Jan & Feb ATCs

I'm using the Craft Stamper mag free stamps to decorate my Art Journal Calendar this year, so I thought I would make a series of ATCs each month using them too. The backgrounds are watercolour paint, then stamped and for January coloured with Sakura pens. I gave away most of the January ATCs, so the two pictured here are not the best ! I also bought some things in Create and Craft TVs sale, and made the vintage style ATCs in January with some of those bits - love the roses. And I found some super Tim Holtz stamps for sale on ebay, so I had to buy them and use the umbrella man to make ATCs in Feb. He is stamped onto acetate, heat embossed, and fixed using brads over a background made from distress ink stains splattered on blue card - I was playing with the stains to see what effects I could do.

ATCs

Sorry for the long delay in posting. Somehow I never got back to it after our holiday, I was so busy. Anyway, for my 2012 calendar see my brand new other blog - Sheila's 2012 Calendar. And here are a few ATCs I made in 2011. We decided to give up having themes for our monthly swap, and decided to do "Anything Goes". Inspiration was flagging in November so I did dome random choices using a die, and for December it came up red and black, cute style, seasonal theme, so although I don't usually do cute, I dusted off some unused stamps made ATCs.








For November, my random choices were yellow and purple, distressed shapes. I forgot to distress the edges of the shapes so they are not really distressed style, but I did use some purple shamrock brads I got ages ago in a mystery parcel. And blue and brown, oriental, flowers (a great idea - I enjoyed doing htis, and I did use a bit of distress ink round the edges of these!)









And here are a few ATCs I made for UK Stampers network swaps. I got the panda stamp in a craft shop's closing down sale - sad to see the shop go, but we still have the chance to meet fro workshops in local halls now we can't met at the shop in Twyford.

August Calendar

Scanned images above and photo below.

Another month is here and I've hardly had time to blog, but I have made my August Calendar pages (and finished writing up the July Calendar). Another great stamp from Craft Stamper magazine which gives me my pink, blue, green colour scheme and floral decoration theme for August. I painted my pages with acrylic paint, and I've put the journalling squares directly onto the page, painting them with a bit of pearlescent white here I thought they were too dark. Not sure how it will look when I write on them, but I like my multi-coloured pages now. I like drawing the doodle-ly squares straight onto the page. I coloured the stamped flower images softly using distress inks.

July's ATC swap theme was "Jewels" so I made one with pink pearls
and one with jewellery on black velvet paper.

My July Calendar pages

Long time no blogging, due to busyness at home and then holidays. I did do a bit of Art Journalling on holiday - pictures later when I finish putting the holiday journal together. However, I have done my July Calendar. Yesterday I painted some patterned card in pink and pearlescent white, decorated it with the lovely Craft Stamper chandelier and a bird, stuck on squares using only two patterned papers, and used Distress Inks in Victorian Velvet and Frayed Burlap. I like this colour co-ordinated effect - less colourful than most months. What I don't like is having to stick all the squares on - there is a lot to be said for painting the squares when painting a background on plain paper !

June Calendar

Yesterday being a Bank Holiday Monday I was at home, so I painted some pages for my June Art Journal Calendar. I've gone back to painting the whole page in acrylic paint, and sticking paper squares on. I love these papers ! This is the first month where I have not used the 2011 Craft Stamper Free stamp - I decided I didn't like it enough, so I have used their black cat stamp from June 2010, which is great. Not sure it has come out that well on my pages, but at least I like the overall purple (and silver and black) effect. You can't have too much purple !

May ATCs and Tags

This month's ATC swap theme was Men. I made a vintage style ATC using bits and pieces from Creative Craft Cabin's bargain bundle bags. The blue one uses a football stamp I bought at Ally Pally, and some foam tool embellishments, also from Creative Craft Cabin. And I made some tags using chipboard tag blanks that I got from Capture the Magic at Ally Pally.