round three of the atc swaps...

Swedish fairy tale illustration by Elsa Beskow.

Are you ready for the next installment of ATC swaps? I am! I figured I would announce the particulars now since May is such a busy month for most folks.

First off, the theme for this swap is "Fairy Tales and Fables". As usual, the topic can be translated as closely or as loosely as you like...perhaps fractured fairy tales are more your thing? Even nursery rhymes and old wives tales will fly. Secondly, this round of swaps will be a tandem swap with the kiddos like the swap in February was.

There is no age limit to participate. You do not have to have a blog to participate. International participants are welcome to play as well.

The deadline for sign-ups is Monday, May 29th. To join all you have to do is email me (amy at aplcreations dot com) with your name, address and blog (or Flickr, PictureTrail, etc.) url (if you have one).

There's a bit of a spin on this round. Each participant will make THREE artist trading cards AND one A7 sized (5.25" x 7.25") MAILART envelope** to be mailed to me no later than Monday, June 12th. So as not break the bank on my end, stateside folks, please send along two 39 cent stamps with your cards and envelope; those across the pond, please send $1.70 along with your cards. Each swapper will receive back a random selection of three ATCs enclosed in a gussied up envelope. I will mail out the divvied ATCs on Monday, June 19th.

**When making your envelope, please incorporate an open area (let's say 1.5" x 3") for the addressee's mailing information. Also, the ATC theme does not necessarily apply to the envelope. I declare open season on the envelope!

A couple of bullet points on ATCs (courtesy of Cedarseed.com)
* The dimensions of the cards must be 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches.
* Sets of identical cards are known as editions and should be numbered (1/5, 2/5, etc.).
* Sets of cards based on a theme are known as a series.
* On the back of each ATC the artist writes part or all of the following information: name, contact information, title of the ATC and number if it's part of an edition.

And a handful of links for MAILART:
* Mailart: artistamps, envelopes, ATC's, postcards and other mail art (link via Theresa)
* The Envelope Collective
* Mailart tags over at Flickr
* MAIL ART Exhibits, Active Mail Art Calls, Links and Mail Art Resources

ahem...

Remember me? The once crafty and relatively prolific artiste/mommy type? I hardly remember myself lately...nothing of the artsy or the craftsy has been accomplished in FOREVER. My skin is crawling because of it. I'm pretty sure I'm in full on withdrawal now. I need my craft crack (to borrow a term from my friend Dawn) and I need it now!

Well, that's not entirely true. I did make several attempts at a yellow and orange postcard before finally starting and completing one that I was satisfied with. Click here to take a peek. But aside from that, seriously, no art, no craft for weeks now.

Lynn has been travelling a lot lately so my usual evening breaks and their usual boys' nights out haven't been available. With the nice weather, our weekends have been spent out and about. I have been to Six Flags FOUR times already this season. That's three more times than I went all last year. It's sort of a requirement that I go now because Caleb can ride more of the rides and doesn't want to be left out at all. We all have a good time and when my brother, Nic, comes with us we get to ride all the big people rides too. But in the back of my head I'm thinking, "I could be at the torch, the sewing machine, somewhere in my studio making something right now!" The boys want to be outside riding tricycles and skateboards and they are both entirely too young to be out front by themselves so my flower beds are looking really nice. I suppose that should count for accomplishing something creative, but for some reason it doesn't feel like it. Logan is now keenly interested in reading and writing and the like so I spend a good deal of my day reading things, explaining things, writing things, repeating things. Not that I didn't before, it's just that now he is totally voracious about it all the time from breakfast to bedtime and I don't want to slow his momentum. With this new shift in our lives I am having trouble finding my balance again. I know it will come back to me, I just wish it was already here.

it's rained all day...

what to do? What to do? Load the children up and wander through the garden center at Lowe's, that's what. I've been hunting for the perfect pot to put in one of my front yard flower beds for months now. I gave up today and bought a decorative tin tub. I bought some delightful perennials that I hope grow within the stated sizes or my tub is going to look terrible. My favorite of all the flowers we picked out is the "Blue Butterfly" Scabious. Here's a picture I borrowed from White Flower Farms:



Mine look just like this, only smaller and not so many buds. Isn't it a pretty flower? I would have bought a dozen, but I only have a small area of my yard that has full sun all day.

