brown paper bag swap cards (& returns)

The background for this swap had to be a brown paper bag, then you could do anything else on top of it. Here are my cards and those I received in return.

This has some painted paper bag pieces, then bubble wrap stamping, white insect stamps and a stamped FLY.

White gesso on this one with the printing from the bottom of the bag showing thru, then some postmark stamps in brown ink, and some collaged images.

On this one, I laid down pieces of bag from the center out, like piecing a crazy quilt block. Then I did each 'seam' in various markers to look like stitching. No idea if the person who received it appreciated all the detail work but it looked pretty cool.

Below are the cards I got back.

I have no idea what this is supposed to be...

This one is great - all the shading works really well and I like the colors. There's definitely something special about hand drawn cards.

This one is just a hoot.

handmade journal giveaway (not mine)

A Creative Dream ran thru her journal making process over the past several weeks, and now she's giving it away. Very cool doodles and images from an old cemetery. Way different that the stuff I create - lots of oranges and torn edges - so I'd love to win it. Go take a look...

something in a bowl swap returns

The theme was something - anything - in a bowl. My cards are here. Below are the cards I got back.



The first one is very cute - Doggie Bowl. Yuk-yuk...






Then dead fish. I love the x for an eye.











Then this amazing hand drawn card of a poor goldfish in a bowl on the counter watching this huge... thing... invade its kitchen. The detail in the card is excellent, lots of depth and shadow.

A very cool card.

book page background swap ( and returns)

For this one, the background of the ATC had to be a book page. You could do anything else on top of it but some of the page had to be visible.

The three cards I made are all very similar - the same rubber stamps, then one with an image, one with some doodling, one with postage stamps. The title of the book, Woman Without A Past, lent itself to those rubber stamps, I thought.

The cards I received were this nice Little Women one,

this hand drawn sail boat,

and these lovely peaches on a painted and stamped Italian background. Very nice. 

I wish I was a fish swap (and returns)

Apparently I never blogged these at the time. The theme was wacky and it took me a while to get loosened up enough to think of something. I ended up making my fish from magazine images, then putting them on hand painted backgrounds.

These images look terrible, but oh well, the cards are long gone. The dog fish are speaking Italian to each other. Lots of blue gel pen bubbles. The blue dog was a lamp base and the red was a couch, I think.

This woman is pretending to be a fish, thus the 'feign.' In Italian again. I love that Italian verb conjugation book I scored at the library. The seaweed is wispy strips of text colored with various stamp pads. Her body was cut from the image of a sofa  pillow.
















Here we have Marilyn Monroe being eaten by a fish. Another sofa pillow fish, I believe. She, too, is feigning, to be asleep this time. More Italian. Lots of bronze gel pen on this one and more blue bubbles.


These are the cards I got back. All three are nice. I like how the little girl looks just a bit bewildered by all the fish. The center one has some machine stitching on a hand drawn card, very cool. The blow fish is hand drawn also. He's great. I just love everyone's inventiveness in these swaps. Same theme - sooo many different interpretations.

something blue swap returns

The theme for this one was Something Blue. Anything. It just had to be blue. My cards are here. Below are the cards I got back.

A hand drawn robot creature thing. With a red tongue. 

A nice take on all things Japan, using handmade papers.

Got it yet? This one took me a while to see. The big thing in the center is a nose. Lips below, eye above left. Hand drawn and kinda cool in person.

torn paper swap returns

Some time ago I received ATCs from the Torn Paper swap. This is about as simple as it gets. You tear up paper and glue it to a card. Don't even need scissors. My outgoing cards are here. Below are the cards I got back, all very fun.

This is obviously a landscape - a lake at the base of mountains with the sun above. A gingham lake, I love it.

This is a lovely abstract using sparkly handmade papers. Very nice.

But this one is great. It's called Wearing Sunnies and it just cracks me up. Great imagination.

so behind...

The making of the art isn't nearly as time consuming as the scanning, cropping, saving and posting of the art is. I've made a bunch of things, and received many more in swaps and trades but haven't taken the time to blog about them. So... here's a quick look at several ATCs that I received from other people in one-on-one trades. Remember, these are only 2.5" x 3.5".

Love the background on this one.

This is a lovely watercolor/markers/black pen fish, so colorful and whimsical.

Not sure why I like this one so much but it's very neat in person. There's just so much going on.

 This is so lovely and delicate. It's an Irish castle by an American artist who visited Ireland.

This is by 12 year old Jenny.

This gorgeous little piece is by Jenny's mother Shay. One of my top five faves.

This is a very simple card but very striking. Love it.

Green Paper March Challenge

This month's Green Paper challenge was these three images.

As always, you had to use at least part of all three in some sort of art. I went digital this time, and if any seasoned Photoshop people are reading this, please don't laugh cause my border is pretty hack.

Took me quite a while to figure out something to do with these three totally unrelated images. Which, of course, is why it's called a Challenge!

I cropped the French holy card so that I could use its 2-sided border to make a complete frame for the ice skating lady. Took me a fair amount of fiddling, and it's far from perfect, but my mad Photoshop skilz aren't stout enough yet to seamlessly pull off something like this.

But... it's not glaringly awful and the overall look is what I was going for.

I filtered the b/w lady to sepia so that she'd relate better to the colorful border. I matted the bank letterhead on a black rectangle to separate it from the pale background. Played around with advertising slogans for a while and ended up with what you see.