Anniversary Swap on ABC

First, I would like to say that the image for Silent Sunday was one I found at a garage sale last week. It was in bad shape, and I had intended to alter it, but ran out of time before Sunday. I have NO idea who the man was and didn't ask the lady I bought it from. Now on to today's post.

Here is my first set of skinny pages for the ABC 6th anniversary swap. Although these were lightened in Photoshop, the color is somewhat poor, except for the six boxes, all made of polymer clay.


Here is a closeup of the back (on the left) and the front (with the gift boxes). It's ironic that the color is washed out on the polymer clay in the scan and were much more true in the above color corrected photo. Yes, the "box" with the lattice is bright yellow, but came out nearly white in the scan.






I actually began by printing "ABC sisters" on the left and adding all the names of the swappers. I misplaced the pages I printed, so reprinted using the words "ABC participants." Glad I did, because we now have a male swapper who became an angel swapper when one person had to drop out due to illness. Since I couldn't find the original pages, I set about making the polymer clay gift boxes using clay, some of which Halle sent me, and texture plates that Dana left after our play day. I used various mica powders (Pearl-Ex) as a release agent on the texture plates.






After I printed the second set of pages and sorted all the clay pieces, I sprayed the pages with sealer, then set to work making reinker and alcohol backgrounds. I began by making the side opposite the names as the side I added the reinker/alcohol mix to. That made the side with the names all washed out and the side that would hold the boxes too bright. I had to print MORE pages, spray them, then adhere the reinker/alcohol mix to the name side.






Next I stamped the two little girls on the back side. I love this stamp made by River City Rubber. It's a good thing I had extra pages. I placed a bit of the extra reinker/alcohol mix on the wording side of my rejects, then set out to find the best ink to use. Staz-on black was too dark, gold too light. The stamp image was too detailed for embossing, so I ruled that out having recently learned that lesson. After trying three or four more colors, I settled for lime green and the image showed, as did the names.





After the images were stamped, I started adding polymer clay to the other side, then remembered I wanted to stamp the date and number on the background. Luckily, I had only done two of them. It was a lot easier to stamp before the boxes were on than after. I used what was supposed to be red (but always comes out pink) and the same lime green from the other side. I wanted some continuity for the two sides.



I sincerely hope the swappers like them. My biggest fear is that the tower of polymer clay boxes will not go through some of the many binding machines on the market. I have, however been told (after I measured a few) that they should go through most of them.