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Our next swap will be ATCs – Artist Trading Cards. The swap info and registration will be available on Wednesday afternoon.

To help us get inspired, I asked three great friends to be guests this week sharing some ideas for making ATCs. Yesterday I shared Jill’s inspiration and Lisa will be our guest later today.

This guest post is from Kim of Kim’s Crafty Apple and she’s showing us how she transforms orphan blocks into beautiful ATCs.

Thanks to Kim for this guest post and educating me… here are two acronyms to add to your vocabulary that relate to ATCs:

• OOAK – One Of A Kind
• ACEO is the same thing as ATC basically but it stands for art card editions and originals. This is what you would call them if you plan on selling your ATCs.

ATCs featured in the button above were created by upstatelisa.

About Kim

I am a mother of three beautiful daughters, a wife, a quilter, an artist, and an apple orchardist. I have been creating for as long as I can remember. I made my first quilt for my brother when I was 5 years old. I pieced it by hand from my mother’s rag bin and it even included the furry toilet seat cover! When I met my now husband, I discovered his mother was an avid, talented quilter and a great teacher. She soon taught me the tricks of the trade and I have continued to grow in my quilting endeavors.

Find Kim here: Web site | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest

And she has two Etsy shops: www.kimscraftyapple.etsy.com and www.theapple.etsy.com.

ATC – with Orphan Blocks

When Michele told me the next swap she was having was ATCs and asked me to share with you some that I have created and how I did them I was re-inspired! I hadn’t made any for quite awhile but my mind was already racing with ideas at the first mention of them.

The possibility with ATCs are truly endless and FUN since they’re little and don’t take much time. I love a project that I can start and finish in one sitting.

I came up with three ATCs that I’m going to share with you today. All of them were created using some of my orphan blocks. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “orphan blocks” they are blocks that were made to be a part of a quilt but never quite made it into the quilt for some reason or the other – hence, they are orphans. I have a secret love for these blocks since I enjoy a challenge of finding a place for everything (probably why my craft room has to keep expanding…).

Supplies:

• Orphan Blocks – Assortment



• Embellishments – fibers, scraps of fabrics with fusing on them, beads, etc.



• Thread
• Light Backing Fabric (light enough to write on in the end)
• Stiff Interfacing (I used Timtex)
• Fabric Glue Stick
• Fabric Pen (I used Micron Brand)

The Modern Orphan ATCs

I started my first ATCs by cutting an orphan block left from the 2011 Modern Solids Quilt Along.

Step 1: Cut orphan blocks in 2.5″ x 3.5″ pieces.

I tend to cut out at least two from each block if I can. This way you can create a ‘series’ of ATCs if you want. If you can only get one 2.5″ x 3.5″ from your orphan block that is completely acceptable as well.

Step 2: With this modern look I wanted to keep my embellishments to a minimal.

I decided to simply quilt each of my ATCs and keep a clean feel to these.

Step 3: Cut out a 2.5″ x 3.5″ piece of thick stabilizer (Timtex).

Step 4: Cut out a 2.5″ x 3.5″ piece of backing fabric.

Step 5: Layer these three together like a quilt sandwich using a bit of quilter’s glue stick to hold them together.

Step 6: Using a satin stitch, stitch around the edges of your ACEO to finish it off. This is the method that personally works best for me. I’ve tried to finish them by flipping them inside out like a pillow but I’m just not that good at getting my corner’s out and finishing it nicely. I’ve also tried binding like a quilt but it’s so small and you really do have to keep it at the 2.5″ x 3.5″ dimensions that binding doesn’t seem to work for me either.

Step 7: Using your fabric pen, label the back of your ATC (or ACEO) with it’s name, if it’s OOAK or which number of a series, your name and the date you made it.

Here are the two ATCs I made from my Modern Solid Orphan Block.

Elephant in the Grass ATC

Using the same method as I described in the Modern Solid ATCs I created this fun “Elephant in the Grass” ACEO. I only made one from this particular orphan block but I’m so happy with how it turned out. My inspiration started with the brass elephant charm. I loved it and knew it would be happy on this orphan block from my Boxed In Spring Quilt.

To start this one out I cut a piece that was about 4″ x 3″.

First I added the fiber embellishments using hand-dyed green fibers and ‘hairy’ green fibers. Next I added the elephant charm. He didn’t seem quite happy yet so I decided to add a fun green flower sun for him. Something was still not quite right but when I added the sparkly pink ric rac I knew this piece was done!

