Collage Stuff Calendar Swaps

At the Collage Stuff Yahoo Group, I host the ATC swaps and other swaps too, like the hand-made calendar swaps. We had enough participants for 2 calendars. This is the cover of the first calendar. I made the covers for both calendars.

January by Lori N.

February by Connie S.

March by Lisa R.

April by Dawn L.

May by Jan D.

June by Kelly H.

July by Sally B.

August by Linda E.

September by Lin C.

October by Shirley H.

Novemer by Marianne Y.

December by Vicky M.

Here's the second calendar.

January by Nessa M.

February by Susan M.

March by Debbie S.

April by Roxy F.

May by Heather H.

June by Lin C. (Lin took part in both calendars.)

July by Lynda R.

August by Martha Y.

September by Heather C.

October by Sara U.

November by Gina C.

December by Susan K.

A little more about the calendars. They are 4 x 6". Every page was hand-made. At least one Collage Stuff item was incorporated into each page. I love hand-made calendars. We'll do this again in 2010! Enjoy!

December Collage Stuff ATC Swap

The theme for the December Collage Stuff ATC swap is "Artist's Choice." I chose cemetery imagery. The woman is one of my all time favorite cemetery images. She's from the "Broken" collage sheet. I colored her with my Copic markers. The door in the background is from the "Pastel Doors" collage sheet. It's a transparency. I didn't like the way it looked on the background, so I painted the back of the transparency with manilla paint. The background is a piece of a vintage book page. I stamped a scrolly stamp on it first with black ink. I mixed manilla and yellow paint together to lighten the yellow and smeared the paint around over the stamped text. The paint is somewhat transparent, so you can still see the stamping underneath. I used the same stamp and stamped on top of the paint. This is an easy way to make a background interesting - gives it a layered look. After I glued down the main images, I used a corner rounder on the top edges and swiped all of the edges on a black ink pad. The Black Scalloped Lace German scrap border adorns the bottom of the ATC. I put Rock Candy Distress Stickles on the exposed background. The gold and black stars are actually confetti and the stickles is enough glue to hold them on. This is a simple design and that's what I need. I need to make about 20 of these for the swap.

Happy Holidays, everyone!