Thursday, March 28, 2013

Happy Spring ATC's (for a swap)

So I had another ATC swap this month. I signed up for the ATC swap for next month as well. I really do LOVE the ATC swaps. they are so much fun and I love getting cards back that I can hang up to decorate my craft space with. :)
So, for this ATC swap, I decided to go with a "Spring" theme. All of our ATC swaps are 'pick your own theme' and I chose to go with spring because I know so many people are sooooo tired of winter. I personally, wished it would have snowed more this winter. We had a very mild winter for Kentucky weather. It snowed some this past week, and I wish more would have fallen.

Anyhow, here are the cards I ended up doing. This card isn't complete, click below to see the rest of the cards, and the completed project.







 
There are the 3 cards. They are all similar, but they each have different clouds and sky. Obviously, since I was doing it by hand I couldn't make every single one the same. I also did different flowers on each one.




 I wanted some 3D parts to the card other than just the brad in her hair, so I double stamped the tree top and the birdie. I colored the second image of the bird (Stampin' Up! blender pen and 'baby blue' zig brushable colored onto an acrylic block, color picked up with the blender pen) and attached it with a small piece of fun foam on the back with some glue dots. For the tree top I used zig brushables in place of an inkpad for the outline of the tree, as well as the swirls inside the tree and the flowers and dots. I colored the inside of the tree with the blender pen and 'spring green' brushable (same technique as coloring the bird), and then did the flowers as well. I added a small ladybug for another cute touch of spring.

For the brad in her hair, that was originally a yellow brad, but I heated embossed it with some lavender glittered embossing powder. I added a little line of lavender stickles to the bottom of her dress and then some glossy accents to her shoes, her eyeball and her flute (on all cards).

To make the clouds I used a scalloped circle punch and a scrap sheet of paper and my TH blending tool.

The cards above, there is a short story to them. I actually had 'finished' the cards, but I didn't like how they looked. There was something missing and I knew exactly what it was. I didn't have a "sun" to put in the top corner, that's what was missing! I have already sent these cards off to my swap partner, and I wrote her a letter explaining my all day "sun hunt". LOL To make things easier on myself I'll just copy/paste what I wrote her in my letter. I'll put that info below, but first, here are the rest of the pics.


Here are a few pics of the cards on their back before the suns were put on. they are the best pics I have since I took most pics before adding the suns.




Here are the cards with the suns on them, I think they turned out super cute, but much, much better with the suns on them!





I love the sun, it's so super cute! the smiley face is just adorable. :)



the sun is kinda glittery, too!



I used some foam pop-up circles on the back of the sun to make them pop off the cards as well.



So, to get the suns I literally went on an all day embellishment hunt, and 5 stores and about 7 hours later I finally found the cute one on the ATC. We only have 1 craft store here in town and that is Hobby Lobby, they just opened about 6 months ago. About 3 months before they opened, WalMart got rid of ALL of the “scrapbooking/paper craft” stuff and they haven’t brought it back. I guess they figure with HL around, we don’t need other choices. Personally, I liked the stock that WalMart used to carry for paper crafting supplies. 

Anyhow, I went to my local Hobby Lobby and out of the 3 isles of stamps, chipboard embellishments, rub-ons and stickers they only had 3 “sticker” packs with a “sun” in it, and each sticker pack only had “one” sun, so I would have had to buy 3 sticker packs at $4.99 each. I wouldn’t have used anything else in the sticker pack (it was all really ugly looking!) so I moved on to the next idea... (which hubby says was a bad one. LOL). I drove to the next closest city with a Hobby Lobby and Michaels, which is almost 2 1/2 hours away!! After frantically searching both stores for “suns”, I was left empty handed and very upset that I wasted gas money. Lol So, when I got back to town hubby said “did you try big lots, they used to have some paper craft stuff”. I was like OMGosh, why didn’t I think of that before!! Well, the trip to big lots was unsuccessful. I had to go to the dollar store to get a package of easter gift boxes for one of my other swaps, and low and behold, they had some “summer sticker packs” and in that sticker pack was this ADORABLE little sun!! There were 36 stickers all together, an assortment of suns (this same sun in 3 different sizes, this size and 2 smaller sizes) and cute little ice creams. I was like man, I could have saved so much gas money, time and frustration! But, I was very glad that I found something that I was extremely happy with! I was so happy with how cute this little sun looked on the ATC that I went back to the dollar store and bought 10 more packs of the stickers so that I’d have more suns for future projects. LOL

 So anyhow, thanks for looking today. You can find my list of supplies below.
Keep on Craftin'
~Melisa Marie




ATC’s for Round 9 swap:
Cardstock/Paper: Georgia Pacific Cardstock: White, 110 lb.
Stamps: TAC (The Angel Company) “you make my heart sing” #T-3297 (June & July 2011, limited edition stamp set)
Embellishments: Spare Parts Yellow Flower Brad, A La Mode Pastel glittered embossing powder (to heat emboss the brad to the glittered purple, to change its color), Stickles; Lavender, EK Success 3D ladybugs, ATD Puffy Sticker Pack-mini puffy icon suns, Unknown Brand chipboard flowers
Ink Pads & Coloring Mediums:   Stampin’ Up! Ballet Blue (to make the clouds), Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin’ Up! Blender Pen (to blend the following colors to the stamped images), Zig Brushables: Peach Bliss (skin), Chocolate, Summer Sun (hair), Rose (dots on tree), Pure Pink (flowers on tree), Hyacinth (dress), Spring Green (tree and grass), Salmon (flowers on tree), Baby Blue (bird), Pure Black
Tools: Cricut Paper Trimmer, Scissors, Inkadinkado Acrylic Stamp Blocks, Ranger Inkssentials Non-Stick Craft Sheet (15 in. x 18 in.), Glass Cutting Board (my hard stamping surface), Glossy Accents, Glue Dots, Fun Foam (white-to create my OWN foam pop ups-just add a glue dot to each side), TH Blending Tool, Generic Felt (white-to use on the blending tool—no need to purchase the expensive TH foam or felt refills!!), 1.5” scallop circle punch (to punch circle to use for mask for shape of clouds).



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