A quick post on my most recent ATCs for a Docrafts swop. The theme was William Shakespeare, quotes from, which initially I thought would be easy as of course he was a master who produced reams of quotable lines and couplets. However, when I got into the research, I found it was more difficult than I was expecting for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to include the text on the card, so I couldn't have anything too long as an ATC is a small environment. Secondly, manyof the beautiful and colourful similes and metaphors do not easily lend themselves to simple images - they were too complex and rich for my pea like brain.

Eventually I settled on two. The first was from Macbeth and is the quote from the witches - "Double double, toil and trouble, let the cauldron boil and bubble". It would have been wonderful to have included the famous spell recipe with eye of newt etc but that would be far too big for a single card. I used a dark blue base card which was painted with cobalt blue Twinkling H20 to give it a real depth and glimmer. Then used some DCWV chipboard stickers of mystic themes/images. On the base, a print out of the quote mounted on mirror card and affixed. Finally, clear crystal gems to give accents in the top and bottom.

The second quote is by Portia in the final act of The Merchant of Venice and is about a good deed being a candle in a naughty world. For this I got out my Twinkling H2Os and started with a deep cobalt blue background. The candle is in Oyster, with a Celestial yellow flame, and around it I did a variety of irridescent colour beams (gold, violet, red). Finally, when the paints were dry, I used my glue pen to outline the candle and lines between the flames and applied a bronze glitter. The quote was then affixed to the bottom of the card.

As a Thank you to the lady organising the swop, I made her a RAK. On a blue card base, I stuck on some pale blue Anna Griffin paper. In the bottom corner, a sticker saying "Hope". Across the middle, a brown and blue spotted ribbon, with a flower attached by a brown mini-brad. Very simple, but I think very effective, with pretty, clean colours.

Next challenge, a medieval themed swop.