A Nice Round Number

Hello all!  It's a strangely contradictory post today.  On the one hand, we're celebrating the 100th challenge over at Fun With ATCs - and the theme for the fortnight is, fittingly, 100!

But there's a touch of sadness hanging over the celebration... as this is the final Fun With ATCs challenge.

As it happens, I'd already reluctantly decided I had to leave the team.  I've had a fantastic year, and have loved playing alongside my wonderful team-mates, but time seems to be in increasingly short supply and keeping up with deadlines keeps getting harder.  So the 100th challenge coinciding with my one year anniversary as a DT member seemed to make a nice round number for calling it a day.  

But I'm so sad that this will now also be the last challenge of all.  We've had so many amazing entries over the months from many loyal followers, and it's been great to see all your tiny masterpieces.

So here's my final inspiration piece for you - and in a grand finale, I'm offering you two versions of it! - and you'll find more fabulous makes here to fire your crafty imaginations.

I started by cutting a piece of thick card with the Tim Holtz ATC and Corners die, and then ran it through the BigShot again with the X-Cut Chronology Cogs embossing folder.  I cut the numbers 1, 0 and 0 with the Movers and Shapers Cargo Numbers dies.




As you can see, my brain first of all went to glowing pinks, golds and oranges - using Finnabair's Sunrise, Sunset papers, inked with Picked Raspberry, Wild Honey and Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks...

...with a heavy spritzing of Perfect Pearls in Pearl for a shimmery look.

But then it just didn't feel quite "me"... and for my final piece, I wanted it to feel a bit more "me".

Fortunately, I hadn't yet stuck anything down...







So I started over with some paint, and turned the whole thing blue - much more "me"! 

I did lots of dry-brushing once the blue was done, bringing white down from the top left corner, and black up from the bottom right corner to create a shift of shadow and highlighting across the ATC.

No idea what colours I used precisely, I'm afraid - this was made weeks before the house move, and my brain has turned to mush in the meantime!

But I do know that, again, there's some Perfect Pearls mist in Pearl to add a celebratory shimmer.








I re-did the numbers with some DecoArt One-Step Crackle over the dark blue paint (Fresco Pea Coat, I think) again highlighting it with white paint to give the sense of that light source from above. 

And the same treatment for the ATC corners to frame the whole thing.






I'm pretty pleased with the finished effect - though it is one of those pieces that changes colour according to the light hitting it, so it's much more fun to have it in your hand and shift it around to catch the shimmer!

Do hop over to Fun With ATCs and then hop around to visit my team-mates - they'd love to hear what you think - and we'd all love to see what you come up with for the 100 challenge this fortnight, all on a 2.5 x 3.5 sized creation of course!

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  

If you've nothing better to do I'll be back at 7pm (UK time) with my final sneak peek of the week for PaperArtsy - maybe I'll see you again then?  

In case you missed them, you can catch up with Sunday's post here, and Monday's is here.






Oh, and since it's Tuesday, you'll also find me over at Artistic Outpost today.  It's Sneak Peek mayhem... see what I mean about deadlines?!

But, for now, it's a very fond farewell to Fun With ATCs.  I do hope as many of you as possible will be able to play along and give the challenge a really good send-off.

Farewell is a beautiful and a soft word and yet it is a horrible and a heavy thing too!
Mehmet Murat Ildan

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes.  A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.  And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends.
Richard Bach