ATC's and Brown Paper Backgrounds

PHEW!!! Family art project there. Kinda took me away from all of this. I'm here now though, and what news I have for you!

Last fall the Rockport Public Library put on a show called "Out Of Bounds". I talked about it in earlier blogs: it was all about altered books. Let me tell you that it was soooo wierd to have the librarians telling us to cut up and paint on the books. Wow.

Anyway, those art techniques are often the same ones used for making Artist Trading Cards, and my longing for a local place to swap - because trading cards are for trading, yes? - came screaming up to the forefront. So I asked Molly Larson, the head librarian, if we could set up one at the library. And she said Yes! Actually, she said way more than yes: she said that many folks might not know what an ATC is, or how to get one, and would I like to sort-of teach a workshop. Along with the monthly ATC Swap. And of course I said yes. Too. I said yes, Molly said yes: we were having a little yes party. What a good time. :)

So then I wrote a guest column for their Newsletter, http://www.rockport.lib.me.us/_pdf/newsletter/newsletter200802.pdf and now I am thinking about how to make ATC's all the time, and this morning I came up with a great idea. To make background paper for future ATC's. Well actually I had started this paper a couple of days ago, but as I was working on it I thought that I would really be having fun if I was working on it with some friends. I choose you!

Here's the idea:

I will start us out coloring, and variously transforming the background paper and you can follow my directions. Then you can, by adding comments here on the blog, give the rest of us directions to another layer of transformation and we will follow you.

Brown Paper Backgrounds Sewn Up With String...

1. Take a regular brown paper bag and cut it open.

2. Crumple it up very tightly - try not to rip it though. Flatten it out. I actually repeated this step a couple of times to make the wrinkles pretty small.

3. Color the paper lightly with the side of a colored pencil. (Hmmm.. you can hardly see the color in this photo - it was red.) (O.K., light red.)

4. Get out some rubber stamps and stamp all over the paper. What color ink will you use? What theme of stamps will you use?

5. Hand sew your paper. I have started out with just a running stitch, but you could use a cross stitch, or a chain stitch, or anything.

O.K.,now, I have given you a couple of ideas. Your turn! What shall we do next?