"Sew a Button On It" Self Portrait ATCs

When I saw the theme for a new Paper Traders ATC trade, I thought it was right up my alley. I love buttons, I love sewing, I love ATCs and I love painting. In addition to requiring a button on the atc, another requirement was to use a paper collage background. No problem...collage is my middle name. So, I got to work trying to make the vision in my mind translate into something real. I pictured something soft and romantic, like Sugar Lump Studios, with my favorite lace, maybe some tea bags and delicate stenciling. Something like I did on my blogpost about Faux Lace from Recycled Tea Bags.

First, I took some pretty paper, cut and ripped it into strips, and made a striped background. Next, I used my favorite new Nat Kalbach art foamie positive negative stamps over it with white printmaking paint. It was "meh." I tried lace. No good. Hideous in fact. I auditioned paper doll parts on top. No good.

The next day I was rifling through my paper scraps and found my old art business cards (as opposed to my 9-5-what I get paid to do business cards) with an old address that made them unusable. I have a little logo made of an altered self portrait with one of my fabric designs in the background. I decided to chop up the cards, and the small logo art looked just right on the striped and stamped background.

My worktable (also known as the living room table during the week) with the unfinished ATCs

I added some orange paper from an envelope someone had recently sent me, plopped on a few buttons, stitched them on with orange thread, and ran a brown chalk ink pad around the edges for a finished look. Done. Very far from the soft, romantic, lacy cards that I thought I was going to create, but still very "me"...literally, since the mini portrait IS me. Here is the link to my post called Fuscia Zetti Self Portrait, where you can see the oil painting that I used to make the design that ended up on my art business cards.

Three "sew a button on it" self portrait ATCs. I kept the middle one for myself.