October Swap ATCs

For some reason, pics never upload in the order I add them, either!!! Anyway, here are the ATCs from October swaps at two local stores- Mystic Paper, a scrapbook/stamping store in Mesa, AZ (www.mysticpaper.com) and Ink It!, the rubber stamp store in Gilbert, AZ (www.inkit.com) They both have some neat stuff, and offer some really interesting classes; hopefully I can get the time and $$ to take a couple sometime.

The first pic is my ATCs for the Halloween swap at Mystic Paper. The design took a while to come up with, but I think they were worth the time- hopefully the recipients do, too! I started out with a darker purple cardstock, but it just looked to dull, so I went with all bright colors, offset by the black. The moon was made using the "crinkled chalk" technique- using crumpled plastic wrap to stamp multiple colors of chalk ink onto glossy paper. This sort of layers and blends the colors together. The cats (stamp: Magenta) were stamped onto the inked paper using black StazOn (permanent ink, suitable for glossy surfaces), then the moon was punched out using one of my round CM punches. The spider was stamped with a pencil eraser, then I drew on its legs. The "spiderweb" is actually a fishnet stamp from Stampington, but I don't have a spiderweb stamp, and didn't want to draw them on. (...use what you have, right? it's always good when you can do that!)

Below are the Halloween ATCs I got back- top left is a really cute vintage image (maybe from a postcard?). Top right is actually a little paper bag with a punched fence and jack-o-lantern... the candy bar inside it isn't going to be around too much longer! Bottom left is really cool- it looks like a vintage movie poster. Middle is a cute cat stamp, accented with googly eyes and glitter. I don't usually like googly eyes, but they work with this stamp! Bottom right is a multi-layer ATC that didn't scan good at all- the top layer is a transparency with a witch stamped on it (towards the left side), the bottom layer is orange, then the little girl was cut out and sandwiched inbetween along with some eyelash fibers.

These are the ATCs I received from the Ink It! swap- the theme was fall colors. The hedgehog at upper left is really cute, don't you think? Upper right is a pocket card; the cream colored card slips out, and is stamped with a colorful bunch of Indian corn. The girl at bottom right is raking punched leaves, and at the top, FALL was stamped with a Dymo label maker (I need one of those, I think!) and applied onto buttons.

Below are the cards I made for the Ink It! fall colors swap... bright blue might not seem to fit, but I think it does- the cooler air in fall seems to make the sky so much clearer and brighter! Sunflowers were my inspiration... I always remember sunflowers as being one of the last colorful things in Mom's garden, before it got cleaned up and "put to bed" for the winter. The basket of sunflowers (stamp: SU!) was stamped onto white cardstock and watercolored with a blender pen, using markers and chalk inks for the colors. The blue was added with dry chalk. The cardstock was all distressed around the edges with my one-and-only distress ink pad (Vintage Photo is the color, I think). It might not be my one-and-only for long, though, because this weekend is the 10th annual Rubber Stamp Fall Fiesta at the convention center in Mesa, AZ! Hopefully I'll come back with at least a few things (all of it desperately needed, I'm sure!! LOL!). These were a lot of fun to do, and I'm already starting to think about November's themes of Thanksgiving and Holiday Glitter... I should do more than think; they're due in a couple weeks! I also need to start designing our Christmas cards... plus, I'm way behind on 2peas challenges, I haven't scrapped in months... maybe I should end this post, then, hmmm!! (also before something bad happens to my pictures!)