Fabric Paper Collage ATCs

Yes, I gave into the craze for making fabric paper! I first read about it back in 2004 in Beryl Taylor's article "Making Fabric from Paper" in the premiere issue of Cloth Paper Scissors and in her luscious book Mixed Media Explorations. There's a basic how-to on the Quilting Arts website. You start with a layer of muslin fabric and glue paper to that base and then paint, stencil, spritz & stamp layers of color on top of that, and then cut it up to use in collage that can be stitched! (The photos above right top to bottom show some of my layers of paper & color being added.)

I had experimented with the technique a little, making this mini art quilt in 2007, but never really embraced it. Then my friend Darlene did a demo for our local ATC group this past April and encouraged everyone else to try it. And my friend Sue gave me a copy of Kelli Perkins' book Stitch Alchemy, which featured colorful Day of the Dead fabric paper greeting cards.

So I decided to try the technique for my ATCs for the Day of the Dead swap at Illustrated ATCs. I made two pieces of fabric cloth about 11x18" each (or half a fat quarter) - one in red/pink/orange shades (see above) and one blue/green/yellow.

Then I cut out my shapes and tacked them down with a bit of glue to hold everything in place until I could stitch it.

For the borders, I used some colorful fibers handspun by my friend Kathi. Here are the four that I'm sending in for the swap:


Now I have to finish some fruit ATCs for the Milwaukee ATC group's September theme "Eat, Drink & Make Art." (You can see some of them under construction in the first photo above.)

Intuitive Watercolor Faces

It's been over a month since my last post! I've been busy with work and had the bug that's going around (as has everyone in my office). SO ANYWAY, I did have time to make ATCs for the 10-Minute Intuitive Watercolor Faces Swap at Illustrated ATCs. This swap is hosted by Sal Scheibe, aka Amerasu, who wrote an article on this technique for the Winter 2010 issue of Art Trader Magazine. (Don't know about Art Trader? Check it out! It's a FREE digital 'zine about mail art!)

In theory, we spend ten minutes on each card, so three cards plus a host thank you card should take 40 minutes. In practice, I ended up making ten cards because this is an addictive technique! I got out the timer and the Twinkling H20s and sketched out five blobby faces in 30 minutes. So that's 6 minutes spent on each card, 4 minutes to go. After the watercolor dried, I added details with Pitt artist pens, some in black and some in sepia, and a bit of Souffle pen.

Then I had to do another set of five! (Did I mention this was addictive?) It was fun not knowing where the sketch would go. Some I really liked, and some were bleh. I do have a tendency to draw everyone with the same expression! Here are the 4 cards I'm sending in for the swap:


You can see all the cards I did here.

Spring in Wisconsin

I wish I had taken a photo yesterday of the little green crocus leaves pushing up, but now they're buried under a foot of snow. I saw my first robin of spring yesterday on the first day of spring. Hope it has a warm nest! (It was 50 degrees yesterday!)

Since the weather's so gloomy, here are the ATCs I made for the Gothic Alice in Wonderland swap at IllustratedATCs.com