Finished 21 ATCs Today and Did a Lot of Mail Art Swapping

My younger son woke me up this morning at 4:45, jolting me right out of a dream. I couldn't get back to sleep. Then the birds started chirping and the sun was rising, it was quite lovely. However I wanted to sleep but could not. So I got up and made art for a few hours all alone in the kitchen. It was nice to have that time and space to be left alone to just make art.

I finished up some ATCs which were partially done.

I used some pre-prepared backgrounds to make ATCs.

I also used some paper scraps from Swap-bot paper scrap swaps. It was fun working with some hand painted papers that some other members made.

By the time my children woke up I had 21 ATCs done. I then scanned them, made the labels for the backs, put the labels on the backs with acrylic gel medium and let them dry.

Then to the swapping. I logged on to Swap-bot and made print-out's for the swaps that are active. I marked some swaps as sent. I addressed the envelopes and wrote notes for the inside. Later I put the ATCs in the plastic sleeves and packed them into the envelopes, sealed them, used up the last of my 39 cent stamps on them.

I then trekked to the post office in order to mail out another package, too, and dropped all the envelopes into the mail! They are on their way!

As well with what I described above were ATCs and envelope prepping for four swaps that are closing soon. I have everything packed up and ready to go as soon as I know my swap partner's addresses, I can address the envelopes and mail those out.

I also sent off one ATC for a "winner takes all" for one ATC swapping Yahoo Group that I am on. As well I noted by email and in the online database that I did sent it out.

Lastly I did all the prep work to send around a box of second generation and original ATCs for a Yahoo Group which I am on in which we trade our own ATCs with each other in a "box" method as well as trading ATCs that other people made but we want to swap with others. What we do is collect names of people interested in swapping. We then gather 90 ATCs, which is 10 trading card sleeves with 9 ATCs in each one. We then mail this box of 90 ATCs to the people on the list. We can take out what we want and put in either our own ATCs or other people's ATCs. We call these Art Boxes.

So anyhow I set up the list of swappers for that, on my computer. I then marked the online Yahoo Group with the information. Then I mailed that out. This group is for people in the USA only as we use Priority Mail flat rate envelopes with Delivery Confirmation and that is not transferrable to other countries.

Wow, today was a busy art making day and also mail art swapping day.