ATC Jams

Oh dear, I've been neglecting my poor blog because of a new obsession - ATC Jams.  It's all my mom's fault - she said I have so much STUFF that I should start making ATC's to use up some of the bits and pieces.  (She has a stamp that I need - it says "It's not trash - it's ephemera".  Definitely me!)

  
Since I have some non-papercrafting followers (welcome, all!),  ATC's are Artist Trading Cards - little pieces of artwork measuring 2 1/2" x 3 1/2".  Artists trade them just like baseball cards.  Here's one that my aunt made - not sure if you can see her beautiful handwriting around the edges that says "Art is in the heart".  I think that's pretty clever. 

Now the Jam part - it's a collaborative form of art, where an ATC is created by three different participants.  The first person creates a background (actually 3 identical ones), sends them to a second person who adds something and then sends them on to participant #3 .  This person completes the artwork and then sends a final version to the other two.  There are some who say JAMS stands for Just Add More Stuff, but I'm told the actual genesis is more along the lines of a band having a jam session and combining different instruments to make beautiful music.  Being a musical person, I like that interpretation best!

So I signed up with a Yahoo group to participate and got hooked.  Being a newcomer to the group, I haven't gotten alot of #2's and #3's to work on yet, but I've been having a blast creating the #1's.  I've been able to go through my stash of handcrafted background papers and turn many of them into ATC bases.  Here's one that I created:

This was done on wet watercolor paper that was drip-dropped with different colors of watercolor paint in a semi-random fashion.  I used Twinkling H2O's, which have a mica base that leaves a nice shimmery finish.  When it was dry, I overstamped the flowers.  I'll have to post the finished ATC I get back - it will be fun to see what the other two do with it.

Here's one that I was the third person on.  The originator made the base of the blue polka-dotted paper and sent it to my mom.  She added the black and white doodles (which are called Zentangles - I keep saying "NO"  I don't want to learn how to do these - I don't need another thing to do!  It's not as easy to master as you might think - she's actually taken several classes in the art of Zentangling). 

I added the silver quarter-circle, which was a recycled foil safety-seal from a jar of something or other die cut with a Nestabilities pinking circle die and then hammered with Tim Holtz' texture hammer.  Oh - and the "Awesome" stamp.  Couldn't decide between that and "Inspire", but the funky font on this one seemed to go with the Zentangle drawing.

Not sure I'll get rid of many bits and pieces this way, but it's still fun!