Now that it was done I cut the piece down to the required 2.5″ x 3.5″. I made a quilt sandwich with some Timtex, a light fabric backing and I satin stitched the edges closed. To finish this piece up I labeled the back so I can always remember when I created it!

I had such a great time creating these miniature pieces of art, I know that I will be making more – and soon! I hope this little piece helped inspire you to use up some of your orphans and create your own pieces of art to share with others.

Are you ready for a new swap .. something different, unique and super creative!

Our next swap will be ATCs – Artist Trading Cards. The swap info and registration will be available on Wednesday afternoon.

To help us get inspired, I asked three great friends to be guests this week sharing some ideas for making ATCs. First up is Jill, her post is below. Tomorrow, Kim and Lisa will be our guests. I’m sure your creative juices will be flowing!

ATCs featured in the button were created by upstatelisa.

About Jill

Please join me in welcoming today’s guest blogger, Jill, aka The Quilt Rat. Jill is a self taught artist who is constantly exploring ways to play with fabric and takes you along for the ride every step of the way.

I have been a follower of Jill’s for some time now, and have seen her use inks, paints, paper, stones, leaves and even aluminum cans in her quilted creations. With well over 250 posts you will find pages and pages of inspiration at www.thequiltrat.com.

Follow along with Jill, as she creates her first Artist Trading Cards and shares ideas on how you might wish to make some of your own.

Jill’s Inspiration

ATCs… just what are they? Artist Trading Cards are a wonderful way to trade, collect and share in the art we love most with other artists right across the globe. It is your chance to express yourself, using your favouite medium, technique and imagery and at just a mere 2.5 x 3.5 inches in size, they require a very small investment of time or resources.

When Michele first contacted me to ask if I’d be interested in doing this guest post, my initial response was that I had never made an ATC…..but then, I thought that perhaps this would be a terrific opportunity, we could learn together.

So let’s get started.

The ATCs you make should somehow reflect something of your style, something that has “you” written all over it. So are you someone who loves to paper piece, work with paints, do you explore various surface design techniques, how about thread embellishments, felting, beading? Well you get the idea…….so decide “what” you’d like to do and follow along with the posts this week to learn the “how”.

Artist Trading Cards are made in a similar fashion to fabric postcards, except that instead of making one little work of art at a time, with ATCs, you’ll be making one larger piece that is cut into several smaller ones.

For my ATCs, I decided to combine a few things many people recognize me for, my doodles, my play with fabric paints and my quilting.

I began by drawing a number of overlapping circles and simply drew (doodled) a wide variety of patterns in those shapes.

Next I scanned this into my computer and printed the image onto a sheet of T-shirt transfer paper (I used the kind available at an office supply store).

The image was then transferred to pieces of paper towel that I had painted some time ago. I wasn’t sure it would work on this, but it did. For more details about the transfer paper I used for this project, you can read this post about it on my blog.

The next step was to place my printed image layer on top of a piece of heavy stabilizer. There are several types on the market, you will want something comparable to Timtex or Peltex. Now, it was time to go to my machine and do a little free motion stitching to bond all of the layers together.

I should mention that I made mine about 8″ x 10″ simply because it was a good fit for printing an image from my computer, you could chose to begin with a larger or smaller piece but the idea is that you will be cutting multiple cards from the larger piece, and once my stitching was complete, I did use my rotary cutter to slice it all into small 2.5″ x 3.5″ sections.

With the front of your cards complete, it is time to make the backs. Again I used my computer to create the look of my back and printed it out on to cardstock…you could, of course, just write directly on to the cardstock if you like. What info should you include? Well, your name, the URL of your blog or web site, perhaps some contact info, like your email address and possibly the technique used to create your masterpieces.

The very last step is to attach the card backs, this is done simply by placing the front and back, wrong sides together and stitch them along the outer edge using your machine’s zig zag stitch. Remember that you are stitching through a lightweight cardboard type paper so you won’t want to have your stitches too close together, I found that a width setting of 3.0 and a length setting of 2.0 worked great.

So, how easy is that? Now you know how to get started on making your very own stack of ATCs.

Looking for even more inspiration? A wide variety of ways to create postcards are shown here on my blog, the same techniques could be used when making ATCs. There are 4 full pages of posts regarding postcards so be sure and click “older posts” at the bottom of the page.

Remember, make your ATCs reflect “you” and don’t forget the most important part… have FUN while doing it :-)