Dandelion – The Art of Cobwebs

Four tiny works of [he]art, called ATC’s / ACEO’s

Morning all, and a very Happy Monday! Something a little different from the norm today.

Some folks might already know exactly what an ATC or an ACEO is, but some may not, so I’ll give a short explaination to make sure that we’re all reading from the same hymn sheet and no one is at a disadvantage!

ATCs and ACEOs are 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch works of art. The only real difference between the two is the commercial (for sale) intent of the art piece by the artist.

ACEO = Art Cards, Editions, and Originals are virtually the same as ATCs, EXCEPT they were created with the intent to be sold.
ATC = Artist Trading Cards were created with the intent to trade them only. (i.e. given as a swap with someone else, and no money changing hands).

While art is subjective, the quality of craftsmanship and materials used are important, so there are guidelines:

Examples of ‘Sub-par’ works are:

Collage elements falling off / poorly glued / glue showing
Cards of the wrong size (It’s a very strict size of 2.5″ x 3.5″)
Computer print outs which haven’t been made by the ATC maker, and poorly drawn over.
Cards created with little to no thought (i.e. a sticker or rubber stamped image on a plain piece of cardboard with little to no extra effort)
Scribbles on a plain piece of paper

Basically you should make what you would dearly love and want to receive.

Ok .. schools out.

I like to paint my ATC’s & ACEO’s – but have been known to make the odd fun art card which may have beads, images, book pages, musical manuscripts and all manner of other things attached to them. It’s just as the fancy takes me. However, these ATC’s / ACEO’s which I share today have all been painted, on water-colour card, pre-cut to the correct size.

This first one was inspired by the Lavender plants in my garden.

Lavender pot — The colour of the mount is actually more like the green in the photo at the head of this post. The flash has changed the colour here and made it look more like a sage green.

The mount in the photo (the surrounding green board) is from a selection of different coloured mounts I asked a framer to make for me, in the right size, with the ‘hole’ cut to the correct size to take the ATC/ACEO. The mounts are not a requirement for an Art Card – but personally, I really love having the mounts if I want to frame a card. The Art Cards themselves are so small, they could easily get lost inside a frame, so I love to use the mounts to draw the eye inwards to the art.

This next Art Card is again inspired by my garden (and again, the green mount has been washed out by the flash):

British Bluebells — Bluebells. ATC/ACEO – 2.5″ x 3.5″ in size.

I have Bluebells in little groups of flowery hats for fairies, all over the garden. When in bloom they look like a fairy milliner has set out a selection of different sized Bluebell Hats, ready for any passing fairy to try on for size.

Of course .. there are some Bluebells which are of the larger size … and I should imagine that the Fairy Dress Designer is kept busy making beautiful skirts and frocks for those fairies who wish to be dressed by the best!

This next Art Card is something from the Fairy Gardens up and down the lands …. It’s official name is Taraxacum – or – to you and me: – a Dandelion Clock. But you and I know them as they really are: Fairies, or Fairy Wishes … which are meant to be picked and blown whilst making a wish!

Dandelion Wishes — Make a Wish! An Art Card ATC/ACEO of 2.5″ x 3.5″ in size.

Although it first appears to be painted simply in black and white, it has three different greens, two different whites, a very soft grey colour and black. It also has some cheeky dots of glitter dust. Well … it’s a Fairy Wish …. it would have been rude not to include glitter dust!

Information about Dandelion plants from that font of knowledge Wiki:

Taraxacum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, which consists of species commonly known as dandelion. They are native to Eurasia and North America, but the two commonplace species worldwide, T. officinale and T. erythrospermum, were imports from Europe that now propagate as wildflowers. Both species are edible in their entirety.

I’m teaching my Grandson, Little Cobs, this poem (which I loaned my Art Card to, as a background) and trying to get him to remember to say it before he blows a Dandelion Clock and makes a wish ….

1 Dandelion poem by SA Hall — *Dandelion poem written by S.A.Hall.*

And finally, in this set of four ATC’s (Artist Trading Cards – aka ACEO’s) is a little bunch of Delphiniums, tied up with a bow of green …

The spring green coloured bow is something which is allowed in an ATC/ACEO. It’s all part of the art.

If you’re interested in finding out more about ACEO’s/ATC’s, and perhaps making some yourself then there are lots of forums which are dedicated to this art form. One here: ATCs For All .com and I’ve also found another site which gives information which you might find helpful here: artpromotivate.com … but Google will be your bestest friend if you’d like to see more.

There are also a bucket-load of video’s on You Tube which you can watch – ranging from a couple of minutes to …. oh, well, how long is a piece of string?!!!

