Artist Trading Club- Guest Artist

I was asked to be Guest Artist for February over at The Artist Trading Club.  I decided that rather than offer a theme for this months challenge... I would leave that choice up to the individual... instead I am asking everyone to make an ATC easel card for which I have provided a template and tutorial which you will find below. 

This is one of my completed atc's... I used a print of one of my paintings and a public domain quote by Helen Keller which I love, some ribbon, bling, watercolour crayons and acrylic paint.  (Sorry for the pants photo)

Ok here we go :-)  You will see the template below... please click to enlarge before saving to your computer to print out. 

If you prefer to cut without the template the three piece sizes are one each of the following :-

7" x 2.5"

3.5" x 2.5"

2" x 1.5"

Step 1...  Fold the long piece in half  then open it back up and decorate the bottom half ... also decorate the atc size piece and the smaller one.  You can use any medium you wish... paint, collage, stamps, etc...

To assemble the Atc easel card.... take the long piece and bring the undecorated outer edge in to the centre fold and use a bone folder to flatten as shown below.

 Now when you bring the outer edge forward from the centre fold you will have a shape as seen below.  Cover the part of the undecorated piece that faces you with glue (or as I did...DS tape).... this is where you will adhere the bottom of your previously decorated  atc.

Your easel card will look like the pic below once you have adhered your atc and the smallest piece to the bottom of the card to act as a stopper.  You may wish to use a button, brad or something else in place of this piece depending on the style of your atc.  As long as whatever you use is not totally flat... the sky's the limit.

 I hope you will join in with the challenge and I will be looking forward to my swaps :-)
hugs
Chris xx

One for the boys....cute framed pictures

I don't seem to do boy things very often... it's just that lack of bling thing...lol I guess boys and bling just don't seem to go together in my mind at all. More like where there's muck there's magic and DG is a great believer in that... the bigger the puddle...the dirtier the mud... the happier he is but then I think that big boys don't really grow out of that either, they just move on to car parts, oil and grunge!! These cute framed pictures are a wee bit too young for DG now (weeelll he's almost grown up being over the age of 7... cos don't you know you're a grown up when you start to play chess) He's joined a chess club...think now my agenda is to relearn it or be OUTSMARTED which is definitely not difficult, I mean I get whooped at Monopoly each and every time...oh the SHAME..lol

Anyway moving on... a bit of colour today with these gorgeous goodies from Cosmo Cricket Jacks World designs.

They just screamed BOY at me... I just adore the blackboard shapes.

I started off just doing one framed pic but as usual got a bit carried away but as the frames only cost me £1.99 for a pack of 3 well it seemed wrong not to make a trio.

I removed the glass because I wanted the images to be 3d... and besides I can always use the glass for something else later... may even try some glass painting..lol

I like all of the blackboard shapes but my favourite has to be the train... I think it's well cool.

Now for those of you who like digi stuff you just have to pop yourself over to Cen's loft June is giving away these Button Basics and what's even better is that she has a fab button making tutorial on her blog for those of you who are learning or wanting to brush up on your photoshop skills. It's available as a downloadable pdf file which you can grab for free when you pop over to get your freebie buttons. How cool is that. The CT team is also doing a collab kit to share with you very soon so I will keep you updated on that :)

Hope you have a great day

Thanks for looking

hugs

Chris xx