2 more

Here's the fourth and the fifth one I made. It's called Recycled Newspaper to Treasure. We get the Wall Street Journal at our apartment. I got this idea from a set of stationary I picked up at IKEA. This LTC is an unlimited edition. I'm not sure if I'll have another use for the green background stamp. Update Oct 08: I got sick of making it, so I retired the card, but if someone really wanted it. I'd make them one.

C spot Shine is also an unlimited edition. I used Gelly Roll pens for the dots. If you slant the card back and forth it really shines. I've traded this a bunch of times and I love making it. It doesn't take that long to make either. This is available for trading.

I thought I'd display some of my LTCs all in one space. I've been crafting them since Feb 2008 and I can't wait to make more this summer.

The first LTC I made is entitled Liverwort. I carved the stamp for the spring wildflowers postal ring. 6 were made and 5 were traded.

I used magazine greenery for the background. I drew a map for each card showing where one could find this wildflower. My goal was for people to be unable to distinguish where the stamp started and ended. The stamp is just the top flower and the top pedal of the bottom flower. The rest of the bottom flower I drew for each one. Coloring the flowers and drawing the map were my favorite parts of this construction. Overall, I wanted it to look like a plant fact file card. This card is retired.

Orange was my choice for the rainbow swap--my first swap and I just dove in. My favorite colors are orange and blue.

Currently in our apartment we have an orange love seat, orange goldfish shower curtain and and orange and white rug. I love collages so I went through a whole bunch of magazines and cut out all the orange things I could find. Then I put them together on a piece of poster board to cut them down to 18 LTCs (2.5 x 3.5) I carved the outline of a tigerlily. Why tiger lilies? They were bridesmaids flowers and I love how striking they are. Next, I stamped and colored 18 flowers. I used 5 different colored pencils. It took forever and the LTC looks better the further away you are from it (as with most of my drawings) The returns on this swap were amazing! It definitely secured my addiction to LTCs.

Here's my third LTC. It called "What Little Girls are Made of" I carved the stamp a while ago for no specific project, while watching A Coal Miner's Daughter--great movie. The decorative paper came from the paper source and it has some sparkles on it. I got some bubble stickers from Jo-Ann's that were related to a new baby girl. This LTC was a lot less time consuming, though I did draw and color a butterfly on each one. I think I made about the 20. The LTC is retired, but the stamp is not going anywhere so I could make more. I don't know anyone who is having a baby girl though.