Made 27 ATCs Last Night

Last night I had some hours without my husband or children in the house. I decided to make art rather than to do various things at the computer or to talk on the phone, watch TV or to read a book. I also stayed up later than normal.

It was great to know I could fill up the kitchen table and just create without worrying about having to clear it off for meal or something. It was fantastic to just be able to work without interruption from anyone.

I had some partially made ATCs which I was stuck on that I finally had an idea about and finished those.

I had creative block previously for ATCs for a certain swap and I got an idea for what to do. I was at my library yesterday and saw a new thing, large stacks of magazines being offered for free (previously they were selling for 25 cents each). In that stack were some magazines on theme of the swap I was stuck on. I took a few of the many magazines on that subject and decided to use that as source material.

I chose a cereal box to recycle into a big collage. I used ads from the magazine as my base collage. The original collage size is 7.5 inches wide by 10.5 inches high. This will be cut into nine ATCs in the end. I used other papers and used postage stamps to further embellish the collage. I also custom tinted some gesso to paint over the background as it looked too bright and new. That was too dense so I ended up rubbing off most of it with a paper towel. In the end it has a distressed look with an ivory color as the color. Today now that it is dry I will finish it off by adding rubber stamped images.

I then went through some scraps of paper that I received in Swap-bot scrap paper/ephemera swaps and used some of that to make ATCs with. I also went those some small containers with tiny scraps from past projects and made a bunch of ATCs.

I also finally used some altered photographs--altered with a bleach and water solution--that I did last year---to make ATCs with. They look very cool. Now I am itching to alter even more photographs with bleach so I'll have a stash ready to use in the future.

Lastly I used the leftover tinted gesso to color some pages of an old, falling apart insect field guide. Those will be used in other projects in the future.

Today is going to be a day of relaxing now that church is over with. I am looking forward to spending time today making even more art. Oh, and also today I picked up 70 old road maps from a Freecycler! So the new to me maps may provide more inspiration and materials for even more art projects.