What Are You Thankful For?

 What Are You Thankful For?

In late 2011 a friend was talking about the fun mail art envelopes she had been creating for a swap partner and it was then I learned about Swap-bot. What a great find! One of my favorite pastimes today is participating in the many and varied swaps available at this site. Currently I am in a swap called Fall ATC-What Are You Thankful For? 

Wow what a topic. In a previous post I shared some thoughts about a friend, Karen Huss who has just recently died. The topic of Thanksgiving, Fall and Gratitude would normally bring to mind the color of Autumn, the crisp air and cooler temperatures, harvesting my apples, making apple butter and so many delights! While posting those thoughts I realized that although those are wonderful experiences, they do not really embody what I am truly grateful for. In fact, it is an exploration for me so I decided to begin a group of posts listing what I AM thankful for. I will include many of the normal and expected things I'm sure, but maybe you like me have a NEED to think more deeply and pen some of your own thoughts. I hope you'll share by adding some of your personal reasons to be thankful in the comments. 

Today I am thankful for God's love, His love helps us endure in times of sorrow and His love is there to rejoice with us in times of great joy!

Hosting My First Swap-bot Swap

I swap with Swap-bot! I am so-ooo excited...I am hosting my very first Swap-bot swap! At Swap-bot there are lots of fun Groups to join. I am a member of Over 50 and Proud where the group admins invited us to get some swaps going...I finally took the plunge :) I hope to host lots more this year too so I will keep you posted friends, I'd love to have you join in too.
Since the weather is cooling down I thought an Warm & Fuzzy ATC swap would be great fun. Don't you just love that Warm & Fuzzy feeling? I was thinking about the pleasure we get from those experiences in life...that wonderful "warm & fuzzy" feeling wraps around us and we just wish we could have it forever! Sometimes it is from an experience, sometimes its because we have a new puppy, maybe you just saw your child get married. It may be a cup of tea and warm toast or pie. I get that feeling when I see a new baby... Anyway I think you get my drift...Anything that makes YOU wam and fuzzy. So I look forward to sharing my ATC and my partners too. I hope you will join in the fun too. Stop by and see what we've created and what we may be offering in the future:)

The Art Of Life and

Looking back on my week, a sense of accomplishment and joy fills me when I can say "My art has affected the quality of my enjoyment of life and the lives of others", it is such a  rewarding feeling. Henry David Thoreau said...

To affect the quality of the Day, that is the ART of Life.

This past few days I have been creating digital ATC's. I've made two for a Digital ATC Swap on Swap-bot. It is a fun diversion from, and change with tools and techniques I had been using. The two ATC's are quite different but I was pleased with the outcome on both. Above I started with a cool bohemian floral image then blended the quote and woman fanally adding the accent flowers. On the ATC shown below, I practiced grunge layering atop of a fun reptilian image.



Other swaps I've been working on include an ATC Pansy, and ATC that features elements that go over the edge of the card, an ATC using a book page as a main element, creating a postage stamp ATC picture, decorting an envelope with bees and finally a card with bees, butterflies or some other summertime critter. All of the swaps are on thier way and I'm on to other swaps but one thing remains... The quality of my day/week has been affected :)

 

The continuing saga of the ATC...

The ATC experiment/experience has truely sucked me in. Art supplies that had for a very long time, been collecting dust are finally out and flashing thier color, texture and stickiness LOL. I find myself mingling digital media with paper scraps, charms, glitters and pearl-y pigments...I'm having a great time!
My projects these past days have been:

• Any Mythical Creature ATC
• Free Theme ATC with Glitter
• GROUP: June's Flower ATC
• L is for ...GROUP: ♥7 Days of Inspiration June♥
• Decorate an Envelope with Sunflowers!
• Decorate an Envelope with Trees (forest or palm)!
• Just the letter ATC series (Letter D)
• Just the letter ATC series (Letter E)

So what do you think of my Mythical Creature ATC's? I was hurrying to get this swap in the mail and discovered an interesting fact... Kinda a Murphys Law thing... The specialty pearlscent paint I used on the inside of the shell of the ATC to the right does not dry unless you've used a porous paper. Hmmm, nope I used a slick surface paper...errr! Soooo on to creating another similar card with a homemade rendition (I mixed pearl-x into modpodge) to get a similar look but not the soft white I had planned. I like the outcome.We'll just hope my swap partner likes it, especially since it was delayed past the due date.

