October Collage Stuff ATC Swap

Every month at the Collage Stuff yahoo group, we have an ATC swap. October's theme was "Vintage Children." I'm always the last one done with my ATC's. One reason this is true is because I don't know how many I need to make until all of swap ATC's come in. Usually, it's mid-month of the following month before all of the swap ATC's are in my hands. For the October swap, I need to make 14-16 ATC's. That means I have to have an ATC design that will go quickly so that I can replicate it over and over in one afternoon. It still has to be something I like though. Before I can swap the ATC's, I have to photograph or scan one ATC from each participant. Then I crop and size the photos and upload them to the Collage Stuff swaps page. Doing these swaps each month, takes a fair amount of time.

In the construction of this ATC, I used the following Collage Stuff products: Stylish Background Rubber Stamp, Samantha Collage Sheet, Nesting Collage Sheet, Cigar Trim Labels and a Brass Bird Nest Charm. I colored the Samantha image with my Copic markers.

Have you tried the Liquid Watercolors? You can buy them at any art supply store online - Dick Blick etc. I used the Gold Liquid Watercolor on this ATC. The Gold Liquid Watercolor is incredibly shiny.

Back to work on the ATC's!

Altered Christmas Collage Sheet

Here's another new collage sheet for Christmas! I like the woman with the round glasses and the boy is also on the "Calvin" collage sheet.

New Collage Sheets

I know that many people like the Collage Stuff postcards, but haven't able to get all of them with orders. This is the second collage sheet of just Collage Stuff postcards. The girl at the top left - she was only a postcard in the sepia color. I almost had her printed in the lavendar tones, so I decided to include this variation on this collage sheet.

Here's a collage sheet that's made from the Christmas Dreams postcard. When I use these images, I'm going to color the girl with my Copic markers, It will give her a completely different look.

Second new postcard for today

Here's the second and last Christmas postcard for this year. I love this little girl image. She's adorable.
I decided that I liked this postcard so much, that I am having it printed like a real postcard you can send through the mail. The back will look like a divided postcard back, with a set of lines for the mail to address and etc. I'm having it printed as a mailable postcard and as a free postcard included with Collage Stuff orders. If you like this and you'd like to send this as a Christmas postcard, I'll have them in stock soon!

Christmas Postcard

The holidays are drawing near, so that means it's time to get some Christmas postcards done. The boy is from the Andrew Collage Sheet. He's a cute little guy!

Calendar Cover Again

I sat down tonight to make my previously designed cover page and I decided that I didn't like it. I started over again. This is what I came up with and I'm running out of time. I have to come up something I like and go with it. I think this will do. The only thing I will add is a little bling - either some jewels or glitter.

Front of the house book page

Woo hoo! The front of the house book page is done. It's not dry yet. I put the rock candy distress crackle inside the frame where the woman is. That's why it looks odd. Hopefully, it will dry and look cool!

I started out with some scrapbook paper that had postcards on it. I glued that down. Next I glued down two bits of vintage sheet music. I cut the butterflies out of some wrapping paper and glued those down. I overstamped all that with coffee ink and a new text stamp that I bought at Hobby Lobby at 50% off.

The lemon image - a friend gave me this one. I sized it and glued it down.

The woman image is one that I don't have on a collage sheet yet. It's a sepia-toned image. I printed it out and colored it with my Copic markers. The background was a dark brown and I didn't like it. The scissors take care of the background - snip, snip! I always like vintage text for backgrounds, so I used an old English/French dictionary page. I used a yellow Copic marker on the frame to lighten it up a bit. I glued the woman on next.

I used a yellow Copic marker to highlight/frame the edges of everything I glued down. I used a little beige-colored Golden glaze in a few places - squirted it on my finger and rubbed it around.

I used my sequin waste as a stencil with coffee ink to make the dots. So by now, it's all looking good except I have this blank space off to the left side of the woman image. What to do? I tried several things. Some of my ideas tanked. I was going to put glue three buttons down and have the rick rack be the stems - like button flowers with rick rack stems. It didn't work. I was going to put rick rack across the bottom and then I got the idea that you see. I drew lines with diamond glaze and stuck the rick rack down on the glue. Where the rick rack crossed, I added an old button. I thought it looked cool!

I smudged the edges of the house with coffee ink. Now for the woman in the frame. I could have gone with glossy accents to make it look like glass, but I didn't. I used the rock candy distress crackle paint. It's on thick over the woman's face and it's still not dry yet, but I think it will be OK. After it's all dry, I might take some brown ink and rub it in the crackles. We'll see.

I haven't worked with brown for a long time, so it's good that I was able to work in brown for this house book page. Lately I've been working with bright colors.