I also bought three smaller ceramic pots for a little table up by the front door. Here in lies my quandry: The porch only has direct sunlight for about two and half to three hours midday. I'm in zone eight and want to put something fragrant and colorful (and annual) in the pots. I am having no luck searching for suggestions online. I'll have to check the pot sizes tomorrow, and I will be swinging by Calloway's tomorrow, but any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

postcards...

My Aunt Patty has been mailing postcards to Logan and Caleb with various bits familial information lately. For example:


a 37¢ version Florida postcard to Logan asking, "Guess what happened in this state about five years ago?"


and


a 37¢ version Texas postcard to Caleb asking, "what happened in this state about three years ago? Embarrassingly, I had to think to myself...what did happen? Duh, I gave birth to Caleb...sofa king sometimes, man.)

They get such a kick out of mail in general and Aunt Patty has no idea what a life saver these postcards are for me because now that Logan recognizes both of their names, junk mail has NO appeal.

With the arrival of each postcard, we pull out our State Farm Road Atlas and look up each state and usually have to dig around image files on the computer to find a picture (or twenty) of the subject family member. It's fun and gives us something to do that doesn't involve sitting outside sweating buckets of fluid into the sandbox.

The best of all the postcards so far were the first two to arrive. They were from Bella a.k.a Wag Wag Lemma Lemma. She even signed them with a pawprint. I cannot begin to tell you how freaking cute the boys were when they saw this. Okay, I guess I can try. SO CUTE. I read the postcards to them and handed each boy his card. They both studied their cards very carefully. Caleb chattered on about this and that all the while pointing enthusiastically at the pawprint on his card. Logan was quiet for a bit. He looked up and asked in amazement, "how did she know to do this? Bella must be a smart dog." I agreed. Later that day, Logan showed his postcard to his friend, Daniel. Daniel was stupefied, "what kind of dog is she? I wish Penny (his mom's pomeranian) was this smart. How did they teach her to write? She writes better than me! Wow!!"

i've been unconscious from the heat...

not really, but that would be a far more interesting story than what's actually been happening around here.

I hope everyone's Easter weekend was lovely. Ours was wonderful. The boys have never travelled so well, ever. It has to be a fluke. Or the Earth temporarily spun off its axis. Or there was a ripple in the time space continuum. Or something. Whatever it was, hopefully it can be duplicated on our next trip. I was a little disappointed there weren't more wildflowers along the highways but we did see lots of new life: new calves, baby goats and lambs (way more goats and sheep in general than we normally ever see along 206), and a baby zebra too. We stopped and turned around to see the zebras. Altogether we saw five, three adults, one yearling and a baby.



Once we made it to San Angelo, it was party time. My parents' house was bursting at the seams. All six kids plus two kids' spouses and two grandbabies were home for the weekend. It was fun...lots of hanging out, lots of Rummikub, lots of laughing and as always, lots of reminiscing. We took the boys to the park.







We did a little shopping. We had Lynn's parents over for Sunday lunch and the Easter egg hunt. I must not forget the minor emergencies either...what trip would be complete without one or both of my children cracking open their heads or scraping knees? One evening we had two little monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell off and broke his ear. Caleb managed to split his ear right open (you can sort of see the damage in the above picture). It was nasty the night he did it, all swollen and bloody, but as of today it's almost completely healed. Logan gave himself a nice sized raspberry on his forehead where he faceplanted on the recycled tire playground flooring after he overshot his landing from the zip-line at the park. Thank GOD for recycled tire playground flooring! It could've been SO ugly and much more scary, but the flooring saved the day.

Since then nothing artsy or interesting has transpired. Lots of laundry shuffling, bill paying and grocery shopping has been caught up on though...and that is promising for an action packed rest of the week. I hope.

mail haul...

