Mail Art Challenge!

This is my next Swapbot challenge!

 

 

The themes I've been given to choose from are: clouds, sky, galaxy, rainbows and whales. I had a good old think about how to decorate an envelope in each of these themes and I think I'm going for a mixture of sky/clouds/rainbows and galaxy (well a few stars dotted around.) At the moment I am waiting for the paint to dry but I will post a photo of the finished envelope soon.

My mail art :) A sky-scape

The materials used were as follows:

• Night sky coloured in in permanent marker pen.
• Stars are small silver stickers.
• Clouds painted in white poster paint.
• Blue sky coloured in with gel pen (used up all of it's ink!)
• Rainbow also with gel pens.
• Sun and moon are glued on glittery paper/card

We were also directed to pop a little something inside the envelope that our partner would like. I hope my partner likes what I sent her.  :)

Swap Bot

Swap Bot.

 

"What Bot?"

 

I was looking for more places to trade ATCs when I came across this website http://www.swap-bot.com. It's a little confusing when you start exploring it, but the concept becomes clear straight away. Here people from all over the world can come together in this little corner of the internet to trade not only their ATCs and crafts, but all types of goodies!

 

Tea and postcards seem to be a favourite amongst this community. Some of the swaps can be quite pricey, with members spending around $20 on gifts to send to random partners they've been paired with. And that's one of the downsides, you can never be sure somebody won't 'flake' on your trade. This means they don't fulfill their end of the swap. But the reliablity of users is visable for all to check up on on each persons profile. After each trade your partner can rate you - which allows others to see if you took part properly or not.

 

I'm their newest member!

 

I joined up! I couldn't resist. So far I've sent one ATC to the USA. I'm waiting impatiently for it to arrive but it's only been about a week so far and I expect it's going to take a lot longer than that! My partner has taken part in over 270 swaps and has a completely clear record so I bet she's a bit nervous at seeing my brand new profile and lack of ratings!! I wish I'd taken a photo of my ATC, it was a St. Patricks theme and I was actually quite proud of it. I'm just hoping it doesn't fall to pieces in the mail. I'm thinking I should have been extra cautious and bubble wrapped it but there's no going back now.

 

An ATC I may trade in the near future. ..

 

 

 



Pencil drawings of a fox and owl, and an ATC created from a recycled magazine featuring a photo of where I currently live.

Artist Trading Cards (ATC)

Did somebody mention ATCs?

 

Whilst looking online for card making inspiration I came across some blogs which mentioned  ATCs. So, naturally, I had to research the heck out of this new term. It turns out ATC stands for 'Artist Trading Cards'; which are basically miniature pieces of art created by an individual intended for trading for others' cards.

As I understand it, they have only two rules to them:

1. Firstly; they should measure 2 and a half inches by 3 and a half inches.
2. Secondly; trade them - don't try to make a financial gain from them!

 You can find more information here: http://www.artist-trading-cards.ch/

 

I'm intrigued!

I absolutely love this idea, mainly because the cards themselves can be decorated with any kind of media; paint, drawing, paper, collage, stamping, absolutely anything you can dream up! They are supposed to convey your own personal artistic style, however often online trades are set up with a specific theme in mind so you can explore the artistic methods as you create.

Where can I swap mine?

I checked Facebook on the off chance it would provide any pages with more information about trading these cards in the United Kingdom. Just my luck I came across a page which was asking it's members to vote on for a theme of ATC  they should swap in February! I instantly knew I had to join and give it a go - I would love to start a collection of these fabulous little pieces of art.

Just yesterday it was announced that the theme 'stitching' would be what we are focusing on as we make our ATCs. This choice won by 3 votes, in second place was my vote of 'song titles'. Oh well, I'm still excited to give it a go, even though my profile does mention I am not very good at sewing at all!

A cute find

Forget-me-not

When I started this blog I promised myself I would update it at least once a fortnight... I completely forgot about it for half a year! So I'm going to start up again and try to keep the momentum going because I have just found some inspiration that will get me crafting again!
 
I was poking around in a charity shop lately, having a nosey at all the nic-nacs they had (as well as the hand-made cards that people had donated, sometimes it's tempting to buy a really pretty one and pass it off as my own haha) but anyway I found something that I was really excited about...

 
It came in the box with instructions and everything! For only £2! The most astounding thing about this find though was the age of the flower press. It was made in 1979, making it over 30 years old. All the pieces of paper and cardboard are there, the screws work just fine and I'm currently waiting to see how the flowers I picked will turn out. (I picked and placed them in the press 3 weeks ago, apparently you have to wait 4 weeks and keep turning the screws to squish them even more.) 
 
 
 

My favourite part about buying this press must have been opening it up to find several delicate, paper-thin flowers that somebody had left in there. If you think about it, somebody might have been nice enough to place them in there when they donated the flower press, or in fact, somebody may have used it once about thirty years ago and forgotten all about the flowers! Who knows. But I have lots of plans for the flowers that I can now turn into embellishments, here's a card I made out of the forget-me-nots....

To make this sympathy card

•  I started by painting the white card to give it a water-colour effect. I didn't use water-colours paints, instead I used some cheap children's ready mixed paints from Wilkos and just made sure to mix and apply them using lots of water.
•  Next, I chose the faded purple forget-me-nots because they looked quite sad, thus they suited the context of my card. I stuck those on with pva glue.
• I stamped 'with sympathy' (using a stamp I bought from Hobbycraft, of course, it was only £1!) onto a pastel green coloured piece of paper which matched the background slighty, and backed this onto a piece of lilac card that I'd cut out using pinking sheers.
• I stuck the tiny piece of ribbon on with double sided tape because it was too heavy for the glue. On top of this I added my stamped sentiment.

 

 

I'm so pleased that now I have this flower press I can make my own free embellishments, it's just a pity I have to wait so long for them to squish completely!