The 4th Inspirational Altered Card Deck Swap!

Summer is dwindling to a close and it's time to start coming indoors:

The garden is giving it's last, the canning is almost done (though is it ever done-done?), my four boys are back-to-school, the chill in the air is reducing time spent outside since these old bones get achy fast... 

All of which means I have TIME now, not a lot, but still *some* and it's MINE. 

Though I was sick with the 1st Back-To-School-Brought-Home-Bug the idea of wasting my *ME* time was NOT happening, so I settled down to get my cards completed for

 The 4th Inspirational Altered Card Deck Swap: http://www.carddeckswap.com

Heard about this 3 years ago and was too shy in my abilities to go for it that year...

Last year I registered but had health issues for almost the entire summer so my limited energy was spent elsewhere...

This year: 

I got it done!!!

HUZZAH!!!

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The topic this year is 'Favorite Song Lyrics'... not as easy as it sounds. 

Eventually narrowed it down to:

"See The Art in Me"

From: Art in Me by Jars of Clay

Seemed very appropriate for this AND one of my all time favorite songs!

Made Mixed Media backgrounds on 14" X 17" Strathmore Bristol.

Base layers are some of the fug-ly pattern papers I keep around for Mixed Media, printed images from my Collage collection and a few die-cut items all attached with Gloss Gel Medium.  

Top layers are Paint, Spray and Stencils. 

Once they dried a few hours, LOTS of Yummy layers...

I cut the backgrounds down to 2 1/2" X 3 1/2" 'cards' 

92 cards in total from 4 background sheets.

I made a template of a Face Silhouette with a printed image glued to some heavily waxed cardboard, a backing from a stencils package... waste-not, want-not!

Traced the stencil on each card with Broad Black Permanent Marker and colored around to make a 'Face Full of Art' on each card. 

Each one is ~completely~ unique, each it's own piece of ART.  

Then added the Lyrics on the front and my name, email, song choice on the back. 

Voila! 

90 Finished Cards 

*Only ruined 2 with my shaky hands when tracing, not bad!*

Sending the 52 required cards (plus a few extra in case she needs them...) 

AND I have some left to swap or send out in my own Happy Mail!

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9 stacks of 10 cards:

 Some of the individual cards:

 

14" X 17" Mixed Media  Background #1:

 

 14" X 17" Mixed Media  Background #2:

14" X 17" Mixed Media  Background #3:

 

 14" X 17" Mixed Media  Background #4:

 

Finished  14" X 17" Mixed Media Backgrounds drying:

erm... yes... it was QUITE messy!

 

 ***BONUS!!!***

Smeared the leftover paints in 2 of my personal Art Journals for some pretty cool backgrounds (or starts of ones...)  Waste-Not, Want-Not! *grin*

The Entire mess...

Including a page done in a Travelling Art Journal at the same time. 

Cut 'Cards':

Adding the 'Face'...

Done on the left, Stencil over a card on the right:

Adding the Lyrics:

All Done! 30 cards seen.

 Batch #1:

 All Done! 30 cards seen.

 Batch #2:

 All Done! 30 cards seen.

 Batch #3:

***Reader BONUS***

For making it aaaaaall the way to the bottom...

A Bunny Bottom!!!

Our House Bunny: Hope, was busy digging around under our Pantry Cupboards while I was gluing the Lyrics and Info on... TOO cute to not stop and take a picture of.

That is one HUGE Dust Bunny!