Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

The lovely Monika
from Stories of Pearls and Plunder
is hosting a really fun
international ATC swap
over at Milliande's Art Community for Women.


The theme for this swap is
"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"


Initially I was rather challenged
coming up with an idea or a theme,
I was thinking about moonlight and snakes and bats and owls,
that's what I have in my garden in the moonlight.


I started to play around with various materials
and I came up with a background
that suggested midnight and moon light to me.
And Witches :)


I started with a sheet of floral/
garden theme scrap booking paper
and I screwed it up into a ball,
then I unfolded it and added some texture
across the high points with a black stamp pad
I repeated the screwing up
and inking process with a dark purple,
then I flattened it all out by hand
and applied a thin coat of Atelier
interactive acrylics in pthalo blue


Next I drew onto the papers with Zig Vellum Writers
and gel pens, I also collaged on the full moons
with some wonderful old wallpaper I found a roll of
on a recent op shop trip.

They still didn't sing so
I decided I wanted wrought iron garden gates
but how on earth would I make them?
I discovered some paper doily's
in my papers and thought they just might do,

So I coated them with impasto gel
and a few coats of black gesso.
That did the trick and they were much stronger.
So I hung my gates and my ATCs are ready to go.


These 2 are snuggled into there plastic sleeves
ready to go out into the world.


I always make one or 2 extra ATCs,
and these I keep in my own collection.