a circle of hearts and a mystery solved

Back to my normal ATCs today.

This atc is just a piece of black felt, covered with seed stitches in gold metallic thread, and a circle of hearts, cut paper doll/snowflake style from some painted lutradur then blanket stitched on with gold thread.  Not many layers in this one.

Now to yesterday's post.  It was a bit cheeky of me, but this was a digital ATC.  It, at present only exists as a picture on my computer. 
Whilst I have been under the weather, I have been doing a bit of scrapbooking exploring, including digital scrapbooking, which is quite a new thing, but is catching on.  Although I like paper and often use it in textile work, I don't think I will be shifting to scrapbooking very soon.  Ditto for digital work.  They are interesting, and they can be great to incorporate in work, but I like the texture of textiles and stitch, and this is not likely to change.

Anyhow, I was looking at digital scrapbooking, and "what if"  came up.  What if I used it to make an ATC?  So I did.
I used a free kit called Lavender Designs - Steampunked  which I got from here.
I will show you the layers I used- there were several, but only in low res, since they are not mine.

I used GIMP, which is a free editing program, very similar to PS (photoshop).  I have had a lot of trouble with PS on windows 7 and running 64 bit, and GIMP is used by many in the digital industry.  If you can use PS or PS elements, you'll be able to use it.
OK, so I chose a background and an overlay that was like cracks.

I added two more overlays, some lace and butterflies and a petal with text all over it (I think it's from the UD declaration of independence).
Digital overlays are usually PNG files, because they have a transparent background, and JPG don't have this.

Next, I added the butterfly overlay, and then a frame, which was rough white brush strokes from another kit I got at cottagearts.net  here. It was called Cottage Arts Painted Scrap Edges Sampler.
I was pretty happy with this, but decided I needed some text.

The font I used was CKVenezia which I got from Club CK here.  I then copied the text and pasted/enlarged it to create more of an effect.  I chose red because I felt the grunge needed a bit of a lift. ( By the way.  The font I used was one I actually downloaded and added to C:/windows/fonts.)

So there you have it in a nutshell.  I think that this sort of play is really useful for me to learn about layering in real pieces, and truly, you could create this piece in textiles by using a fabric printout for the background, and printing on fusible web and organza for the layers.  I think I would have to make the butterfly, or perhaps create a stamp of it and heat emboss, or for that matter make a mold and do a tissue cast or a PVA/ satin cast.  If you wanted to make it as a paper or card version, you would need only to print on transparencies, or I wonder if clear cellophane would work?  (only of it was cellophane not the plastic stuff sometimes sold as cellophane).

OK enough blah. 
All of yesterday's commenters, Wendy, Caroline, Linda and Brigitte can choose an ATC if you want. (Hopefully, you won't all choose the same one, lol)  Contact me via my profile to tell me which one and an address-I have yours Brigitte, no probs.
There is a smilebox slideshow on the ATCs 2012 page on the right side bar.
Linda, I'll send you something special as well, since you actually guessed!


It just goes to show that even when you cant paint, or sew or make 'stuff', you can still create!