I about panicked this morning when I realized it was blog day. It's been a strange week around here. My youngest had all four of his wisdom teeth surgically removed on Tuesday. No I didn't take video of the crazy talk, but I may have to quote a short conversation...
Me:Would you like to take your jacket off?
Gasper:NO! It's the only thing that got me through the war!
Me:What war?
Gasper:The one where I lost my teeth!
Me: How did you lose your teeth in the war?
Gasper:They shot em out!
Then he dissolved into the giggles and took his jacket off. Anesthesia is so much fun!
Also Andrew had the day off on Tuesday and Wednesday so I spent time with him and preparing errands instead of making art. At least our tax forms are all filled out and sent in. That is one headache I refuse to procrastinate over. It's so much easier to just fill out the forms early while you know where all the paperwork is. If you wait till April, things start getting lost. Plus, we will have our tiny return back in a couple of weeks instead of having to wait for every person who waited to file to get processed first. Bonus!
On top of it all, yesterday was Valentine's day. I love gooey hearts as much as the next gal, but this is the year I give up sweets. I'm getting pretty serious now about losing some of this weight. I know it's killing me slowly, and I'm not ready to die...or have to go into a long term care facility because I can't take care of myself.
Anyway, now that I've caught you all up with my daily life...how about some art pics?
I really enjoy making ATCs. They are tiny pieces of art that can be made with virtually anything you want. I've seen clay, cardboard, fabric, wood, metal and probably several other materials used to make the 2.5 x 3.5 inch cards from. I've also seen all of those same things and more used to embellish those bases into some amazing works of art! I'm just glad the recipients of the pieces I'm about to share liked them.
Let me start off by saying I've been making ATCs since 2010. About six months into the process I started having trouble remembering what the cards I had made for the swaps I was joining looked like, so I started making an extra card for myself. This is one of the best decisions I ever made! I now have a really nice collection of my own art to pass on to my descendants, and I find inspiration in my past work quite often. So, these that I'm showing are the extra pieces I made for myself. I hope you enjoy them.
First up are these two. I can't really remember what these were for, but the other two had butterflies too. I used bits and pieces I found on my desk and layered in a background and added the focal points last. Then I dropped in some shading with my aqua pencil and a bit of water for shading in spots. I like them pretty well.
This little cutie is meant to be the baby hidden in the King's cake for Fat Tuesday. I colored the adult coloring page in Mardi Gras shades, Then cut the page down to ATC size pieces. I glued a piece of magazine page with cake on the back, and made the hole with foldout bits to resemble an opening in the cake. I put another piece of cake photo behind it. I found the tiny little doll on a collage sheet I've been hoarding. There you have it. Pretty simple, but I thought it was kinda clever.
These two were made for a challenge swap called six steps. We were to use torn cardboard, so I tore the apertures for these frames. The background is printed burlap for the burlap step. Wire was another step, and white and line were two more steps. I can't for the life of me remember what the sixth step was, but it got met too. The figures are from Tim Holtz paper dolls ephemera collection recently released. I have enjoyed those quite a lot really. This was the January challenge. Only one of these was required to fit the challenge, but it was too fun!
These are also six steps challenge ATCs for the February round. Once again, I can only remember five of the six steps. Sigh.
Purple, I splattered purple metallic paint on the background. Embossing, I used dry embossed music notes, which was another step, for my background piece. Three steps knocked out immediately! Another step was hearts which I either cut or tore out of some packaging. Recycling beautiful packaging is the perfect thing to do on ATCs! The last step I remember was stencilling. So I put embossing paste through a stencil to create the words. The top card was for the challenge. The bottom set is similar, but not required to meet the challenge, so they are a little different.
These last three were for an entirely different type of swap. It was called My stuff/Your stuff. The idea was to stuff a 6x9 envelope with goodies from your stash and send it to a partner who would then make 2 ATCs from your stuff and send them back to you. I have to admit...it was kinda hard to find enough
stuff from my stash to fill the envelope. lol I am so attached to all the bits and pieces I've hoarded it's kinda sad really. Anyway...I had no trouble at all whipping these three up from the supplies my friend Marilyn sent me. Thanks again Marilyn! In her package were several Tim Holtz items I have looked at repeatedly but never bought. Extra fun for me!
