ATC Mass Production

Well, I gave myself a treat this past week: ATC mass production. Here is a horrible photo - but you get the idea:I have about three of these boards full of ATC's!

Now there is a big yell-y, nag-y voice in my head that is using words like" glutton" and "shame" ... >sigh< (I clearly have some work to do here.) But I want to tell you that, nevermind the very old and outdated tapes in my brain, (who is stripping those reel-to-reels as we speak), I am finding this to be a great way to make ATC's!

This is what I did: I made big background papers - remember that brown paper bag paper that I was making? I talked about it here a month or two ago - here's a picture of where I stopped sewing and adding stuff to the big paper:

Well, I glued 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" cardstock to the back of the paper and cut them out - about 9 of them. Then I cut out some phrases and images from a scrapbooking collection that I had, and found some great quotes in an old farmer's almanac. I glued everything down with some netting strips, using, our favorite: acrylic gel medium. Here are some from that bunch:I did that with a couple of different background methods: tearing strips of pastel printed origami papers and gluing those down, raggedy edges and all, then drawing little zetti women and gluing those with some messages from teatags I have collected; painting a kleenex onto a piece of cardstock with ochre paint - letting it get all wrinkly - and then experimenting with a red drybrush technique over the top of that, cutouts glued on top of that and gold pen borders, (which look awesome next to the red).

The result of making many cards at once, all of the same background, is that the specialness goes out of it and I felt free-er to experiment - - - resulting in some really delightful cards. And those which were less successful I was fine with regluing or changing. I let go of the pressure to make REALLY PRETTY CARDS and just had fun ... which I think comes through in mostly every card.

I wanted to make so many because I want to pass them out to advertise the swap at the Rockport Library on Wednesday. I will be carrying them with me on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday - ask for one if you see me!

And speaking of the swap, I just want to advertise what a cool library this is, with a very wonderful Librarian - Molly - and a bunch of other fabulous librarians too - Iris, Jane. I mean, imagine: letting a bunch of artist loose in your library every month, actually inviting us in! Imagine being a librarian and spending your downtime at the desk making little scissors-paper-glue confections to advertise the fact that you are inviting a bunch of artists into your midst. Molly has even bought some new, ATC related books for the stacks, (and in April we are celebrating National Poetry Month by ransacking - gently - the stacks for poems for our ATC's!). For a whole year we have been invited to make art and make friends at the Library!

How fab is that? Very. Thank you Molly.

I am off to go paint something with glass bead gel medium. I'm not kidding: try dickblick.com It looks a-maz-ing when it dries.