Alphabet ATC's On to D

My current obsession with Swap-bot and more specifically the ATC led me to sign up on Swap-bot for  23 plus swaps this month...what was I thinking LOL!
Oh yeah...I was thinking "this looks FUN". I have been working like a busy bee down in my scraproom to meet all the deadlines and my once "slightly organized" scraproom is...Lets just say...NOT.
The most recent ones to fly out the door were the Just the letter ATC series (Letter D). I am making good progress at getting the making of my ATC's all systematized. Yup, thats always my first goal because until I have that down pat my creativity is on the low side and my muse is no where in sight.


Devotion

Delight In The...

But I digress... The challenge was to NOT create an ATC with the image of something that starts with the letter...hmmm. Soooo-oo D for Dog and an image of a dog...NOT! I read those instructions after I finished my first card. OK, so now I have an ATC for another swap he-he.



I suppose I should explain the title for my lower case d. My neighbor, a woman of Korean descent asked me one day "What is chirp?" She was refering to hearing that the birds were chirping quite loudly. As we talked about this I learned that birds "sing", "dance" and other descriptives but alas no "chirp" in her language. My ATC is about dance :)

Favorite Youtube Videos

Recently I completed a Swap-bot swap that involved sending my favorite Youtube DYI links to 6 swap partners. These swap partners do not necissarily share the same interests so the potential for alot of new ideas was stimulating and tantalizing to say the least! The day I spent as I compiled my favorites was lots of fun as I sorted through my youtube channel and my favorites list. The fav list alone was quite daunting...over 100 were in that collection! It gave me a reason to review and sort them which was a "good thing" as Ms. Martha would say.  I came away with my list of 10 plus current favorites based off of the most recent crafty interests but of course we all have a few youtube videos that make us happy, right?
Here was my list...

 

• Crescent Artist Trading Cards Mixed Media Inchies
• Rubber Stamped Backgrounds 2 
• Tea Stained Backgrounds
• Half Cut Ornament Window (Movers and Shapers Dies)
• How To Make A Beaded Spider
• Text In A Circle
• Watercolor Wonders
• Sliding Knot Bracelet
• Embossed Napkins
• Making your own sticky dots

And the ones that make me smile...

The Singing Italian Gourmet

Crystallize Lindsey Sterling

Holdman Christmas Light Display

Wrinkled Ladies Anita Renfroe Remakes "Single Ladies"

Up To The ATC Challenge

If you've been by lately, you know I've been learning how to do little things... ATC's that is :) Over at Swap-bot there are some interesting challenges going on in the month of June and I've signed up to participate in a few. Oh I'm noticing a trend here... ATC!

Book page ATC #4

 I hope all my blog friends (YOU) will continue to stop by and see how I progress. Lets see...Am I truely up to the ATC challenge?

• GROUP: June: Favorite DIY-youtube-videos
• Just the letter ATC series (Letter D)
• Inchies for Beginners 2!
• ATC Flower Series #12: Hydrangea 
• GROUP: June's Flower ATC
•  Free Theme ATC with Glitter
• GROUP: ♥7 Days of Inspiration June♥
• GROUP: AMS: Text Me - ATC Swap
• Book page ATC #5
• GROUP: Postage Stamp Picture ATC

I yeah, I forgot to mention another swap I've instigated ...um I mean I suggested LOL.
My friend Melanie Diane isa demonstrator Stampin Up and we get together monthly for Stamp Club. I suggested to her that we all do an ATC SWAP. Well the group of us started talking and before long we came up with a theme and some basic guidelines. Here it is...

• Stamp Club ATC YOUR Life Interest

I'll be sharing more about these swaps as I create my submissions and as I receive them from my partners. Most of the swaps have just one or two partners. The last one will have 6-10...this will be the biggest project I have done in a while! I'm STOKED!

ATC Fun

I mentioned in a previous post about a current ATC Flower Series swap that I was creating...Well here it is! My Floral ATC was such fun to create. I hope my swap partner likes it as much as I do! So here's a sneek peek...

I hope my swap partner doesn't stop by the blog before getting it in the mail...that would kinda ruin the surprise don't you think?

ATC Those Adorable Collectable Cards

Recently I signed up for a swap on my new favorite swap site, SWAP-BOT.COM. The theme is Hibiscus~ I love, love, love them! They are such a showy floral! I can't wait to see what my partners come up with!
I've been looking at all sorts of possible ideas for my ATC from realistic to stained glass look as I planned my own project and finally our swap date is here soooooo mine will be off on the mail very soon but as things often happen, I was out of town an extra couple of days beyond my plan and it has delayed my mailing. My Swap partner learned I was in her state and quipped "You should have hand-carried it!" That would have been fun :)
I look forward to editing this post to add the pictures of my creation but for now here's a picture of my Iris that are in bloom.