Quick ATC Inspiration Swap

Here's my five suggestions--- 1. Transport 2. Anything using the first letter of your name 3. The 80's 4. Your childhood toys 5. Your favourite artist(s)

Hope they inspire some of you! x

My ideas: relationships, fingrs and toes, outer space, favorite fast food and high school memories.

My ideas - flowers, partners first name, recipe atc, favorite number, and anything goes, but must use at least two medias (such as stamping and punches, or paper piecing and stamping).

Finger painting; challenge yourself to make art painting only with your fingers

Inkblot or drop watercolor paint in random blotches, then interpret the shapes (like cloud-watching)

Animal mashups, like a squalligator (squid + alligator) or a monsheep (mongoose + sheep)

Postal people - use cancelled postage with the head and shoulders of Queen Elizabeth or whoever, and draw a crazy new body for her/him

In the style of traditional or ancient ethnic art - African, Indian, Chinese, Aztec, Aboriginal, Native American, cave paintings...

Some fun series ideas: the four seasons, the four elements, the language of flowers (red roses = romantic love, yellow roses = friendship, etc), sign language, months of the year, astrological signs, Chinese zodiac, pantheons of various deities (ancient Greek/Roman, etc)

Monochromatic - ALL red (or yellow, or green, or puce), no black or white at all.

Open a dictionary to a random page, close your eyes, and point. Whatever your finger lands on, make a card on that theme - maybe even cut out the definition if you are using the dictionary for collage.

Events that happened the day you were born.

Favorite myth or fairy tale.

Cut out letters from magazines to make a ransom note style ATC.

Pomegranates

Gym Class

Jester

Starfish

Fortune Teller

Ok... I think that's at least five.... :D

@betsi Brillo!!! x

Hello everyone! What great fun. :)

1. What someone's mind looks like (you, a lover, someone famous, someone random, etc - what lives in their head).

2. The illustration of bad puns & twisting of words. Some of my favorites are bulls - adoreabull, excitabull, etc.

3. The secret lives of ________. Trees, flowers, socks, goldfish.

4. Literal illustrations of song titles: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Fireflies, Poker Face, for example. Make it obvious enough that it can be guessed without any text.

5. Endangered species, animals and plants.

First here are a couple ideas that i've done before and LOVED and had fun with:

• CIRCUS THEMES ( such as lion tamers, the mc/announcer dude at the beginning of the circus - i think he has a title/name? -, elephants, acrobats, circus colors like red and gold, etc etc) This is seriously one of my favorite series of ATCS I've ever made

• BIRDS IN FLIGHT (with birds I love to add a quirk to the theme, like always putting the bird(s) in shadow, or putting a crown on their head, or making the feathers when their standing in place kind of look like coattails when they end)

• JUNGLE (monkeys, swamp, colors like deep greens, leafy yellow, orangey glow colors like the sun spilling through leaves)

• PAC MAN (crazy sounding, but a lot of fun to play around with!)

• FELT (okay, maybe that's not exactly a theme, but I've done series where my only rule was the whole ATC had to be made with felt, so I'd cut out shapes or do images and sew/applique it all together. One series was Felt Jungles, so I had little felt monkeys swinging from tree limbs)

• COMIC BOOKS/ROY LICHTENSTEIN ( I love the graphic aspects of comic books but I don't really like to read them, which is probably why I love Lichtenstein's work! It's fun and easy to use his graphic paintings for inspiration and to draw off of for ideas! I love the ones with snarky remarks included!)

• BUBBLES (Yup, like the kind you blow as a kid)

Okay, here are a couple ideas I haven't ACTUALLY used but would like to soon...

• PAINT SAMPLES (those little samples you get at the hardware store, Wal*mart, etc. I think it could be cool to use those and cut out shapes or do a collage or something using them for inspiration. There are SO many colors, it could be really awesome)

• MILITARY THEME (could be cool, especially if you use some fashion designers to help with this theme and inspiration!)

• TEA DYES (tea dying fabric could be a cool idea that could overlap into making ATCS!)

• BABIES (my brother just had his first baby, and I think it'd be cool to do a series with babies at the center)

Hope this helps and inspires!

Superheroes - Not just of the Marvel variety; what would you look like as a superhero? Would you wear tights and a cape, have a big "S" on your chest, or would you wear something a little more stylish or unnoticeable? Would you have x-ray vision, wings, etc?

Flavours - sweet, bitter, sour, spicy, tangy, delicious, disgusting, etc. Faces you make when you eat them, foods that have strong flavours, or what you think of when you see them. (Like "Sweet" a little girl or "Bitter" an old maid.)

The Weather - Cloudy, Sunny, Rainy, Snowy, Slushy, Stormy, lightning-y, perfectly calm, etc. It's so very inspiring, and imagine how much fun you could have capturing the violence of a storm!

Awesome User Names - I just competed the Username ATC swap, and it was so much fun to make something that fit my partners' usernames! I see so many amazing pseudo names all over the internet; why not play with them a bit?

Words in Other Languages - Pick your favourite words and translate them into other languages, then work around them using the new sound and old meaning to inspire you.

I hope that you find this to be at least a little inspiring! Happy ATC making!! :)

1) Fairies - whether they are cartoons (like Tinkerbelle) or realistic or Tarot kind, 2) Horses - anything horses, from the animal to saddles, 3)Unicorns, 4)Dragons, again any from cartoons or realistic or magical, 5) Old Barns - one of my favorite things to paint. And there are lots of fun ideas already from everybody - how inspiring!

Hi Everybody!

