Seeing red!

Hello everyone, and welcome (back) to Words and Pictures.  It's time for a new challenge over at Fun With ATCs today, and the theme is Something Red.

I'm not sure I'm qualified to offer you inspiration for this particular challenge.  As you'll know if you saw my version of the Tim's February tag, I'll go out of my way to avoid crafting in red!

In fact, when this challenge theme bobbed up I panicked slightly as I really don't have much red in my stash at all.  I've got a full set of Distress Markers, so that's two or three red(ish) pens, but beyond that...

So this ATC (Artist's Trading Card - size 2.5 x 3.5 inches for any newbies) was created out of "found" things, and leftovers, and also some "borrowed" things.









And I couldn't bring myself to go entirely red so it's just as well the Challenge allows you to feature red as just part of your ATC.

The first thing I "found" was the berry paper used on the lettering.  It's cut from some ancient paper bags from Liberty (I'm talking probably 30-35 years I've been storing up these little gift bags).   Sometimes never throwing things away pays off, you see (though not when you're having to sort all the way through it).










I loved that the pattern combined my current favourite turquoise tones with some red berries, and seized on it as the solution to my red difficulties.  I cut up one of the bags and stuck the paper onto some chipboard, before running it through the BigShot with the fabulous TH WordPlay die.

The red berries on the paper made me realise that I do have a large number of actual red berries - well, no, not actual living red berries, but rather beautiful fake ones - amongst my Christmas decorations.







So I "borrowed" some of those...  so there'll be a couple of berries the fewer for twisting onto the holly branches next year, so what?  Holly prickles are dangerous things to decorate.  For the ATC I twisted them onto some bare twigs from the garden - much less painful!

The background is made with a page torn out of one of my old German books with the lovely Gothic font.  It was lying around one day when I needed to clean off a paintbrush I'd been using with my favoured turquoise shades, so I wiped the paint off onto the page.  I decided I really liked the shabby look of it.  As I was assembling my ingredients, my eye happened to fall on it and, lo and behold, it toned in beautifully.






I stuck it onto some thick chipboard to give the ATC strength enough to hold the berries and twigs.  It all looked a bit sharp and smart, so I ripped and shredded the edges for a more rustic look, and that was pretty much that!

It's been amazing having so many of you playing along at Fun With ATCs recently.  I hope you'll hop on over and see what my fantastic team mates have come up with to inspire you - there are some amazing projects.  And I hope you'll find time to play along.  I can't wait to see what you come up with for this Something Red challenge... I know many of you are far bigger fans of the colour than I am!!






If you're looking for a way to kill time (yeah, right!), I've got a post over at Artistic Outpost today too: a little trip down memory lane... anybody remember this from the sneak peek?  Definitely more my colour comfort zone!

For now, thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll see you again soon, either here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland.

“Red", I write "is the color of life. It's blood, passion, rage. It's menstrual flow and after birth. Beginnings and violent end. Red is the color of love. Beating hearts and hungry lips. Roses, Valentines, cherries. Red is the color of shame. Crimson cheeks and spilled blood. Broken hearts, opened veins. A burning desire to return to white.” 
From Pretty Face, Mary Hogan
Hmm... well, give me blue any day!