Give Thanks

These ATCs are serving two purposes. I made them for the "Give Thanks" ATC swap that Donna is hosting at Christian Paper Artists. Then I saw that the current theme at SaltFaith Challenge is also "Give Thanks."

It's so easy to forget the wonderful gifts God has given us through His Son Jesus: eternal life, an abundant life here on earth, the Holy Spirit. I've loved this verse from the Psalms for a long time. God's unfailing love is what makes everything worth while. When I start to get bogged down with the things of this life, these verses help remind me of all the good things that I do have.

For this swap, we are each making 9 ATCs. Donna had said that if less than 9 people sign up, we would get more than 1 ATC from some people, so we might want to make some of the ATCs different. I made 4 of the first version, and 5 of the second.

I live in the midwest and we are in the middle of all the leaves changing into their glorious autumn colors. So I naturally associate leaves with the Thanksgiving holiday.

For the background, I mixed Lumiere in metallic russet and halo blue-gold to get the brown color. The text was printed on cardstock which I painted Irish Mist Twinkling H2o (gotta get some sparkle in there). For the leaves, I first painted a piece of watercolor paper with a wash of yellow, orange, and red watercolors. Then I used a small leaf punch to punch out the leaves. Finally, I added a "trail" of microdot stickers by a.muse, to look like the leaves are falling.

I'm back...and Going Green ATCs

We finally moved into our new house two weeks ago!!! We thought we would only live in our temporary house for about a month, but construction delays kept us out of the new house for three months. Actually, the new house still isn't finished, but it's far enough along to move into.

Since we didn't have internet at our temporary house, I've been unable to post in all this time.

While I was gone, I received these gorgeous ATCs from the Going Green swap that I participated in back in August:




This was my first swap, and I really enjoyed seeing the different techniques the other women used. I'm working on ATCs for my next swap with this group, Christian Paper Artists. I'll get those posted when I finish them.

I'm not sure how to get my pictures to expand when you double-click on them. If you know, please share the secret.

Going Green ATCs part 2

Last night I finished up my last 3 ATCs for the "Going Green" ATC swap through Christian Paper Artists yahoo group. Although they're not due until the middle of August, with our move next week, I don't anticipate having a lot of time for fun in the next few weeks.

For this first one, I painted the background with Mustard Green Twinkling H2O watercolor, then stamped over it with that new Tapestry stamp from Stampabilities (I told you I love that stamp!). All images are from ArtChixStudio. The girl originally had the words "Spoil me" on her forehead, but I thought that "dream" was more appropriate to the theme of recycling. I'm not sure if I like how her dreams are depicted, with the little dots going up to the nature pictures, but I don't know how else I'd do them. Text is all computer-generated.
For this second ATC, I used a photo that I took a few years ago of one of my home-grown roses (I can't remember if it was "Peace" or "Diana, Princess of Wales"). Either way, it's a beautiful hybrid-tea, cream colored with pink on the edges. I printed the photo on a transparency. Then I used another technique from Carol Murphy's "Tempting Techniques" online class through Joggles to use Therm-O-Web to adhere the transparency to cardstock, with glitter in between. The ribbon is 4 mm silk ribbon from my stash. I printed up "sweetest flower" on cardstock, and placed it in a label holder from making memories.The third ATC has a vellum pocket to hold a tag.

I used the same rose stamp (unknown maker) as the red marbled paper ATC I posted yesterday. For this one, though, I painted the whole ATC with Twinkling H2Os in Irish Mist, Blue Flame, and Cranberry. I used brads to attach the vellum pocket. I pianted the tag in Irish Mist, then printed the quote off the computer. As an added touch, I adhered a real rose thorn from my garden onto the tag. A brad and a small piece of silk ribbon finished this off.

It may be obvious that I love roses and quotes! In fact, I'm contemplating a project about the storms of life, so if anyone has a good quote about that which you want to leave in the comments section, I'd appreciate it!