Some people take their Art Cards extremely seriously and will spend hours on them. Some make them for fun and to pass a bit of time doing something which has no stress. Other’s make them for no reason, and some folks make them, and swap them with other makers. Some people make and sell them … and some of these artists have quite a following and can command quite high prices for such a tiny piece of artwork. And then there’s me …. who makes them and will either keep them, send them to someone as a surprise, or I’ll use them on a handmade card … or even use them in scrap-booking.

Have a go! You don’t need to paint, you can glue, stick, draw, … anything! Just do have a go … and if you do … please blog your lovely artwork and let everyone see it. You might just be the person who inspires others to take up this fabulous little pastime, and you might also find out that you really like playing in this tiny frame!

Before I toddle off ….

May I take a moment to say HELLO to some new followers who no doubt will become friends with us all eventually. I won’t name names, but please feel welcome to comment on blog posts and introduce yourself. If you have a blog yourself you can bet your sweet bippy that people here will come and visit your blogs and you might even pick up some new followers yourself too!

Anyhoo … Happy Monday and … have a truly wonderful week! Thank you so much for coming and joining me in having a coffee round the kitchen table. I love seeing you here.

Sending squidges and lots of Monday love to all. Be good to each other, and … may your God go with you. ~

Save

Never Stop Making Wishes!

Going through the moving of my sewing desk, along with numerous boxes of crafty stuff which I did last week, I came across a long forgotten little blackboard which I bought from one of those pound shops for … yes you guessed it, a £1. I can remember that I bought it with something in mind to do with it, however that ‘something’ long ago made its travelling plans and went on a walking holiday out of my right ear and never came back. So … seeing the blackboard again made me think that I really needed to do something with it. So I did!

Like the dope that I am … I forgot to take a photo of the blackboard in its original state, (DOH!) so I took a photo of the back of it so that you could see the plain wood and what colour it was.

It’s a soft wood, and quite light in weight, so not something that will pull a wall down if you hang it on a nail!

The front … I painted the frame in a deep wine red colour. It took the paint really well and dried pretty quickly, which I was glad about because I was eager to crack on with the project.

While waiting … I knew I wanted to put some flowers on the frame, so set about making some roses.

The making of the blackboard flowers — petals in No.1 are waiting to be formed. Petals in No.2 have been shaped into ‘cup’ shapes. And finally, No.3 is the completed ‘rose’ flower.

I cut out a variety of sizes of the same flower – one was to be a larger flower and I wanted two others to be slightly smaller.

Once the shapes were cut, I then popped them into a cardboard box which I’d lined with some cling-film (cling wrap), and I lay the ‘petals’ of each flower on it, and then spritzed them with some Cosmic Shimmer sprays, to turn the petals into the colours I wanted them to be.

While these were drying, I went back to the blackboard and did the ‘words of encouragement’ you see in the photo.

blurry hanging on the wall Wishes Blackboard — Bit of a blurry photo, but the only one I got of it hanging on the wall of my cottage. *(The flash wiped out the colours a little and left everything looking ‘flat’)*

Once the rose petals were dry, I then shaped them into ‘cup’ shapes, and assembled them, shaping the petals as I went along. Once all assembled, I then spritzed them again, very lightly, where needed, to adjust each rose colour so that it looked like it had grown on the same bush as the others. (there’s method in my madness! lol). Finally, I added a tiny sprinkle, here and there, of chunky ice crystals (like glitter, but not) – just to give them a bit of sparkle.

I die cut some leaves, and a bit of deep ‘greenery’ filler and then built the floral decoration in the top left corner, making it sit upon a little soft cream coloured crocheted doily.

And that’s all there was to it! Ta Dahhhh!

Happy Monday!

May I just take this moment to say hello to some new followers. I won’t mention each person by name, but you know who you are. 🙂 Thank you for joining and coming to visit. Please feel free to chat away in a comment on any post you’d like to. Don’t feel shy. Everyone here is amazingly friendly and you’ll fit right in.

If you can’t work out where the comments section is … go to the top of the post you want to comment on and find the title of the post (eg: for this post the title is Never Stop Making Wishes) … just over to the right of the title is a pale grey speech bubble which will turn darker when you hover your cursor on it. Click that speech bubble and it will take you to the comments section and you’ll be able to read and write there. 😀

So anyhoo …. This is the last Monday in April…. so let’s make it a great day! Plaster a smile to your face and each time you catch yourself without your smile, paste it back there and try to keep it there. If nothing else it will make people wonder what you’re up to! lol

Have a truly lovely day my friends, and … be good to each other.

Sending squidges by the bucket load ~

Make a Wish!

I began making this card over a week ago. I knew the ‘look’ I was aiming for, but at each stage of the making I stopped and kind of ‘fell out’ with the card. Something was nagging at me, telling me I didn’t like it. But I kept going back to it and doing a bit more, and a little more .. until it was finally finished on Saturday, and now it’s made, I LOVE it.

