CCM Spotlight on ATCs - Hope I have got the idea now

Hello again!  Long time no blog lol

So what have I been doing whilst I've been gone?  Oh the usuals, taking care of my family and working... it's like having two jobs and I am lucky that I have two jobs which I love! Sometimes when things get a little busy in both jobs I find I have very little time to do any crafting and that's what has happened lately.  I seem to have spent the last few weeks either organising something, working, or taking care of poorly children.  We held a joint birthday party for the boys as they turned 2 and 4 within a few days of each other so a combined afternoon tea was the perfect choice, slapbang in the middle of the two birthdays.  Then the next day was spent making sure that my daughter had everything she needed to go on a camping trip with her school.  She's back now and is a little pink with sunburn, and apart from moaning about having to sleep in a tent, I think she had a good time :)

In a quiet moment to myself, I managed to have a little catch-up crafting session and get something done! Yay!  Crafty Cardmakers is such a good place to find challenges which well, errrr challenge you!  I have learnt so much since being on the DT there and occasionally a challenge or spotlight is set and I read the brief and thing OMG what the heck am I going to do for that, go away, hyperventilate a little and then have a think about how I am going to go about it and then go on a little googlehunt for something which will help me find out what it is I am supposed to be doing.  The girls at CCM are fab as they always have good ideas and I am truly in awe of some of the samples which get produced to provide inspiration.

The Spotlight this time is on ATCs.  I remember having had my ticket to go to Port Sunny last year for a couple of weeks and we had got to a few days before when Vix told me that at a certain time in the day, everyone meets up to exchange ATCs.  Moment of panic!  I wasn't even totally sure what an ATC was, let alone had made any... so once again google was my friend and I learnt that day that an ATC is usually 3 and a half inches by 2 and a half inches and you create a mini work of art.  I must apologise now to anyone who got one of mine on the day as they were truly awful!  I didn't have a clue what to do with them and cobbled something together in a rush... and it showed lol  So when this Spotlight came up I thought oooooh now's the time to face my fears and have a go.

I cut some cardstock to size and decided to steer away from the mono-dimensional abominations I made last year and go for some texture.  I tore up some sellotape into small pieces and did the same with some masking tape, added some pieces of linen from a reclaimed storage drawer from under my bed (drawer went to tip lol) and added some paper diamante centred flowers and then coated the whole piece liberally with pva. Then I had to wait for it to dry so I could carry on... I don't like having to wait, so I went to bed lol  When I got up I applied some alcohol inks using some a kitchen sponge cloth , added some shimmer with mica powders and stamped over with good old stazon ink... well I doubt anything else would work on that background lol  Unfortunately the shimmer has made it pretty difficult to get a decent photo so I hope the one here will do.  Might try and do another one outside in daylight - just hope the weather behaves itself ;-)