By the Number ATCS

I joined JeanP's by the number ATC swap on the cricut board. Each person chose a number between 1-25 and then were assigned a theme based on that number. My themes were innocence, patriotic, playing the melody and bon voyage. I had a hard time at first coming up with my ideas. I never like to do the expected, although sometimes I do (lol). When I think of innocence I think of sweet children and cute animals but that was too generic so I googled innocence images to see what would come up, nothing. Then I googled the word innocence and found the song, "Innocence" by Averil Lavigne. I think of pink as an innocent color so the concept for my "Innocence" ATC was born. I used pink background paper with music notes and added an image of Avril Lavigne with the chorus from her song. I also added pink, frilly ribbon to her image and 3 small pink pearls.

I decided to find songs for all of my themes after I did Innocence so for Patriotic I used the song "Angel Flight" by Radney Foster for my inspiration. This song is in tribute to all members of the US military, especially those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. If you haven't listened to it I would look it up on youtube, it will bring you to tears. I printed a photo image of a C-130, the types of planes used and popped it up on a background of white feathers. I added a tag at the bottom "Angel Flight" held on by blue brads. At the top I adhered a silver dog tag with the word Remember written on it. The background paper is some patriotic paper I found that has the statue of liberty, let freedom ring, flags, etc on it.

For playing the melody I decided to use the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band. I found an image online of the devil laying the golden fiddle at Johnny's feet and thought it was perfect. The background paper is orange with smoky gray tendrils throughout. I added a popped sticker of a fiddle and bow to complete the look.

For Bon Voyage, I again went outside the box. I know that "bon voyage" is french for good journey, my friend (meant to be a long journey) but I didn't want to do anything travel related. I found the song, "The Long Goodbye" by Brooks and Dunn and decided this would work. I wanted to emphasize the broken heart and the distance between 2 people who fall out of a relationship. The background paper is from DCWV photo stack, featuring raindrops but I thought it could also be tears. I added a broken heart image from the Indie Art cart and placed over all alpha beads spelling out "Au revoir mon ami" which is french for goodbye my friend.

This was fun but challenging! I can't wait to see everyone elses ATCs!

Last Home Sweet Home ATC

This is the last one I needed to make. This wasn't my original idea but I think it's probably my favorite of all 4. The card base is Bazill orange and layered over that is a black and white image that I found on the internet. The image consists of a log cabin in the woods, very peaceful and serene. I added ribbon featuring leaves in fall colors and then added a key shaped brad on top of the ribbon. I've titled this ATC "Key to Peace". This is a title that lets the holder decide what it means because it can mean many things. For me it means that being in lovely and serene surroundings is the definition of peace.

Texas ATC

This is my 3rd atc for kopperheads home sweet home swap on the cricut board. No Texan can talk about home without mentioning Texas, it just isn't done! The tag is actually a stamp that I colored with pencils and then I cut the frame around it from Destinations. I tried to go with Texas colors of red, white, blue (I used cream instead of white) but still make it look rustic/country. Simple but heartfelt, hence the name "Where the Heart Is".

Cricut MB Home ATCs

Ok, I apologize, I've been MIA for a while now. I've actually been doing lots of scrapbooking, card making and atc making but just haven't taken the time to scan pictures and post to my blog. These ATCs are for kopperhead's Home Sweet Home ATC swap on the cricut messageboard. The first one is of a robin and its nest, I stamped and colored the robin using prismacolors. The branch is from gyspy wanderings (I cut it into pieces) and the nest is from Sugar and Spice. I stamped clouds and then chalked over them with blue chalk. I've titled this atc, appropriately, "Robin's Home".

The second atc is also for kopperhead's home sweet home swap. I can just imagine what you are thinking, "How does this fit into the home sweet home theme?". Well, maybe the title will explain. I've titled it "In His Arms". For me, just being with my husband is home, no matter where we are. This is a simple yet glitzy atc. I printed a silhouette of a couple dancing on pale blue paper, layered it onto sapphire blue glitter paper and layered that onto black cardstock. Then to jazz it up I added 3 blue rhinestone accents and a button covered with glossy accents and turquoise microbeads.

Bird ATC

Well,
I finished my bird atc. I love cardinals, they are my favorite song bird so I knew right away that I would do something featuring cardinals for my bird atc. My MIL is in the process of starting a photography business and is always snapping pictures. This particular picture was too gorgeous for me to pass up! I love the way the male and female are lined up with each other. If you can only imagine how this looks as an 11x17, too beautiful for words! I wanted to keep the focal point the pic, so I didn't do much embellishing but I love the clean lines this atc has! I did add a sky blue banner across the right corner which reads "In love, there is harmony" printed on my computer in italics and I attached it using red brads. I matted the photo in red and brown and really like how the combination works together with the photo. I've titled this atc "Soul Mates".

Sea Life ATC

Well, it took me about 2 weeks of planning, buying, implementing, etc. but I finally finished my sea life atc. This is based off the gel card on splitcoaststampers, altered to fit an atc. I cut the turtle and sea weed off the cartridge Life's a Beach, adhered them to light blue cardstock. Then I made my gel bags and covered with a dark turquoise frame featuring an oval cutout. I couldn't find the frame I wanted to use so designed one on my gypsy, boy does that thing come in handy! These are actually very heavy feeling! And the title? "Turtle Crossing".

2nd Butterfly ATC

This is the ATC for my butterfly group B on the cricut MB. I did the butterflies like I did the chili peppers on the christmas card below. But this time the colors I used were raspberry, pool, stream, and wild plum. Each ATC is unique but the same, but I didn't want to show all of them so here is an example. You can't really tell from the picture but these are really like a mini framed picture. There is the butterflies on acetate and framing the acetate is light pink and dark purple cardstock. I used foam dimensional adhesive to give the appearance of a true frame. I thought they needed something more so I added colored and shaped rhinesones. 2 diagonal corners have 3 different flower rhinestones in matching shades, I varied the color on the ATCS, this was is lavendar and clear. Then to tie the rhinestones with the butterflies I added two mini rhinestone butterflies, again the colors are varied on the ATCs but in the example they are pink and blue. The background cardstock behind the acetate is a soft raspberry pink. Hope you guys like this, it took me a lot of work to make the frames. I used my gypsy but I'm still not very good with it, although I've had it for a while. I used gypsy wanderings and just used a basic postage stamp cut and put in a rectangle in the center to produce the frame, it was an interesting experiment! Oh, and by the way I've decided to call this ATC "Kaleidoscope Butterflies"!