Autumnal Equinox

Here are some ATCs I just completed for a swap on http://www.atcsforall.com/. The theme was Autumnal Equinox. I know, the end of July is a bit early to be thinking of autumn, but autumn is one of my favorite seasons, so I felt inspired as soon as I signed up for the swap!

The Autumnal Equinox is also known as Mabon and is symbolized by fall leaves and flowers. I used that as a base theme for these ATCs. The foundation of these ATCs are layers of paint, with some texture applied to the second layer. I then used some old sheet music snippets, and papers, both hand made and other. I used a punch to cut out various leaf shapes and used them throughout the pieces. I even used the pieces of paper from which the punches were made to create a sort of negative space type of leaf design, with the background being the leaf color.

I then searched one of my books of quotations for those that contained some reference to autumn. The variety was amazing, altho it is interesting how many seemed to focus on the sad side of autumn (focusing on the dying of the leaves, etc., end of a lifetime, etc.). Since I really love autumn, I wanted to focus more on the positive perspective of the season - change of seasons, colors, and sort of an energizing feel after the lazy days of summer!

For the above ATC, I decided on a green background because even during the autumn, it's amazing how much green is still around, and creates a wonderful dynamic for the warm, warm autumn colors!

And, finally, for the last touch, I stamped the cards with a marble effect rubber stamp. It really added a lot of character and texture to the pieces and reminded me of either a webbing (like a spider web you might come across during a walk in the woods) or the bare tree branches that occur after the magnificent colors are gone. Enjoy!