These ATCs have been such a fun way to experiment with different techniques. I can't take all the credit for the ATC designs. A few weeks ago, I checked out a book from the library called Rubber Stamping Artist Trading Cards, which is chock full of examples (sorry, I don't remember the author). I've added my own spin - and my own stamps - to some of their ATCs. It was a great jumping-off point, though.

I'll probably be taking a few weeks off of blogging. Final packing, doing work at the new house, and unpacking will be taking up most of my time and energy for a few weeks. If you leave a comment that doesn't appear on here, that's the most likely reason why.

By the way, I am not affiliated with any of the companies I've mentioned in this or any other post.

Going Green ATCs

I've recently joined a Yahoo group called Christian Paper Artists (CPA). They seem like a great group of very talented ladies. Anna is hosting a swap of ATCs called "Going Green." To participate, you make 6 ATCs and will get 6 back. Each ATC must have green on it somewhere, and it must either have something recycled or have a nature theme. For the back of each of my ATCs, I'm going to use an empty toilet paper roll which I've flattened. I'll write my name and contact info on that.

I think this first ATC is my favorite of the three I've finished so far. The base is made of green fused Angelina. It looks SO MUCH PRETTIER in person ~ the sparkle and shimmer just doesn't show up on the screen. I saw this quote on a tag that Ros made. Hers looks like it's a stamp, but I printed it out on vellum. I do need to find a better way to adhere vellum. I used Diamond Glaze, but I don't like how, even after it's dried, you can still see the dark marks. The gold border and butterfly are both German scrap papers from ArtChixStudio.

For this ATC, I first painted cardstock with iridescent rich gold acrylic paint (Liquitex), then stamped over it with Colorbox gold pigment. I LOVE this new stamp I got from Hobby Lobby: Tapestry Pattern by Stampabilities. For this ATC, it adds just the right texture to the background. I used my ever-handy Susan Branch ABC letters to stamp the quote, and hand-wrote "Ralph Waldo Emerson." The mini flowers are by making memories.

For my 3rd ATC, I painted a piece of cardstock using Twinkling H2O "mustard green." I marbled a separate piece of cardstock using a shaving cream technique I learned about in Carol Murphy's online "Tempting Techniques" class through Joggles. I added drops of three different red nailpolishes to get the marble look. The stamp is an old one; there's no label indicating what company made it. Lace is from my stash.

That's it for now. I'd better get packing some more boxes, since we only have 9 days til the big move.

Word Verification

Heather has written an interesting post about word verification, which I've copied and pasted here:
"This is an appeal on behalf of busy bloggers. Please spare a thought for the poor bloggers who work so hard at getting round as many blogs as possible to leave sprinkles of pixie dust and good vibes wherever they go. The terrible proliferation of this awful plague of word verification is a blight on their efforts to make Blogland a cheerier place.So please (see.. it's a pretty please! lol)... Cancel word verification on your blogs! Have blog owner approval by all means, but word verification is a pain in the proverbial (insert appropriate noun here)!!!I know it is supposed to prevent spam, but I got rid of it on my blog some time ago, and I have only ever had to reject one single spam message.OK.. rant over. Thank you for putting up with it, and ~ obviously ~ do what you wish on your blogs, but I had to say SOMETHING!! I love to get around and leave comments, but this is driving me scatty."

I also hate word verification but was concerned that I would get tons of spam. I've decided to turn off the word verification and see what happens...

No new pictures for today, as I spent most of the weekend getting ready for the big move in 11 days!

SALT: Freedom in Christ

Here's my latest for the SaltFaith Challenge. Casey has set the newest challenge: Freedom in Christ. Here's what she said about the topic:

"Just recently I attended a conference where an international Christian speaker presented the message to us. One of the things he spent time on was the identity messages we get from the world and our actual true identity. He said we often try and change our behaviour to match someone elses. But, it is essentially our identity message that we hear in our heads that will determine our behaviour. So, we need to gradually align our identity with the identity Christ has given us which says we are accepted, significant and secure. Then our behaviour will be changed and be more Christ-like . Knowing and believing the truth of these messages which Christ has died and risen for, will indeed set us free from all our striving and comparing."

