PAT 14 ATC's

One of my favorite ATC swaps is the PAT ATC, which stands for "Pick A Theme". Basically you sign up according to groups, everyone in the group picks their favorite theme, and then everyone else in the group makes a card for everyone else. Then, you receive back cards in your favorite theme. It's really fun and inspiring, and causes you to look up things you never knew about, and make cards you might otherwise have made. Very challenging sometimes! Back in February I did these PAT 14 cards and just forgot to upload, so thought I'd share now and talk about my thinking behind them and any techniques.

These cards are for Group 7 in the swap, which was about Holidays.

Starting at the top left and moving clockwise, the themes are Valentine's Day, Christmas, Easter, and Groundhog Day. The Valentine's card is actually embossed metal. I started with a red metal base and then cuttlebugged (cb) it with the flowery background. I sanded the raised portions, then ran it through the cb again with flat plates to deboss it. When that's done, you get a flat piece of metal but the sanded portions add a lot of depth. Then I ran it through the cb again with the owl die, and then rubbed Staz On across the raised portions so that the owl would really stand out. I added small detail with stickles glue and covered the edges of the metal with double sided tape and glitter so there would be no chance of anyone getting cut, then mounted it on cardstock and added the sentiment. Overall it turned out a little busier than I would have liked, but it was really fun experimenting with the cb techniques!

The Christmas ATC uses a simple paper technique called Herringbone that I got from Pat Huntoon's Technique Junkie newsletter - in fact, that's where I got the double cuttlebug technique idea as well, so if you're not subscribing to that newsletter you should really consider it! For the Herringbone technique you start with a large piece of double stick tape and then add small strips of paper in the Herringbone pattern. With that done, I added a little fabric word strip and metal snowman embellishment.

The Easter ATC used some of my favorite Imaginsce Peep's Sake paper and a stamp from Serendipity. For a little dimension, I stamped the flower part of the stamp on tissue paper, colored it with Copic's, and then added the petals in thin layers of tissue on a pop dot. IRL it looks very delicate and pretty and I liked the effect.

For the Groundhog Day card I started by creating the background. I used a torn post it to mask off the top from the bottom and then sponged ink on for the sky; then I swapped the post it to the top and sponged the grass in. The tree was cut from a thin layer of cork for some texture, and the cloud was simply hand cut and inked. The ground hog was cut with the cricuit. I handmade a little "winter" and "spring" dartboard and dart, since I'm pretty convinced that's how he decides if we're having more winter or not!

These cards were for group 14, which was a Lot D group, which means any theme goes.



The themes moving clockwise from the top left were Nathan Fillion, Music, Tears, and Shells. OK, so before I had to make this card I was a Castle fan, but I never knew a lot about Nathan Fillion. Now I know at least this - he's quite a hottie!! There are tons of really gorgeous images of this guy on the Internet, so I had a blast with this one. I decided to make my card into a mini wanted poster and captioned it "Heart Thief"...tee hee! I used the burnt edges technique on the image, which involves tearing it out and then ink the edges in layers of mustard, chocolate chip, and black. I mounted it on some distressed wood patterned paper and added mini brads as the nails.

The music card was simple to do and one of my favorites when it was done. I used a printed piece of mulberry paper I've been hoarding as the background, then added some of my favorite Melissa Frances ribbon and a pretty image I got from Ten Two Studios. I punched a hole in the image, added an eyelet, and then hung little jingle bells from the card so that it actually makes it's own music. The treble clef was just some gold cord I glued down in the required shape.

For the "Tears" card I found another beautiful image from Ten Two Studios which you can't see very clearly here, but one of the children does have some beautiful tears in her eyes. The background was Core'dinations cardstock that I cb'd and sanded to reveal the core color. I added some vintage lace from my stash, then finished the card with a little flower and bow.

The final card in this group was "shells". The background is some patterned paper from Zsiage. The shells are dry embossed from one of Martha Stewart's embossing plates. First I did the dry embossing, then I used the template to mask off the background so I could chalk the raised portions. I added little eyelets and some beachy twine to complete the card.

This next grouping is for Group 18:



The themes for this group were different flowers. Moving clockwise from the top left, the themes are Lillies of the Valley, Violets, Lilacs, and Cherry Blossoms. The first two are pretty simple - just stamped and colored with copics, then added to a patterned paper background with some paper lace from Creative Imaginations. The stamp set is an old SU one, Flowers of the Month. The lilacs card was done using a stamp from Serendipity... after it was cut and colored with Copics I masked it and stamped the wording in the background. I added a little purple flower soft for texture, and a butterfly with wings raised by pop dots using a Martha Stewart punch stamp. The white frame is from SU and the "lilac: is computer generated.

For the cherry blossoms card I stamped the image on tissue paper, colored it with copics, and mounted it on a light background to help the colors stand out. The little symbol was cut twice using my cricuit and then glued off center for a little dimension.

The next group is a Vintage group - yippee!! Love to do and receive Vintage work - it's my favorite.



