Today I thought I should show what really floats my boat when I don’t have a theme to work to.

What do you think?

Am I an artiste or what?!

I made these cards by overcoming my childhood training and tearing pages out of an old book, then drawing on said pages with a zig pen.

Next, filled in with watercolour pencils, carefully wet-brushed the separate areas, and reapplied colour where necessary.

Then I glued the pages onto blank ATC cards and, after they dried, sprayed them with acrylic sealer a couple of times.

I’ve also decorated the back with a border as well as adding the usual information – ATC title, my signature, date, etc.

For me, the best thing about making ATC’s is the amount of time it takes to complete one.

I can work on one or two in the morning, eat lunch and still have time for my afternoon nap before the kids come home from school!

Are you interested in trying your hand at an Artist Trading Card?

WonderHubby had his 40th birthday on the 17th, and I saved up and paid for a night away for us all at Ettalong, on the Central Coast.

It rained on the first day and the kids were disappointed, but on the Saturday we had 3 hours for sandcastles at Ocean Beach and they were very happy with that.

While we sat in the car watching it rain on the Friday, I doodled up this zentangle and I’m very happy with how it turned out.

I also grabbed a great old 1960′s dictionary at the local Vinnies’ for $6 (they were right there, honestly). One of those with super-thin pages and absolutely every word you can think of inside – it’s about 3 inches thick.

And no, it’s not for my art/craft stash… we really needed a good dictionary!

Last week, the kids returned to school and I had a lot of grocery shopping to catch up on – they come, but it’s so much easier without.

Without the kids around, I was also able to visit a few op shops (thrift shops for US readers), and nabbed heaps of great sheets which I’m planning to turn into a huge rag rug for the garage (my one-day-studio).

WonderHubby nabbed my little practice rug to stand on at the sink while washing up. It’s about an inch thick, so it really soothes the feet while you’re just standing there.

I was going to show you a pic of it, but I still can’t work out how to upload photos from our new camera.
I keep asking WH and he keeps telling me and I keep forgetting!

So instead, here’s the two ATC’s I’ve been working on for the swap A Rose for Norway, on swap-bot.
The yellow isn’t part of the cards, it’s just the background I used when I scanned them.

The one on the left will be for my swap partner.

The other I will be sending directly to the lovely lady running the swap in Norway, who plans to pass them on to a government group who will disseminate them among the victims and families of victims.

I think it’s a lovely idea, and I hope I’ll have the energy to make one or two more before the mailing date (22nd August) to send to her.

If you’d like to get involved – even if you’ve never made an ATC – here’s the link.

I began with a cutout of a ceramic jug for inspiration (from a mag), which I could just “see” holding some doodley painted flowers.

Using acrylics, I painted a deep blue background, then used rich gold to cover the bottom 1/3 or so of the card to give the jug / vase something to sit on.

Next, I used spray adhesive to stick the cutout in place, and then dabbed some dusty pink “flowers” around the place.

After that, I outlined everything with a micron felt tip pen and added curly stems to the swirly flowers.

The last step was mixing a slightly duller gold to give the vase a shadow.

Oh, and I used my new corner punch to shape the card.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with my first effort.

There are a couple of things I’ve learnt and will do differently next time:

Ensuring the spray adhesive is even, because part of the vase didn’t stick properly and is bugging me.

And using the corner punch more sparingly, as I think it looked better with just the top two corners punched.

What do you think?  Have you ever made an ATC?

It’s so simple, and I never realised it until now that it actually is true…

I’ve neglected my santa & fairy doodles in favour of playing around with the bauble outlines.

(yes, i do have a short attention span)

Here’s another doodle I did the other day for the front of a card for our elderly neighbour, who had spinal surgery recently. – not sure what it symbolised, I just thought it was just sweet-looking.

Unfortunately, my short attention span & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome combined and I never did get around to making the card.

I actually think it was mainly lack of confidence.  I mean, what if she thought it was a crappy card?

So I chickened out and bought her a nice african violet for her kitchen windowsill.

- I can see it too when I go into our back yard

Haven’t finished any as yet, but have plenty of wip’s on the go.
The way I work is to do a bit of a drawing, put it aside for a half hour or more, then pick up where I left off once I can “see” what comes next.

My first attempt is a robed, Santa-ish figure. Had some trouble with the face (i hate drawing faces), and decided to just do eyes peering out from between bushy eyebrows and mustache.

He’s also kind of stiff-looking, but for a first try he’s not so bad

I’m pretty happy so far with this next one, it’s on the way to becoming a Christmas fairy; maybe a sort of sugarplum fairy.

Have almost finished the skirt, but am not sure where I’m going with that bodice. -What shape the neckline will be is still a mystery to me!

Then comes the arms, legs & head. I’m favouring plain black silhouette style arms, & ballet slippers with ribbons laced up the legs.

Another idea for Chrissy cards is of course baubles, and I have a few of those in the works, too.

Found outlines kind of fiddly until I hit on the idea of tracing around a cup (d’uh).

I thought you might find some bauble shapes fun to use with either zentangle doodles or digiscrap, so I scanned them before I began filling them out with designs and patterns.

Here’s four Christmas ornament shapes in png format (transparent backgrounds) for you to do whatever you want with.

They’re a bit rough, as I haven’t done anything other than remove the background so that you can fit them to a page and print them out using Word or whatever program suits.

Hope you get some use from them