It has a sort of steam-punkery feel to it, but not. A kind of vintage feel – but not. A bit of a fantasy thing – but not. I actually can’t pin down what type of descriptive ‘category’ it fits into. Perhaps you can help me with that one, because I’m stumped!

But … I’ll talk about the making of it:

I forgot to take photo’s of the first couple of stages, so you’ll have to imagine that you saw the paper I layered down on the 6″x 6″ scored and folded Kraft card, (a vintage style paper with a duck egg blue background and roses of various colours and sizes all over it) which I ‘vintaged’ the edges of by blending some warm brown ink from a stamp pad using a bristle blending brush. Onto this I layered a 5×5″ piece of lush green coloured card which I’d embossed using the Crafters Companion ‘Leaf Vein’ Textures Embossing Folder. (LOVE this embossing folder!). I gently ‘scuffed’ the raised leaf vein embossing by dragging the same brown ink pad which I’d used to blend the base paper across the embossed veins, in order to give more importance to the texture and make the veining stand out even more.

I then ‘topped and bottomed’ the card with some of my most favourite lace in my collection, and then added a narrow piece of fresh green organza ribbon over the top of the lace, just to bring the colour out of the card. . . . . . . Now came the fun part.

Adding the paper doily was something I knew I wanted to do in order to draw the eye to what I was going to make as the main part of the front of the card. The flowers were made myself, using a Tim Holtz die (which I’ve had for ages and really don’t use enough – tsk tsk), and some scraps of cardstock in pink, blue and a mustardy yellow, with a scrap of green card for the leaves. I cut the flowers out on my Big Shot machine in my craft room, but then took them all into the living room and spent an hour shaping and putting together while I watched a film on TV. The butterfly was from a small box I keep in my craft room, filled it with any left over die cuts which I don’t use at the time.

I added some WOW glitters to the tips of some of the petals of the flowers, and the wings of the butterfly.

Then came the ‘WISH’ ….

I have a few of these little, lightweight tins with clear lids (sometimes used for Wedding Favours – but I use them in crafting for all sorts of things). I cut a piece of mottled green paper and fixed it to the inside of the tin. I then put some multi coloured Flower Soft just around part of the bottom of the inside and left it on one side to dry. I then worked on the lid.

In my little tin of ‘saved die-cuts’ I had a tiny little stem of blue bells, which was left over from a card that I’d made ages ago, and I knew these bluebells would look perfect on the lid of this little box. So using some glue, I glittered the blue bells to turn them from plain black, into something more magical and pretty, and fixed them to the clear lid of the box.

Then I went back to the little tin box and added some wiggly lines of glitter to the green paper base, and then fixed the crystal glass Fairy Wishing Ball. This was probably the most fiddly bit. Keeping that incy, wincy, tiny, little crystal wishing ball in one place would have tried the patience of an Angel with nothing on her mind!! But, in the end, I won and anchored that baby in the right place, and then added the teeny bottle of Fairy Dust.

All that was left then was to add a very small die cut butterfly, and the little tin box was all finished.

But .. the card wasn’t. The ‘Make a Wish’ sentiment was computer generated (I used a fabulous fancy font), printed out onto some white cardstock, matted onto some black card then cut by hand, and shaped so that it curved out from the card and stood proud, just a little.

I wanted to make this a card of wishes, plural. Not just one wish, but four. So … for the inside of the card I made a tag …

The tag has two more wishes hidden inside the card … a tiny little resin Wish Bone, and a Dandelion head .. ready to blow!

Of course … the card had to have a box. You couldn’t send this in a regular envelope because of the depth … so I made it a matching box.

Once I’d finished this card I stood back from it and gave it a long look … and loved it. I wish I was a better photographer because in real life this really is such a pretty card, with a kind of magical promise about it. It’s not a card for a child, but for someone older, perhaps a mom, or friend, aunt, cousin, work colleague … someone who believes in the power of a wish. Someone who needs to feel that you’re wishing them good luck … and wants them to wish it for themselves. Someone with a birthday, who no longer has candles on their cake which they can wish upon as they blow the candles out.

Fairy Dust isn’t just for children. Fairy Dust, Fairy Wishing Balls, Wish Bones and Dandelion Wishes are for people who believe in the magic of their dreams.

Go on ... Make A Wish! — Go on … Make A Wish!

Thank you SO much for coming to visit today. I very much appreciate your company, and thank you for the time you’ve spent with me here.

Please feel free to leave a comment behind before you leave. I love to keep in contact with folks who read my blog, as it get’s us chatting together and we kind of get to know each other a little bit more. The internet can be an ‘isolation box’ for people, and I just hate that. So let’s get talking to each other!

I’m wishing you a truly blessed rest of your day.

Love and squidgy stuff ~