Being a patriotic American who also happens to love the color red, I couldn't help using a red and navy theme for my 4 X 4 page.

I used this photo for two reasons. First, it's a decent, recent picture of me. Since I usually am the one taking the pictures, there aren't a lot of me. Second, it was taken on a special trip Mike and I took. Mike is a high school history/social studies teacher and football coach. Two years ago, he and I, along with 2 other teachers from his social studies department and the wife of one of the teachers, chaperoned a trip to France and Italy over Spring Break with 24 students. That trip went so well that we chaperoned another trip this past Spring Break, this time with 7 adults and 34 students, to Ireland, Wales, and England. As chaperones, we got to take both trips for FREE. I know that doesn't have to do with Freedom in Christ, but it's still a free thing:) Anyway, the picture was taken by Swallow Falls near the beautiful mountainside village of Betws-Y-Coed in Wales. Mike and I loved this little town and would love to return someday, just the two of us, to hike up in the mountains.

When you lift the flap with my picture on it, the top of the flap has the words to Chris Tomlin's version of Amazing Grace. We were just singing that in church Sunday morning, and I thought the words were so appropriate for this piece.

On the bottom of that flap, there's an accordian-folded paper that lists some of the things Christ has set me free from. The sin part is obvious.

I grew up in a church that was more "conservative" ~ or maybe you'd call it "legalistic" ~ than my current church. Drinking any alcohol and dancing of any sort were seen as sin. You very rarely saw women wearing pants to church on a Sunday morning, and IF anyone there had a tattoo, they kept it quite hidden. (In case you're wondering, I love Coca-Cola and always choose it over wine at dinner, my hair is shoulder length, I like to dress up for church, so I usually wear a skirt, and I'm way too chicken to get a tattoo. But I could do any of those other things if I wanted.)

Then there's the "I am free to love the 'unlovely' " part. I wrote that because of two people I know. The first is a neighbor of ours, who is shunned by the rest of the neighborhood because of a big mistake he made in his past. His wife is a Christian, and he has told Mike that he is "searching" for what he believes in . The second person is a teenager who comes from a terrible family life and is addicted to drugs. I can tell that the love and acceptance I've shown to this teen have made a positive impact in his life. Because of Christ's love, I am free from the fear of reaching out to these two people who Christ loves enough to die on the cross. My prayer is that they would see Jesus in me.

I got the idea for a flap with an accordian-folded paper underneath from a book I got from the library called Artists' Journals and Sketchbooks.

Supplies:

red papers: Creative Memories

navy paper: Stampin' Up

Key: Dress It Up Nostalgic Treasures

Anniversary card

We've had a very busy past few days. We've had 6 showings of our house since Saturday, and yesterday, we received a purchase offer. After negotiating, we've settled on a price! The buyers want to close on July 25th, which gives us 3 1/2 weeks to pack up this entire house. Since the work on our *new* (built in 1970) house most likely won't be done by then, we also need to figure out where we'll live for a few weeks.

But it's all good. We've all gotten quite tired of trying to keep the house spotless for those showings.

Among the craziness, I did manage to make this anniversary card for my sister Darla and her husband Colby, using this week's sketch from 2 Sketches 4 you. Awhile ago, I bought an old book written in French from a local used bookstore. I painted over a page from that book using watered-down Liquitex "Iridescent Rich Gold" acrylic paint. The images are from the ArtchixStudio collage sheets "All My Love" and "Tiny Bubbles." Ribbon is from The Paper Studio, and alphabet stamps are Susan Branch.

On another topic, I've been thinking some more about the fiber ATCs I'm going to make for the CQ list swap. Although I like the prints I made with the Penscore pads, I don't think I'll use them on each ATC. Probably only 2 or 3 will have that, and the others will have some other fun stuff. Still not sure what, though.

I love to have a creative outlet to stay sane (or at least, as sane as I can ever be), so hopefully I'll be able to continue blogging somewhat regularly in these next few weeks.