Valentine - with a twist!

Taking part in online challenges is fun, and I have made many new crafting friends in this way, but I do like the excitement of that envelope once a month that brings me little pieces of artwork from other people, which is why I still enjoy taking part in ATC swaps. One I have been involved in for several years now, I call the 'Shillington swap', because that's where the organiser lives. This year the work of swapping has been taken over by someone else who doesn't live in Shillington, but I shall continue to refer to it by that name.

Our challenge for Februaury was to make up to six ATCs on the theme of Valentine, with a Twist. I only make three or four cards for this swap as I know this will always stay under the weight for the postage to Spain that I put on my returns envelope. But even so I was hard pressed to think of three ideas. Then I remembered a Valentine card I made at my son's request several years ago. He wanted it to feature a Skull and Cross bones, and to be all black and white, though a tiny bit of red would be alright! It was a huge success with his girlfriend at the time. And I thought, "Well, a skull wouldn't certainly give it a twist" So here is what I made.

For these first two I used some remnants of scrapbook paper that I think were called Creative Imaginations. I still had the template for the skull from when I made the card, but instead of bones, I crossed two tiny rose buds. The cherry ribbon was bought to go with the scrapbook paper, and a few pearl and metallic hearts finished them off.

For the third design I used a Fiskars heart edge punch on some red leather effect paper and mounted it on black card. The same skull came to life (what an awful thought!) when I added some red gem hearts to the eyes, and I thought the caption just lifted the whole thing. I waited until after the swap to show mine. I would love to show the ones I got in return. They perhaps weren't as twisted as mine, but they were lovely pieces of work. Unfortunately the trend seems to be to put less and less information on the back of ATCs, and none of my swaps had an e-mail address, so I couldn't ask the makers of them whether they were willing, so I decided against it.

My efforts probably have limited appeal, but they were fun to make. The people who received them are probably thinking what a wierd person I must be!!