Garden ATC Swap - Victoria Talcott Wormell, CT

Even though Victoria was recovering from shoulder surgery . . . and she told me that since she had her 3rd child, the children in her family out-number the adults (!!) Still, Victoria managed to participate in this swap most beautifully :^ D - lucky us! Victoria used her shade garden for inspiration.

Garden ATC Swap - Cynthia Weed, Wyoming

From the creative miz weed in wyoming, "we are stardust, we are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden . . . " Thank you, cynthia!!

Garden ATC swap - Melissa Woolsey, Oregon

Melissa Woolsey sent in some wonderful hand stamped, completely made of fabric, Garden ATCs!

Backs of Lenna's Garden ATCs

As promised, here's a photo of the back of my Garden ATCs that shows the back of the floral beauty cards!

Garden ATC swap - Maggie Hannigan, Canada

Here is a close-up photo of the ATCs you see me holding in my hands in an earlier post - Maggie Hannigan came over to Wolfe Island and delivered these Garden ATCs to me in person, while we were visiting Canada! Aren't they just lovely??

Garden ATCs - Lenna Andrews, CT!

Below, Lenna's garden ATCs, created with the ARTchix Studio Floral Beauties cards in the middle of them. The floral beauties cards were designed by members of the ARTchix Studio yahoo group - some of you who designed them are in this swap!! Click on any photo below for more detail. I created these ATCs so you can still read the back of the floral beauty card . . . I will have to take a photo later to show you. My scanner is out of commission at the moment ever since since my hard drive died -- but because of my smart hubby who does this sort of thing for a living, everything on my computer was saved and is recovered. I have a new hard drive too! Steven thinks we will have to change the operating system (he tried a server version) & then the scanner should hook up again!

I created these for this swap (and a couple extra) while we were away in Canada. There were a couple of stormy, rainy days that made it a good day to sit at the table, gaze at the river & do artwork. We had a wonderful vacation, and used the good sunny days for lots of boating & sailing on the river. Because we were away, and then I lost my hard drive, it feels like forever since I have posted anything here on the swaps blog. I have some catching up to do too. I have also received ATCs from Melissa Woolsey, Victoria Talcott Wormell, Cat Dodt-Ellis, Susan Metcalfe and Maggie Hannigan -- as well as a package of 20 beautiful Circle Book pages from Frieda Oxenham in Scotland!! Tomorrow I will get out my camera & share them with you.

While I was on Wolfe Island, one of the Thousand islands (the largest one) I had a special treat of meeting one of our swap participants in person and receiving her Garden ATCs - HAND DELIVERED to me! Maggie Hannigan was across the river in Kingston, Ontario for a surface design course at one of the colleges and made arrangements to meet with me the last night of our vacation. She took the ferry over, we had a lovely visit and Steven took some photos of us and Maggies ATCs. I will take some close up shots tomorrow & share them with you soon!

Garden ATCs - Vicki Page, WI

I received some wonderful ribbon embroidery ATCs from Vicki Page in Wisconsin today, wowser! You all continue to amaze me. Each set of ATCs is different and so beautiful. Thank you *all* for putting your best effort forth and making this such a great swap!

As I think some of you know, I will be away from my computer for the next 10 days or so . . . . please continue to send in your swaps as my mail will be safely held for me until my return. You do need to deliver your fabric ATCs for the Garden swap to me by July 31st in order to have them be part of the swap! Don't miss out - let that dealine drive you to create, if you have not already. I will be away from my computer, but busy making art along the St Lawrence River - creating my own 3 sets of Garden ATCs for our swap over the next week or so - yay!

Garden ATCs - Catherine van der Hoeff, The Netherlands

We have beautiful Soul Flowers ATCs from Catherine van der Hoeff in the Netherlands! Click on them for a closer view.

I just love these! Catherine enclosed a note describing HOW she made them: They are made on Kunin felt and she used a method described in the book, "Pretty Little Things" by Sally Alexander. The author described a technique called "abracadabra collage technique" where you list tasks on little pieces of paper (paint, cut, chalk, wipe, ink, etc) - put them in a bowl and draw them, then do what it says!! Catherine says she translated some of the tasks to fabric (like stitch, sequin, etc) and she said it was so much fun. Then Catherine ironed on polyfilm (plastic) to keep everything in place. Catherine writes that she hopes I like the results - I DO!!! I am so happy you made an extra ATC for me!! thank you : ))

If you are in this swap I am eagerly awaiting your ATCs as 25 more sets are due to arrive . . . remember I will be without computer access July 14th - 22nd, so I won't be able to tell you until after that date that your swap art has reached me . . . . ALL ATCs must be here by Tuesday July 31st and then I may be enlisting help to swap all these gorgeous cards!

: ) yours creatively, lenna

Garden ATCs - Fiona Brockie, Scotland UK

Gosh, everytime I get the mail (almost) it seems there is another package with ATCs inside. I guess that is because it is just 2 weeks until they are all due. Click on this photo of 3 beautiful ATCs created by Fiona Brockie from Scotland, UK, to your left. Fiona worried if hers would be up to par -- you have no worries, Fiona!



They are all wonderful. I love the titles Fiona gave each ATC - click to read . . .



Fiona also sent an extra ATC for me, thank you!

Circle Book Swap - a link

I know it's still some time until the circle book pages for that swap is due (Sept. 7th) but I was looking at Frieda Oxenham's Blog tonight and WOW! She has some circle pages done! The ones she shows are extra ones for her own Circle Book - but they are very inspiring & I cannot help but send you there with this link to: Circle pages on her Blog. Thank you, Frieda! I know she is also working on the ones she will send in for the swap - I can't wait to see those as well. She writes on her blog, "Ended up with green, turquoise, orange and one yellow page so far. Want to do more in red so that I can mail 20 pages to Lenna in due course." Oh happy days! I was thinking of using fabric on my circle pages as well (at least some of them) so Frieda's pages are giving me ideas . . . . . something Frieda seems to do for me a lot! : ^)

Also just to let you know, I have received 2 more sets of Garden ATCs today - one from Fiona Brockie in Scotland, UK - and one from Catherine van der Hoeff in the Netherlands. They have arrived safely! I will be posting scans of the ATCs in the next day or two, thank you for your patience.

Garden ATCs - Dottie Mucha, Connecticut

Dottie Mucha from Avon, Connecticut (that's my town too!) has sent in 3 sets of 3, beautiful white, soft as summer breeze Garden ATCs. Her central image is so interesting; I am not even sure how she made it? I welcome her ATCs and hope to see the rest in my mailbox soon. So far, 15 participants have sent in. We are down to 42 total in the swap, so I am waiting for 27 more! Click on any image for more detail.

Garden ATCs - Janice Perkin, UK

From Warrington, UK we have 3 more lovely fabric/garden ATCs from Janice Perkin. Thank you Janice for getting your ATCs in with plenty of time to spare, and thanks too for the beautiful old lace you sent in leiu of postage - much appreciated.