Artist Trading Cards

These are some of the ATCs I've been making in the past months. This first one is a replacement for a card that got lost in the mail, grr! I've never had mail go missing before so I was a bit upset. But I quite like the replacement!

These next two are zetti themed. I've been playing around a bit with the zetti style, but I still feel like I don't quite "get it"... Do any of yoy ATC makers out there have inspiration tips?

And this last one was for a feminist ATC swap, it was great fun! I love the quote, it's from a feminist website.

Swap stuff

At the beginning of the year I joined a couple of small craft swaps over at Craftster. Cutting back on swapping is one of the many ways I'm trying to save money this year, but it's way too much fun to give up completely! So I've decided I'm only joining swaps that are small, low postage, and allow me to work from my stash.

For these latest swaps I decided to make some stamps - I bought about four sheets of grade A PZ Kut a while back so it was a great way to de-stash! These are the stamps I made!

A little mermaid to suit my swap partner's mermaid theme. This was probably one of the fiddliest stamps I've ever made, and I'm not completely happy with the way the scales turned out. I need to get a finer blade!

This little turtle was adapted from an image in my partner's Wists, so it's not my original artwork, but I still really like it!

Pretty paper

I just joined a really exciting swap over at sweet jessie's blog, called the Collate: project. I'll be getting an awesome notebook with pretty papers from the whole world! Yay! This is the batch of papers I sent to Jessie for the swap:

I haven't done much crafting this week because I'm busy preparing for a major exam next week. I did take the time to stamp up some bear postcards though! What do you think?

HELLO bear

I just wanted to say hello to everyone who found me via the CRAFT: blog! Boy, did my blog stats go crazy yesterday. I'm glad so many people liked my little sampler!

I stamped these little bear note cards up yesterday. They were lots of fun to make, and I've started thinking up loads of variations... I made a little bear Santa hat - but then I realized I don't have a red inkpad! And to make matters worse, one of my new years resolutions was not to buy any more craft supplies for two whole months! Ack! So now I was wondering, would anyone like to swap a pack of bear notecards for some inkpads? Let me know if you do! :-)

Fabric collage

I was at home alone on Sunday evening, and suddenly felt an urge to sew something... I didn't plan ahead at all, I just sort of went with the flow. Here's what happened:

A little fabric collage entitled Nature. It's just a basic log cabin design, embellished with all sorts of notions, vintage lace, and a bit of embroidery. I had lots of fun making it!

A close-up of the center. The tree is printed with a hand-carved stamp I received in a Craftster swap. I made a bunch of fabric patches this summer (read more here) and this is one of them. The stamp itself was carved by the talented Craftster knitting_nyxxie. The birdie is an inkjet transfer.

The finished piece is about 16" square. It's a bit wonky since I didn't measure anything, but I like it that way. Here it is hanging on our living room wall:

Patchy

I received some really lovely stamps in the recent stamp swap, and I've been looking for interesting ways to use them. Last night I had an idea - so of course I had to whip out my fabrics and try it out straight away. I made these fabric patches:


The tree and monogram stamps are from the swap, but the little birdies are my own design. The fabric is a heavy-weight cotton from IKEA, and I used a black VersaCraft inkpad to stamp the images. I think the images might have turned out clearer on a fabric with a higher thread-count, but the "faded" look is sort of nice too. I really like these patches, and I have a project in mind for them already... More on that later this week! I also made a couple of notecards just to try out my new black ink pad:


And just for fun, here are the stamps I carved for the swap. They have all been received now so I can finally show them. Not nearly as advanced as some in the swap, but I'm still learning... I'm especially proud of the cow:

Even more stamps

Yes, that's right - I was on a roll tonight and made another six stamps! I decided to make some simpler designs, just to practice. I didn't want to start something huge and then be disappointed if it didn't work out right. Also, some of the lovely Craftster ladies suggested I join an upcoming stamp swap, and I if I do decide to join I want to be sure I can make something I feel OK about swapping... Gotta hate that "swap anxiety", right? Anyway, I made a rose, a toadstool, a little bird, some trees, and also a stamp with my initials, KB. I'm not sure what I'm going to use them for yet, so I just tried them out on some paper scraps. I really love grace's idea about making my own gift wrap, I think the toadstool print could work really well on a Christmas present, wrapped with some burgundy ribbon.




I also got a few new ink pads, and made some more birdie notecards, trying a few different color combinations. Which one do you like best?




The second pic shows a pack of notecards I gave to my friend Sara today when we met for lunch. I don't write nearly enough to use all the notecards I had printed up, so I thought it would be better to just give some away! It seemed to go down well, so then I started thinking about doing a giveaway to draw attention to my blog... Do you think that would be a good idea? Sara and I also went around some shops after lunch, and she suggested that I could approach some local shop owners and ask if I could sell postcards or notecard sets in their shops. It's not something I see myself doing in the near future, but still it would be awesome to know someone liked something I made enough to pay, you know, actual money for it! :-)

I have really been neglecting my schoolwork this past week, so you might not hear from me for a couple of days as I struggle to catch up on my reading. I'm going to have to take a break from rubber stamping anyway, before I carve up every eraser in the house... My speedy-stamp block is half finished, and as you can see from the tree stamp in the second pic I'm already looking for alternatives... It's such a hassle ordering new blocks from Ebay, but I'm sure I could never find proper carving blocks in Swedish stores. Living in a small country has its downsides sometimes! Have a great week everyone, I'll be back soon with more craftyness!

Stamps and swapping

Today has been a busy crafting day! Unfortunately I can't show you everything that I made just yet... I finished two ATCs for the Alphabet ATC swap at Craftster, but I'll have to wait to post pictures of them until they are received. I was really pleased with my cards this time - it's always like a little bereavement, sending them away... But hopefully their new owners will like them too. Here they are, on their way to the post office:



Looking through all my papercraft supplies also inspired me to carve another stamp. I recently bought a Speedball stamp carving kit off Ebay, and fell instantly in love with it! This time I knew I wanted to make a bird stamp, and after a bit of sketching this is what I came up with:



This is only the second stamp I've ever made, and obviously it's not perfect. I had a lot of trouble with the sharp corners, but hopefully I'll get better with some more practice. I'm also thinking about trying to buy some more Speedball cutter blades, the kit only came with two and none of them are really good for details. Any stamp carvers out there? What tools do you like to use? Anyway, despite the imperfections I'm really proud of this stamp. I can see myself getting a lot uf use out of it. Here it is on a bunch notecards, with one of my colored pencils for size:



And a closeup of the little birdie:



I had so much fun making this! I'm thinking of carving another birdie to put in the upper corner of the notecards as well. I'm going to go to the craft store tomorrow to buy some more inkpads (right now all I have is this brown one), so you'll probably be seeing some more notecards and stationary in the near future. I'm also trying to think of other ways to use this stamp. Do you have any ideas?

It's getting late and I should have started on some of my required reading for my summer class (I'm taking Economic History - sounds like fun doesn't it?) this evening, so that's all for today. Have a good evening!