Steff's Stuff

Hooray, I can't wait to see the pieces created based on this week's challenge.  

And now, a few more ATCs done recently by me. 

This is a self-portrait.  It's me when I was five holding my favorite teddy bear (which I still have stashed away somewhere).  It was an experiment with sewing...as you can see I've yet to get the hang of it.  But the crude stitches go along with a theme of childhood.  I took a page from a book, applied masking tape and then peeled it off to get the background.  The words represent my life full of books and reading starting at a young age. It's all kind of washed out and faded, and that's what my memories of childhood are like.  If you look close you'll see I stuck on the word "German" - which is my heritage.  And the music is for my mother's beautiful voice and how she passed a love of music on to me. 

You never know how attached you're going to get to a piece until you are done and realize how sentimental it makes you feel.  I'll be hanging on to this one for now.

In the following ATC I was experimenting with my acrylic paints.  I've been perusing work by Claudine Helmuth lately, can you tell?  : ) She's one of my favorite collage artists.  The little tyke is from divasdeste.com.

This next one was for a swap-bot swap with a window theme.  I have to admit I was a little stymied at the fairly rigid guidelines (it had to be a view through a regular house window...why not a submarine, or airplane?).  Then I decided I'd just have to really funk up the view by returning to my favorite magazine collage medium.

You may want to click to enjoy the view.  I do not recommend cutting out many-paned windows - I very near lost it.

Long post, sorry - but I wanted to get these up.  I'll post some freebies in the next day or so.  In the meantime, get to working on those door ATCs!!