Alphastamps Mother Goose ATC Swap

This was such a fun swap as it introduced me to the world of Mother Goose. No part of a traditional Dutch upbringing but as soon as I met John, I was astounded by expressions like: the cow jumped over the moon, and Humpty Dumpty. Now I have finally discovered where they all come from. This swap is hosted by the wonderful Lenna so it's in such safe hands and on top of that she is also making us a keep sake holder for our return ATCs. Still that time is still some time off as I managed to finish these quite early.

The swap is also organized by Alphastamps and we had to use one of their products. Needless to say I ordered all the Mother Goose sheets in fabric but fell in love with the Queen of Hearts, she who baked some tarts!! They became the focal point for my ATCs. For the first 3 I used as a background a red velvet fabric (from Cabbage Patch fabrics, just down the road from me), which I stitched using one of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine. I cut this to ATC sizes and overlaid it with pink lace, with hearts and flowers as patterns. I added the Alphastamps fabric images by zigzag applique and beaded around 2 of the images. On the 3rd one I beaded around the text which also came from the Alphastamps fabric sheets. In some cases I used the actual title of the sheets as the other text was too large to fit comfortably around my images. I added a heart charm to 2 cards which I had stamped with a Q for queen with red Staz-On ink. I also added a pink raised circle to the queen's face as she must have gotten hot, baking all those tarts, or maybe she just suffered a hot flush!

You can see another one with that background in the next group of ATCs where I have also added the text Some Tarts which is sort of ambivalent, so I will leave the interpretation up to you! She does have a gorgeous crown on (which is from Artchix). It suited so well as it has hearts on top of it! The other 2 ATCs use a background made from one of my fabric/paper collages. This one was made using a selection of Valentine napkins and the Valentine colours of red, pink and orange. Again the images and text are from Alphastamps, and I beaded around some of them. I also added hand stitching around the hearts with gold thread. To finish all the ATCs I mounted them on watercolour paper and satin stitched around the edges with my sewing machine.

As I haven't made any ATCs for my 100 ATC project (I really must be more diligent about this!) I decided to make another ATC with the same collaged background and again adding a fabric image from one of the Queen of Hearts fabric sheets from Alphastamps. I beaded around the image and again around the inner core. This is ATC no. 71 and is called Queen of Hearts.