The themes for this one are Vintage Valentines, Vintage Laundry, Vintage purses, and Vintage Mother's Day. The Valentine's card uses digi paper from Ten Two Studios, some old paper lace from my stash, an old image from my stash, and a vintage style button also from stash. Hurray for stash! The vintage laundry piece also used paper from Ten Two Studios. The little image I found on the internet - it's so small on the ATC but it's so cute - here's a close up of just that:



I printed it contact size and then adhered it to a little tag layered with patterned papers. I added a vintage button to the top, and then pop dotted it to the background of the card, also made with Ten Two patterned papers and vintage lace. I added some punched letters from the Ten Two digi paper and a little purple flower from stash, along with some feathery leaves I punched using a Laura Ashley punch. I added the gold photo corner to finish off the card.

For the Vintage Handbag I used more Ten Two Studios digi paper, crochet lace from Jo Ann's. tiny pearls from Michael's, and a stamp from See D's. I cut the image out and added a little cord handle and more tiny pearls to embellish it.

For the Mother's Day card, more of my favorite digi paper from Ten Two Studios and an image from the Internet... I used a border punch from SU with some tiny pearls to embellish it, then just added a flower with a vintage brad center.

Group 20 was another luck of the draw group, and it had some very varied topics!

The themes for this group were Vintage Valentines, Don Knotts, Altered Artwork, and High Heeled Shoes. For the Vintage Valentines I used a Fan Kit from Ten Two Studios. I printed it out and then xeroxed it until I could get it REALLY small... the real kit is much larger. The BINGO card is also from them and pretty much prints exactly the right size for an ATC... they have several themes to choose from in the BINGO cards so I had fun with those. All I needed to add were little pearls, a premade bow, and a little cupid I've had for ages and had no idea what to do with! I think he looks cute there :)

The Don Knotts card was a fun one - I always loved the Andy Griffith show and one of my favorite recurring gags was Barney locking himself in jail! I was able to find an image of that on the Internet, as well as an actual map including Mayberry and Mount Pilot! I used the map as my background and marked the cities with a little stickles. I added the image and hung an old key like the one hanging just out of reach in the jail... too fun!

The next theme is Altered Artwork and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be going for with that one... hopefully I got the right idea! I took a Van Gogh painting and used that as my background image. I "altered" it by using a picture of Mona Lisa in a paper doll kit I got from Ten Two Studios - again I had to really reduce the image to get it down to ATC size, so there was a lot of little cutting going on! Overall the effect is a little strange, so I'm hoping I understood the theme right and that the recipient will like it!

The high heeled shoe uses more digi paper from... yep - Ten Two Studios! Love their stuff - can you tell?? I added some photo corners using my Quickutz and some blue pearl embellishments from Michaels. The brown ribbon is from SU and the little shoe is actually a vintage button I had in stash. Simple, but I was happy with it.

For group 21 the theme was writers/poets.



Themes clockwise from top left are Robert Burns, Edgar Allen Poe, Shel Silverstein, and Ogden Nash. And here are perfect examples of why I love the PATs... I'm not big into poetry, so before joining this group I'd never heard of Robert Burns or Ogden Nash. OK, truth, I didn't get thrills from anything I saw by Robert Burns... he probably has something famous out there that I'm simply not aware of... from what I did find, I didn't really get it, but I hope I made a good card for him anyway! (Lot of brogue in his poetry - kind of hard to read...) I found a little passage I liked and printed it out - it's about a young girl in a field, so I had a great little stamp set from Papeterie. I mounted it on some of my favorite K&Co paper and added some little pearls to embellish.

I am a Poe fan, so I chose The Raven for my card, mainly because I had this cool raven stamp! The background was created using blended Distress Inks from Tim Holtz, then I stamped the image and heat embossed it in black. I added strips of words from the poem and a tiny picture I found of Poe on line.

The Shel Silverstein card focused on his puzzle piece poem. I printed it very tiny on paper that looked a little like an old sidewalk, and kept it simple by printing out a tiny picture of Silverstein and mounting it on a Quickutz of a puzzle piece.

I'd never heard of Ogden Nash before and I have to say, he has some funny little poems out there! Just simple, silly little things with clever rhymes and a keen sense of humor - I had a hard time picking one to use! The background paper is from Memory Box, and the cow is from MFT stamps. I stamped him twice and popped his head up, then added little strips with the poem and a bow to top it off. Because it's short and sweet, here's the poem:

The cow is of the bovine ilk

One end is moo

The other, milk.

Isn't that funny?? I can't imagine a man sitting around and thinking stuff like that up!

The last cards were for group 22 and were the most fun to make - the theme for the group was shaped ATC's! This was pretty cool since they still have to work in the size - 2.5"x3.5".


The themes are just what you see - butterfly, dog, teapot, and mask. All images were created using multiple layers of thick paper and my cricuit. Nothing too special about them besides the shaping, but, trust me, that was challenging enough!

I'm working on PAT 15 cards now, so should have some more of these great multithemed little gems to share shortly!