My maillady has been very busy delivering boxes and large envelopes to my front porch these past few weeks. I love it. The boys love it. I don't think the maillady likes it so much.

Anyway, the first of my special deliveries was an envelope stuffed full of all the stickers from Moki's carved stamp sticker swap.



Click on the picture to see a larger version of the image. I made notes of who did what on all the stickers that I was sure about. If you know on any of the rest, make a note or leave a comment!

I had an almost daily influx of SPRING ATCs. So nice!

I also ordered some paper sets from Dub & Sam. First of all, Jessica's product packaging is phenomenal. It's the kind of packaging that if you saw it in a shop somewhere, you would buy whatever it was, just because you like the packaging. Second of all, she has a 40% off Spring Sale running through the 20th of April. Get thee to her site right away, with purse strings open!

The boys have been receiving postcards from Aunt Patty pretty regularly too...this deserves a post all on its own. Seriously, their reaction to these postcards has been PRICELESS. More on this later.

And last but not least, my swap package from Hannah for the Sweet Pea Swap arrived yesterday.

Hannah included so many wonderful things in my package! Handwritten/drawn instructions for folding paper stars (very charming), a handful of already folded stars (which both Logan and Caleb thought were fantastic), extra papers for folding more stars, a note book with an applique patch Hannah made using a drawing by her daughter (4yo Esme) that I am in love with, chocolate truffle eggs from Thornton's (so good!), tiny apple roller tape (fun stuff!), a selection of lovely Indian mulberry papers, some beautiful ribbons and rickrack, a sheet of tiny little boy themed stickers and a package of white graphite paper for transferring patterns to various surfaces.


Hannah has three children, a little girl Logan's age, a little boy Caleb's age and a baby girl. We decided to do a side swap for the kids and she sent along two Beatrix Potter books and two hankies for the boys. We read The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher at bedtime last night. Both boys think the hankies are very cool; however, neither wants to use them because they'll get them dirty! I'm thinking pillows might be in order.

Thanks to Hannah and all the carved stamp sticker swappers for such lovely swaps! Thanks to Moki and Ellia for hosting the swaps! Thanks to Jessica for the excellent customer service and the great products. And thanks to Aunt Patty for the postcards. The boys LOVE them! Especially when Bella signs them.

"spring is the theme" atc swap gallery...

Thanks to everyone who participated in this round of swaps! There were twenty swappers this round and every single set of cards was fantastic. I loved getting to see each set in person...such a treat! I sorted the cards and stuffed envelopes with goodies last night and will be heading out to the post office soon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that transit through the postal system will be speedy and less than catastrophic. I took a cue from Moki and her last carved stamp swap and put each set of cards into its own cellophane bag inside each envelope. Keep your fingers crossed!!

Want to see the cards? Click here.

In other swapping news, I will host another round of ATC swaps in June. The next round will be a tandem swap with the kiddos like the February swap was. I figure with it being summertime, it will be nice to have a project to do with the kids. I'm still thinking of a theme, but I already have the logistical portion figured out and it involves less cards and more mail art! Should be fun. More in the coming weeks.

spring...

I finally put my ATC making procrastination to an end last night! I narrowed down my ideas, decided on course of action and got to work.

I began by making the envelopes. I used some of my new paper, attached ribbon to tie them closed and sewed two layers of handmade paper on the inside to simulate grassy fields into which Easter eggs could be "hidden." My next step was to paint up some robin's eggs. From there my original plan was to draw or collage chicks on the other side of the eggs and sandwich a pull-out pennant that would host the pertinent ATC information in between the two. Well, I began to think the idea of the chick on the flipside of a robin's egg was silly and incongruous. Logically, it should be a robin! So I pulled out some of my animal clipart, looked for robin references, found the one I ended up using on the cards and then went to town.

