A New ATC Club

I joined a new-to-me ATC (artist trading card) club Sunday afternoon at the Ink, Paper, Rubber store in Overland Park, Kansas. It's been awhile since I've done any major paper crafting, so I felt all thumbs. I've been doing serious genealogical research on my third great-grandparents and have recently returned from a trip to Lincoln, IL  where I  spoke about their family to the Logan County Historical & Genealogical Society.
This month's theme was "my favorite things" and we were to bring 3 backgrounds finished in any way we liked, however, the website did not say "atc-sized backgrounds," so I brought 3 finished 8.5" x 11" cardstock backgrounds to be on the safe side (in peach, turquoise & purple) and was madly scrambling to cut them down to size at the meeting! I also thought the color theme had to be on each background, but most of the ladies brought single colored pieces of stiff, heavy paper. Oh well, live and learn! *smile* Still, I enjoyed myself and met five very nice ladies!

Here's the atc that I made to trade. My favorite illustrator is, as you know Mary Engelbreit, so when I saw this black and white gingham duct tape with cherries on it, I had to have it! The stamp is from ME Ink (wish it had a matching die to go with it; my rough cut did not please me) that I purchased at Michaels, but I'm not sure what brand the sentiment stamp is as it was in a box of rubber stamps a girlfriend was giving away. And the bee brad was from a package that I purchased at a scrapbook convention.

Here's the cards I received in turn. The turquoise one on the bottom left is an atc-sized booklet with images of her favorite things inside. Click on the photos to enlarge if you want to see details.

The first atc club I was a member of for awhile here in the metro KC area (Candy Worner's "All About Scrapbooking" Westport store), did the swap in the first half of the meeting, then someone taught a background technique in the second half of the meeting, however, this club does something called a "Jam." We were to contribute those 3 finished backgrounds for this part of the meeting and everyone tossed their unembellished cards to the middle of the table. Each were to sign the back of their cards first as the background maker (ie. Dolores J. Rush -- background).

We were not allowed to work on one of our backgrounds. I know this as I reached for one of mine and got scolded for it. *grin* We were to add 1 to 3 embellishments to each card and throw it back into the center of the table after we signed the back with the things we added to the card. After the third person added their bit, the card was considered finished and collected. We continued until all the cards were finished, then each card was lined up on another table and each of us received three turns to draw a number to choose a card. I grabbed one of my backgrounds so that you could see how I made mine. I stamped peachy orange swiss dots first, then pounced on turquoise ink through a checkerboard stencil, and ran a purple inked rolling clay tool "stitch" across the top. You know, (*wink*) layers! I brought the same colored ink with me to do edges if necessary.

 

Mine is the on top with the cute little girl and bling that was added to it. It was hard to choose, because there were so many nice cards to pick from. In addition, one of the gals. . .

 threw me 4 more of her cards from their previous swaps, but I was prepared as I brought my notebook with leftover atc's from previous swaps as well and she took what she wanted. She was delighted with a troll atc that I had one left of. She told me she had troll dolls when she was younger as I did. I had to have that troll stamp when I found it in a bundled cello bag at a thrift store.



And now I know the upcoming themes from July to December. July's theme is: "Happy Endings" and the Jam colors are pastels & silver; August is "By the Sea" and blue, green & tan; September is "Asian" and red, gold, & black; October is "Circus" and yellow, blue, & red; November is "Architecture" with grey, brown, & metallic; and December is "Interactive" with red, green, & white.