paper that had been embosed in Holtz's brick wall folder. The center oval was cut with a sizzix die. The challenge was covering up the small hole on the right side. I used the masking film cut out with the Holtz butterfly die and I sprayed over it with a glimmer I made with distress reinkers and perfect pearls powder. The saying is a Holtz stamp from the Urban Chic collection. The flower (from Holtz ribbon package) was dyed with distress inks. (I will post directions on how I dyed them). The greenery are cut from various parts of a Holtz die with the heart, wings and crown.

Tim Holtz Cruise ATC

I got inky today and started the first of my first ATC swaps for the Tim Holtz cruise that Anita and I are going on at the end of September. I decided to make 20; about my attention span limit for one design. I have some ideas that I want to play with for more.

I am going to come up with an ideas for making charms to swap using Holtz's word sticks--I must like them a lot; I found two packages that I have purchased.