January Swaps

I've signed up for several swaps this month. The first was not actually a swap - we send as many cards as we like to one member who then distributes them to the residents of a nursing home. I sent quite a large envelope full this month as I had made many cards from scraps when I was cleaning up my craft room.

Next is the monthly altered trading coin (ATC) swap. ATCs are little 2.5" round art pieces. I participated in all twelve months of 2019 and am continuing for 2020.  January's theme was "Valentines" and we made two to send to two others. For mine I used bases punched from patterned scrapbook paper and then fussy-cut images from vintage valentines, along with a sentiment. I also added red heart stickers and Stickles around the edges.

A new swap (which I am hosting) is for "inchie" houses.  These are tiny houses which must be no larger than 1-inch square with an optional roof that makes the house no larger than 1.5 inches. This will be a quarterly swap with no theme and we make three to send to three others.  

I made myself a little template and then cut three houses out of some gelli-printed paper scraps I had. I also cut three more to back the houses and tiny rectangles for windows and doors.  I doodled around the details with a fine black pen.  These are so small it's very difficult to get much detail and it will be very interesting to see what others come up with!

And last but not least, I joined the first of an every-other-month junk journal page swap. The parameters are to make one page (not a spread) no larger than 6-7" tall by 3.5-5.5" wide using "junk." These type of journals are quite the rage now and it's amazing what you can do with junk mail, old papers, receipts, empty food boxes and your stash!

This is my fully-loaded page with tags stuffed in the pocket.

And with pockets emptied:

(not sure why this photo looks more green but the actual color is like the photo above)

The base is a folded map page from an atlas, lightly collaged with book pages and music papers.  Little scraps of fabric are sewn to the right edge and a kraft-colored doily is glued over the top edge of the page. The front pocket is half a security envelope glued on so as to create a pocket at the top as well as at the side. It is collaged with bits of vintage wallpapers with a few tiny labels added.

These are the two pieces added to the side pocket. One is a copy of an old postcard and the other is a tag created with an architectural image and a woman (which I repurposed from a card I received a long time ago!).

Peeking out of the top pocket are two tags and a little booklet.  The largest tag has collaged scraps of papers, a stamp and fussy-cut butterfly and a photograph of my mother and two of her sisters when they were teens. It's printed on vellum and I had made it for another project and never used it. I love it because she is sticking out her tongue! The smaller tag is again collaged with book pages, other scraps and an image of a vintage girl. I created the little booklet from an extra family photo Christmas card as it was a nice sturdy weight. I collaged bits of map and text papers to the outside and inside added some vintage lined paper for journaling. The fiber on the paper clip is from a fraying chenille  throw I have - love the color and texture.

November swaps

The theme for the November altered trading coins swap was "Christmas." I made these two coins to send off.

And I received these.

I also hosted an "Old is New Again Technique Tag" swap. The theme for this was to use a Tim Holtz Christmas Tag from any year as inspiration.  Mine was inspired by his tag #3 from 2007. I haven't received one back yet.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family and/or friends. We are traveling to Kansas City to be with my sister-ini-law and her husband. Two of our daughters, their husbands, and the four grand boys will be there too.



May your turkey be tender, juicy and delicious! (My husband smoked a turkey last weekend for our own early holiday meal.)

A few cards for swaps

There hasn't been much going on here except for putting away the Christmas decor and getting the house back to order. And I think my mojo stayed in California as I haven't felt very creative lately.

I am participating in a few card swaps in January so I did get those done.  These aren't due until the end of the month but it doesn't hurt to be ahead of the game.

Our group is sending cards to the children at St. Jude's Hospital for Valentine's Day.  I was supposed to make two but ended up making two each of two different cards. (It's just as easy to make two as one when all the stuff is out!)

The dinosaur is a free svg file from SVG Cuts. I thought it would work for boys. I didn't have an appropriate stamp so just hand-lettered the sentiment.

This one would be good for a girl and is mostly stamping. I bought the little hedgehog stamp from Lawn Fawn at the Heirloom Stamp Convention in Grapevine last weekend. The heart stamp is very old.

This is a Valentine for a Valentine card swap. The background was made using  Distress Ink directly on an embossing folder and running it through a Cuttlebug. The felt heart strip and ribbon are from my stash and I have no idea where they came from.  The stamp is an oldie from PSX (2003!) but a favorite - I stamped it on kraft card stock to match the base card.

A few art projects

I've been catching up on some art projects for swaps this past week.

First, I am participating in a round-robin altered book swap. Each person has chosen or made a book of their choice and decided on a color scheme. Then we are rotating the books through the group so that everyone creates a spread in each book.

This month I received a tiny little book with blue and rust as the chosen colors.

This is the spread I created, each page measuring approximately 3" x 4." I found a very old piece I had done as an encaustic wax sample years ago (the image of the little boy) and built my spread around that. The background is several layers of Stormy Blue and Vintage Photo Distress Inks. The metal gears and the chipboard clock die cut were covered in Prima's Rust Paste kit (three colors dabbed on randomly until it looked nice and rusty).  These elements were layered over a partial doily and a strip of script paper. Lastly I added some typed words and a metal Tim Holtz word band altered with distress paint.

The book owner had asked us to write a bit about our inspiration or how the page came together so I taped the right page into a pocket with the following page. I added a distressed tag inside with my explanation. I hope she likes it!

I was hostess for another quarterly swap where we are revisiting old techniques.  This quarter the technique is "Cracked Glass" (aka Shattered Glass) and the substrate needed to be either an ATC or a 4"x4" art piece.  For this technique, several layers of embossing ink and UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) are placed over a stamped image. Then it is put in the freezer to completely cool for about 15 minutes. After removing, it is gently bent in several places to make it crack.

I stamped the butterfly image over a previously distressed paper of turquoise and brown inks. Once it was cracked, I added it to a background of Vintage Photo Distress ink layered with a doily and the "FLY" 3-dimensional alpha stickers.