My Ideas are:

• "Old Monster Movies" Zombies, Godzilla, Mummy etc

• "Movie Stars" Past or present

• "School Yard Rhymes" Eenie Meenie Minee Moe

• " Party/Prom themes" Enchantment under the sea

• "Sihouettes" Old profile types or anything else

• "The Last Dream You Can Remember" Could be anything, you you'll have a few ideas in your head.

• "Cluedo" Colonel Mustard with a dagger in the library!

• "Unearthed" Archeology, fossils or found treasures.

What a great idea, here are my ideas 1. jigsaw puzzle 2. likes/dislikes on the same ATC, I like pizza, I dislike anchovies on my pizza. 3. re-create your first art work, or your favorite from childhood. I drew a picture of a mommy pig with her fat pink piglets when I was in 1st grade. I can still remember every detail, my mom loved it and so did I. 4. Close your eyes and choose the background, ribbon, focal point, paint, brads etc. for your ATC. use what you grabbed even if they don't seem to go together. 5. mystery movie or book scene. illustrate (draw, paint, collage) a scene from a book or movie but don't tell your partner where it's from (except that it's a book or film) they have to guess. 6. That's not what that's for! have at least one thing on your ATC used in a manner it's not meant for, cereal box for a backing doesn't count. For instance at work my boss uses polishing strips when he does fillings. They come in different colors and I have used them as ribbons on recycled ATCs. He has to cut a strip longer than necessary so I cut off the used part and save the other since it's only going to get thrown away.

1. This week. [inspired by your mood/emotion? Inspired by an event/event that happened? Partially made of this week's debris - ticket stubs and flyers?] // [do one a day for a week? One a week for a month? One a week for an entire year? Would be an AWESOME keepsake if you had the patience!]

2. "When I am older..." [what dreams have you yet to fufil? What will you look like? What do you hope to be?]

3. Mirror/light mirror/dark mirror [what do you see in the mirror? Do a self portrait (or collage, or photo layering, or whatever) to represent you as you are.] // [if you want a trio, do a portrait of your dark side - the bits of you you'd rather not see in yourself - and then one of who you aspire to be]

4. I. AM. NOT. [Do a card inspired by what you absolutely refuse to be in your life. Think about your beliefs, and the values you cherish - then make the opposite]

5. Redo an old ATC [pretend an old ATC of yours is a new blank canvas. Totally transform it!]

6. Book ATC [make an ATC with doors, pages, layers, anything that you can open and make huge]

7. Living Appliances [a teapot with eyes? A dancing toaster? Give it some personality!]

8. Poster-style [a pulp movie? A WANTED poster? A band flyer?]

9. Just words [an entire ATC - you can use any colours, any pens, but you are only allowed to write on it - no drawing allowed. See what bold concepts you can come up with]

10. The haunted ballroom [because that's one of the most vivid ideas in my mental landscape, and it was the first one that popped into my head as being endless with possibility]

(am I the only one hoping that some of the ideas on this page get snagged by lazy, greedy swap coordinators...?)

1. Babies (I'm preggo - are you surprised?)

2. Travel - maps, luggage, travel quotes, etc

3. Your dream house - cottage style collage? big Georgian plantation? elements that you want - huge bath, walk-in closet, etc

4. A magical door - hobbit door, fairy door, etc.

5. The country you'd like to visit - what about it makes you want to visit? (ie: I'd like to visit Ireland, so that ATC would include the shore, old castles, and Gaelic)

1. Gargoyles

2. Lottery cards....use your lucky numbers, cut up some old scratch and wins, Make your card look like a winner!

3. Around the world ..... whether you like to travel or you just have an interest in other countries, try doing an ATC for each country of the world.

4. Nitty Gritty..... something that looks like it's been well used and well loved. Stained, wrinkled, torn, written on, dog eared, highlighted, etc. The trick is to have it still look good, yet well used.

5. Finger print creations - you ink your finger prints onto a card and then draw things on them to turn them into birds or animals or what ever other ideas you can come up with.

And for these next three, I like them so much that I am going to go create these swaps right now. So if anyone wants to do them, look for them and join! :0)

1. Pressed Fairies - I absolutely adore Brian Froud's pressed fairy books. I think it would be neat to do our own pressed fairies!

2. Fairy tales gone wrong - what happens when little miss muffet isn't afraid of spiders? or what if the Jack and Jill live in a desert and have to go for miles to get the water?

3. Username ATC's - you have to do an ATC based on your partner's username.

Strange.... I had written 6, 7, and 8 and now when I look at it, the system has changed it to a 1,2 and 3.

I keep a running list in my journal of "ATCs I'd like to make", so here is that list:

• foreign languages
• coins
• a dotee ATC
• postal stamps
• birds
• doors / windows
• lighthouses
• coffee
• birds
• monochrome
• polaroids
• keys

I hope my list inspires someone else as well!

The postal stamp one sounds like fun Emika!

Hello! Here are some wonderful ideas I have thought of for creating atc's by theme!

Mermaids, birthday party, sweet treats, marilyn monroe, fashion through the decades, favorite bands, places to travel, paris romance, vintage pin up girls, vintage wedding, hippie series, and cute cartoony creatures.

I hope someone will like at least an idea or two!

hi i thought of some ideas

famous dead people

jasmine becket griffith art work

brian froud art

tv series

humpty dumpty

donkeys

wish you were here!!!

while you were out!! ( how much mess can a kid make!)

on the lake

at the zoo

in the ocean

outer space (could be stars could be ufos aliens!)

tom hanks films

hope you like them