I printed Mother Goose's "Little Robin Redbreast" on some chartreuse cardstock, cut out the egg shape from the cardstock, cut out the robins, attached their little daisy bonnets and mounted them onto the eggs with foam tape. The robins where just floating there on the cards...I knew what they needed, but I was trying to keep the cards relatively flat so I could "hide" them in the grassy fields of the envelopes. Flat cards were not meant to be this round. I pinched wads of excelsior and twisted them up into nest-like shapes and handstitched them onto the eggs. By this time I was getting tired and the idea of the pull-out pennants wasn't so clever to me anymore so I rubber cemented the backs of all the eggs, smacked them together and cleaned up the edges. Voilà a nice set of cards! The only thing I would have done differently would have been to print my info tags and sew them to the robin's eggs before I glued the cards together, because as it stands, I am still waiting for the glue I used to attach the tags to the cards to dry.

sneak peek...

I finally finished my ATCs for the Spring Swap! Here's a sneak peek until I can get some better pictures:


That tiny bit of turquoise blue at the top of the picture is the back of the card.

I started out working on one idea and somewhere along the way an altogether different product emerged. As it turns out, I did end up using some of the new paper and the paper flowers I bought on Tuesday. I even dragged out my watercolors! Inspired by Kim's wonderful bird collage greeting cards, my little nested robins each have their own daisy bonnet tied on with yellow organza ribbon.

We have a big day ahead of us today. Logan and I are attending his Kindergarten Round-Up! It's hard to say who's more excited. Better go to bed right now so I'll be somewhat well rested for school!

stumped...

Monday night is where the "stump" began to surface. I sat down after the boys were down for the night to start working on my ATCs for the swap with a handful of ideas. I couldn't get to the execution stage. I called it a night at something like 10:15...unheard of! Especially when Lynn is out of town. I tossed and turned and eventually fell asleep sometime after 1am. Groan.

Tuesday started off earlier than usual, all thanks to DST. We spent most of the day in the car. Drove to Frisco to drop the jeep off at the dealership. Got a loaner. Spent a few hours in Lewisville wasting time, trying to avoid rush hour(s) traffic. Logan was hungry for "white sauce spaghetti" and Olive Garden sounded good to me mainly because I wouldn't have to make my own alfredo sauce and it is in the same parking lot as the (self proclaimed) largest scrapbooking store in the U.S. We ate dinner and then proceeded over to the scrapbooking store. Typically this store has a handful of things I'm interested in purchasing. Half of that handful is overpriced and the other half is out of stock. Luckily this trip I stumbled upon a paper line called Wild Asparagus. It's cute stuff, nice color range with some interesting prints and textures. I bought these three sheets of paper because they seemed Spring-y to me:



I'm leaning toward using the third one somehow in my cards. I bought a package of paper daisies. I don't know if I'll use them or not. I also bought a package of colored staples. Why? They were on clearance. We finally made it home, I put the boys to bed and then sat on the floor looking over all my purchases waiting for inspiration to strike. Nothing! I went to bed early again.

In any event, I'm hoping tonight is the night. Lynn will be home from his business trip later this afternoon and has promised the boys a "men's night out" tonight so there is a glimmer of hope for some fresh creative spark where those cards are concerned. In the meantime, I must get back to the business of making jewelry and applying for an art show!

enroute to england...

These three little boxes, along with yards and yards of yummy ribbons, a nice little stash of papers and ephemera and a handful of other goodies, are indeed on their way to England. I hope my swap partner, Hannah and her little ones, enjoy the package of goodies I put together for them. I didn't get to the post office until today to ship off my package, but luckily, Hannah was in the same boat as me when it came to the post office run!

Anyhoo, the package should arrive in four to seven days! Now I need to get to work on my SPRING ATCs! That's the luxury of being the swap hostess...I get an extra couple of weeks to procrastinate :).

spring atc swappers...

Have you mailed out your cards yet?

I opened my mailbox this morning to discover a slew of cards! Each set is so nice and each artist's take on the theme has been perfect. I am going to start scanning them tonight after the boys are down for the count.

I set up a group on Flickr for the last swap and if you're not already a member, click here to jump over and join. If you have pictures of your cards feel free to add them to the group pool for everyone to see.