October's Artist Trading Cards

October was a busy month for me, creatively speaking.  I made over 30 ATCs!  This post is a recap of what I put together.

Naturally, I made some Halloween-themed cards, most of them with silly googly eyes.  I just love that Stampin' Up! offers a self-adhesive version of these things, which makes them so much easier to work with.  I started out making some RAKs (Random Acts of Kindness) for members of the ATC group I belong to:

These RAKs are all centered around tags made from SU!'s Ghoulish Googlies Designer Printed Kit, the Googly Ghouls stamp set, and include paper from the Howlstooth and Scaringbone designer series paper..

I used similar materials for a "Winner Takes All" Halloween-themed card:

My favorite Halloween ATC this year was for the theme "Owl-oween":

Next I worked on some "mystery image" cards.  One of the group members sends out a certain image or images, all the same, to each participating member, and then our mission is to create an ATC around it.  This month's image was a VW Beetle car, and I had lots of fun going 60s retro on my cards:

The backgrounds were created with metallic and shimmer watercolors.  On top of that were loosely collaged items from the 1960s -- tie-dye t-shirts, peace signs, rainbows, groovy flowers, etc.  I found a hippy chick that fit perfectly inside the car and fussy-cutted her.  The car is popped up on Stampin' Dimensionals.  The word "groovy" was done with a label maker.

Next up I made an ATC with a "Fall Foliage" scene, and liked it so much that I created some similar RAKs as well.

The leaves were cut and embossed from scraps of autumn-hued card stock using a Spellbinders die, then layered on a background from Stampin' Up!'s Orchard Harvest designer series paper.  Next I put a thick coat of Mod Podge, and while it was still wet sprinkled in some copper glitter.  The RAKs are on a slightly different background paper, and I left the words off:

The next theme I tackled was Quote of the Month.  Here are the quotes I picked out:

The colorful backgrounds were made using Gelatos, which I applied randomly to embossed card stock and then blended using my fingers, 

These last two were blended with water.  Quite a difference!

My final ATCs for October were one-of-a-kinds.  The theme on this first one was "Coffee, Tea, or Cocoa."  (And no, her feet are not backwards -- those are shadows!)  The red looks blotchier than it really is because I painted over it with Crystal Effects (clear laquer), and my scanner doesn't seem to like it.

The theme for this card is "Woman."  I took it a bit further and named it, "I am Woman, Hear Me Roar."  This coffee cup is also painted with Crystal Effects.

As you might guess, the theme for this last one is "Sunflower."  The scan didn't turn out too well because my scanner doesn't like the antique gold glimmer mist I sprayed on the flowers -- but it's really cool in person.

I don't think I'll be making nearly as many ATCs this month as I did during October, primarily because I want to roll up my sleeves and get busy with my holiday cards.  I rarely buy new winter holiday/Christmas stamps because their window of use is so limited and I already have more than I'll use in the next decade.  Nevertheless, Stampin' Up! had some amazing sets this year that I just HAD to have, so prepare to have your socks knocked off when I start posting my new creations!

Thanks for looking!

Smiles,

Joyce Spear (a.k.a. StamperJoyce)