My First ATC Swap

I made two different Valentine ATCs in February, wanting to try my hand at making these little thingies. Several of us at Pages In Time decided to give them a go.   Don't ask me why, but I decided the best way to learn and get comfortable with making them was to sign up for two different swaps.

 The first one due is in the Everything Wendy Vecchi group.  As the group's title indicates, I need to use Wendy's techniques and Wendy's Studio 490 stamps. This ended up being quite a challenge for me because my imagination went beyond the 4 stamp sets I own. 

Here's the artistic journey: (All inks I list are Tim Holtz Distress Ink. I used 2 stamps in the Studio 490 Dimensional Rose Art set and the scrolls from the flower in the Art of Making Merry set.) After I decided to distress the background with Tea Dye and Broken China (cloudless sky), I used Fired Brick (the color of red tulips) to stamp the numbers background.  This was comfortable as I used this idea on one of Tim's 12 Days of Christmas tags.  Then I stamped the small flower with Coffee Archival Ink and inked it with Mustard Seed.  I wanted it to look like the sun and bright spring daffodils and tulips.  Ooops.  Now I don't like how things are coordinating, so I go back over the Tea Dye with Mustard Seed.  Much better.  I stamp the scrolls with the new Pumice Stone and go over the dots with a clear Glaze pen.

Although I originally wanted to use a larger flower in the center (Wendy stamp, of course),  in the end I went with the gypsy girl from the Graphics Fairy (on-line free images).  I love the look on her face.  She definitely is counting the days til spring.  I used a computer generated sentiment, Think Spring.  I edged the entire card with Broken China after I decided against trim. I'm happy with my design, especially since it's my 3rd ATC and first swap. Seven identical ATCs made, 6 mailed off.  I can't wait to see what I get back.