Well, I hope you all enjoyed today's episode of show and tell. Hopefully on Monday I will have a mixed media background to share. I need to find the video that has a formula I liked, so wish me luck! It's been some time ago I last saw it.
See you on Monday! Tootles!
Me:Would you like to take your jacket off?
Gasper:NO! It's the only thing that got me through the war!
Me:What war?
Gasper:The one where I lost my teeth!
Me: How did you lose your teeth in the war?
Gasper:They shot em out!
Then he dissolved into the giggles and took his jacket off. Anesthesia is so much fun!
Also Andrew had the day off on Tuesday and Wednesday so I spent time with him and preparing errands instead of making art. At least our tax forms are all filled out and sent in. That is one headache I refuse to procrastinate over. It's so much easier to just fill out the forms early while you know where all the paperwork is. If you wait till April, things start getting lost. Plus, we will have our tiny return back in a couple of weeks instead of having to wait for every person who waited to file to get processed first. Bonus!
On top of it all, yesterday was Valentine's day. I love gooey hearts as much as the next gal, but this is the year I give up sweets. I'm getting pretty serious now about losing some of this weight. I know it's killing me slowly, and I'm not ready to die...or have to go into a long term care facility because I can't take care of myself.
Anyway, now that I've caught you all up with my daily life...how about some art pics?
I really enjoy making ATCs. They are tiny pieces of art that can be made with virtually anything you want. I've seen clay, cardboard, fabric, wood, metal and probably several other materials used to make the 2.5 x 3.5 inch cards from. I've also seen all of those same things and more used to embellish those bases into some amazing works of art! I'm just glad the recipients of the pieces I'm about to share liked them.
Let me start off by saying I've been making ATCs since 2010. About six months into the process I started having trouble remembering what the cards I had made for the swaps I was joining looked like, so I started making an extra card for myself. This is one of the best decisions I ever made! I now have a really nice collection of my own art to pass on to my descendants, and I find inspiration in my past work quite often. So, these that I'm showing are the extra pieces I made for myself. I hope you enjoy them.
These two were made for a challenge swap called six steps. We were to use torn cardboard, so I tore the apertures for these frames. The background is printed burlap for the burlap step. Wire was another step, and white and line were two more steps. I can't for the life of me remember what the sixth step was, but it got met too. The figures are from Tim Holtz paper dolls ephemera collection recently released. I have enjoyed those quite a lot really. This was the January challenge. Only one of these was required to fit the challenge, but it was too fun!
These are also six steps challenge ATCs for the February round. Once again, I can only remember five of the six steps. Sigh.
Purple, I splattered purple metallic paint on the background. Embossing, I used dry embossed music notes, which was another step, for my background piece. Three steps knocked out immediately! Another step was hearts which I either cut or tore out of some packaging. Recycling beautiful packaging is the perfect thing to do on ATCs! The last step I remember was stencilling. So I put embossing paste through a stencil to create the words. The top card was for the challenge. The bottom set is similar, but not required to meet the challenge, so they are a little different.
These last three were for an entirely different type of swap. It was called My stuff/Your stuff. The idea was to stuff a 6x9 envelope with goodies from your stash and send it to a partner who would then make 2 ATCs from your stuff and send them back to you. I have to admit...it was kinda hard to find enough
stuff from my stash to fill the envelope. lol I am so attached to all the bits and pieces I've hoarded it's kinda sad really. Anyway...I had no trouble at all whipping these three up from the supplies my friend Marilyn sent me. Thanks again Marilyn! In her package were several Tim Holtz items I have looked at repeatedly but never bought. Extra fun for me!Well, I hope you all enjoyed today's episode of show and tell. Hopefully on Monday I will have a mixed media background to share. I need to find the video that has a formula I liked, so wish me luck! It's been some time ago I last saw it.
See you on Monday! Tootles!