ATC Dangles and Doodles

As promised, new pics.
These are some of my zentangles and doodles. Lousy pics, but I'll blame the camera.

Asian ATC

Had the urge to create another card before bed. I took a distressing ink pad and stamped it directly on the paper, covered part of the card with wax paper that I tore along the edge, tore some more of my wallpaper samples off and stamped it. I embossed all the exposed ink, except for the red ink. The wax paper gives the card a really cool look, kinda like encaustic. I might try to cover an entire card with the wax paper next time. With all the different paper and embossing, the card also has a neat texture.

Feeling Crafty (with tutorial)

After scouring the web and not finding any designs I liked, I made my own ATC storage booklet. I am totally in love with it and already have the presentation board cut up for making several more, just gotta pick up some pretty papers. I've typed up a tutorial so that you can make your own. Please let me know if you have any questions and let me know if you make one and post on your own site so that I can visit and admire.
Enjoy!


1. Gather your supplies. You'll need a heavy weight board, such as a presentation book, book board or chip board (or cut up some cardboard or a shoebox if you have some laying around), a pretty paper for the outside/inside lining of the book, a paper for the interior card holder, a strong heavy duty paste, permanent glue sticks, a ruler, a cutting blade or guillotine, cutting board.



2. Cut the board into a strip measuring 11" long and 3 3/4" wide. Cut the strip into 3 pieces with one of the pieces being 1" wide and the other two pieces being the exact same size. It comes out the some odd measurement, hence why I'm not typing that in. Glue the pieces onto the back of the paper that you are using as a cover, using the heavy duty glue. Make sure to leave approximately 1/8" between the pieces and leaving 1" around the edges. Fold in the 1" trim and cover with another piece of decorative paper on the interior.



3. Fold the interior paper so that it is 3 1/4" wide and glue, making a pocket. I know that cards are only 2.5" wide, but you want the pocket to be wider just in case you make/get some chunky ATC's. Cut into pieces 3" high. Glue the pieces together using the glue stick. Only glue the middle of the paper approximately 1" wide, so that when put together, it makes an accordion.


4. Glue papers onto interior of book cover, leaving a small gap at the bottom, maybe 1/8" from the bottom. Let dry and enjoy.


Side view




Finished (almost, see below)


Things I wish I did different:
-I forgot to add some sort of closure, either a ribbon or clasp. I can probably still add it, but will need to consider that it is mostly complete and don't want to damage the cover.
-I put too many slots inside the book. I should've only put maybe 20, I think I put 30-35. I haven't filled it yet but am certain that it will probably bulge when I do since I like dimension on my cards. I could've also made the spine wide to accommodate all the cards.
-Should've added some sort of cutout to the interior slots to help pull the cards out. Since it is 3" long and I have a gap at the bottom, I only have a tiny little lip at the top to pull the cards out, so it can be difficult.

As I said in the beginning, this is a design I created. I'm sure it's not unique but I would appreciate a credit back if you post tutorial to your site.

Goodies

Long holiday weekend, so what better to do but make a mess at my craft/art station making ATC's:


Life is Comedy. Some days this is how I truly feel about life. Stamp ink background and pen drawing.



Nature. This one I totally LOVE. I got the bark off of a birch tree when went to Target and attached a stamped and embossed paper to it. You can't really see it, but the paper is a wallpaper sample graduation of green that I got from a sample book (purchased entire sample book for all of $3 at Scrap Exchange!!). The stamp was a gift which makes it even better.



Loteria. This is made from game pieces for Mexican Bingo, also known as Loteria. I used to love playing this with spare change when I lived in Texas. The images are so nice and vibrant in color. I painted the card blue, glued down the images from the game, gessoed over the entire thing, scraped some of the gesso off when it dried and embossed a pattern over it. Still needs something else, so I'll think on this one for a while.

Where are the recycled crafts??

As you can see, I haven't posted any craft projects for recycling your unrecycleable junk. I've just been too busy. I got a season pass to the state parks system for going to the lake and have spent most of my time there. Which also got me thinking - I really need to lose some weight. When DH and I started dating, I weighed 135-140, which being 5'7" was pretty thin. I wore size six bottoms, only because I actually have a booty, and a large top because, unfortunately, I also have lots of...lets say...cleavage. Now, well...my clothing size is much larger (just not ready to go there). So, time to think about the big D - dieting. I don't really feel that I eat a lot and I don't keep lots of snacks in the house, but I don't know if I know how to cook without butter/oil. So, diet starts as of Monday - I gotta have at least one more weekend of eating what I want.

Decluttering

So, one of my New Years resolutions was to declutter my life of unnecessary things. I started this by posting lots of stuff on craigslist for sale/free, at freecycle.org, and taking somethings to my local Goodwill. My dilemma - what to do with things that I cannot sale and are too crummy to give away or donate? I hate to add to our landfills, so I've decided to try to figure out ways to reuse/repurpose these items. I'm a crafter so this shouldn't be too hard, right?? So, every week (or as often as possible after all, I am the mother of two kids under the age of 5) I'll be posting different things that I've created with things I couldn't pass along.