More ATC's for a swap

Long time no post, huh?!?! I've been under an abundant amount of stress this past month, and my bipolar issues have been out of control! On top of that I've been dealing with severe neck pain. I've had this pain so bad ever since my car accident last year, uhm, 2011. man, 2012 flew by!
I've been going through physical therapy again to see if it will help anymore than it did last time, and so far, for the last 3 1/2 weeks, it hasn't helped at all. :(

Unfortunately, I am going to have to have neck surgery and will be having a neurospinal stimulator implanted in my neck. the one that was implanted in my back after the accident has helped some, but nto as much as I had hoped it would. But, hey, even the 30% or so of pain relief I get is enough!

Anyhow, I had to do some ATC cards for a swap and here is what I came up with. I LOVE how they turned out!!! a few different things done to them, they came out so pretty!! :)

Here's a sneak peek, click below to see the rest of the pics.

So, I did a few different alterations on the embellishments that I used...
CLICK ANY PIC TO ENLARGE IT

Card 1:
The background is flourished deco paper (unknown brand), and then I used SU! Rich Razzleberry ink and the large flower stamp from SU! Elements of Style. I thought it blended well.

The small butterfly in the bottom is stamped from the Butterflies #3 Framelits set with butterscotch alcohol ink and then "painted" over with iridescent gold glimmer mist. It was cut with the coordinating Framelits die. You can't really see the shine all that well on the picture, but it's there and it's beautiful. ;)
For the sentiment stamp I used SU! Tempting Turquoise (my 2nd favorite color after rich razzleberry) and the senti stamp is from Basic Grey "I'd Pick You" set.

 This butterfly is double sided with its decorations and it had a tiny bit of glitter on the top part of the wings, but I used stickles and added more glitter to some other parts of the butterfly. The frame in the background is glossy cardstock and I used 2 different alcohol inks, Purple Twilight and Sunshine Yellow. I mixed in some alcohol blending solution and then tossed the frame on top of the mixture. I think it turned out gorgeous! :)
 I LOVE the butterfly that I got to use! It's from the K&Company Abrianna Icon chipbox. I LOVE the chipboxes that K&Co. has but this one is by far my most favorite! I just love the colors used on the items in this chipbox, and there is one piece of chipboard that is a gorgeous peacock. I really love peacocks, I think they are so beautiful, and so are the butterflies in this box.

and here is the card on its back. You can see the dimension that I added by using the foam to pop up the frame and the butterfly. For my foamy squares, I just use some Fun Foam purchased from walmart and cut it down to whatever size I need and then adhered it on both sizes with glossy accents. You can use glue dots too, if you have them, it actually does work better with glue dots and it doesn't take any time to dry, but with the glossy accents, it takes a little while to dry, otherwise the paper peels away. But, I don't have the crafty budget to use 2 glue dots per foamy square (one for each side of the square) so I use glossy accents and just leave it to dry for about 20 mins.
For the mini butterfly, I just "rolled" up a glue dot length wise and adhered it to the middle body part of the butterfly and attached it to the card.

Card 2:
I used another butterfly (the same as above) for this card as well. Again, the butterfly had some glitter on it, but it had all pretty much been rubbed off in the box, so I used stardust stickles to add tons of sparkle! I also stamped the background the same on this card, but used Buckaroo Blue for the ink color.
The mini butterfly was stamped wtih the same butterfly as I mentioned above, but I used Wild Plum alcohol ink to stamp it in and it's also on glossy cardstock. I used stickles on the outline of the wings of the mini butterfly to give it some extra glam. :)

Here you can see the "shine" to the mini butterfly. For this frame, I used 2 different alcohol ink colors, Meadow (green) and Sailboat Blue. it looks like there is yellow, but there isn't, that's just from using the alcohol blending solution.  I think it came out great! Same senti stamp as above, but stamped in Memento Black. I pressed a little too hard when stamping and ended up "smushing" the stamp on the paper on the bottom right corner so the senti  is kinda blurry and smushy. :(

and the card on it's back. I did the same thing to the mini butterfly here, I rolled up a glue dot and put it in the middle to adhere it to the card. I used  my same homemade foamy squares pop up the frame and butterfly.

Now that the cards are done, and I've looked at the photos, I think I really should have adhered the frames directly to the card base and then only popped up the butterflies on top of the frame. eh, I'm not quite sure how that would have looked, but I should ahve tried it.
I made these cards some time ago, I tihnk on the 10th or sometime around there, of February. lol Like i said, busy and rough month!! I had only slept for about 9 hours in 4 days when I had sat down to make these, I'm surprised they came out as good as I had pictured them in my mind!!

Well I hope you enjoyed looking today, I'll put a list of supplies used below. Thank you for stopping by!
Keep on Craftin'
~Melisa Marie

ATC Card 1:
Cardstock/Paper: Georgia Pacific Cardstock: White, 110 lb.; Deco CS (Unknown Company); Stampin’ Up! Glossy Cardstock (small butterfly)

Stamps:  Stampin’ Up! “Elements of Style”, Basic Grey “I’d Pick You” (sentiment), Sizzix Framelits, Butterflies #3

Embellishments: K&Company Abrianna Icon Chipbox (Large Butterfly), Stardust Stickles, Tattered Angels “Iridescent Gold” Glimmer Mist, Glossy Cardstock Deco Frame (Unknown Company), Fun Foam: White (for pop up squares), Sizzix Framelits Die (small butterfly)

Ink Pads & Coloring Mediums:   Stampin’ Up! Tempting Turquoise, Stampin’ Up! Rich Razzleberry; Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks: Purple Twilight, Sunshine Yellow, Butterstoch, Alcohol Blending Solution
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 Glider Pro (Pink), glue glider pro Perma-Tac adhesive (permanent), Paintbrush, Sizzix Big Kick (pink and black)

ATC Card 2:
Cardstock/Paper: Georgia Pacific Cardstock: White, 110 lb.; Deco Cardstock (Unknown Company); Stampin’ Up! Glossy Cardstock (small butterfly)

Stamps: Stampin’ Up! “Elements of Style”, Basic Grey “I’d Pick You” (sentiment), Sizzix Framelits Butterflies #3

Embellishments: K&Company Abrianna Icon Chipbox (Large Butterfly), Stardust Stickles, Glossy Cardstock Deco Frame (Unknown Company), Fun Foam: White (for pop up squares), Sizzix Framelits Die (small butterfly)

Ink Pads & Coloring Mediums:   Memento “Tuxedo Black”; TH Alcohol Inks: Sailboat Blue, Meadow, Wild Plum (small butterfly)

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 Glider Pro (Pink), glue glider pro Perma-Tac adhesive (permanent), Sizzix Big Kick