I can see that these monthly ATCs are going to start forming some kind of rainbow effect when the year is finished. I just love how the whole collection of each individual theme has its own colour scheme. I suppose Daffodils is a fairly obvious colour theme but it thrills me all the same.
I deliberately don't look at all of the cards together as they arrive so that I get a big wow factor when laying them all out to be photographed once they've been sent in. I have a big red folder and when they plop onto my doormat I excitedly open each envelope, oogle at the contents, often show The Mother or anyone else who happens to be in the house, consider how it has been created and then carefully pop it back into its packaging and into my red folder ready for the end of the month.
I wondered how this month's theme would be interpreted as it was a slightly split theme so you could choose a slightly different aspect. Daffodils is fairly specific but to add a general Spring theme to it meant that the ideas could be opened out from a single Daffodil, to a field, to other markers of Spring - and goodness did these ladies deliver!
We had a few cards which have been inspired by the Cornish Daffodil fields (something I actually only knew about because it popped up as a feature in one of this year's LandScape magazines), some which feature a single Daff, one with a beautiful bouquet and matching curtains(!), some with Spring creatures and one in a woodland with Crocuses and Snowdrops. There are Daffodils made out of embroidery thread, paper, ribbon, fabric and little flower studs. The range of techniques used here is just stunning.
Excitingly the swap grew to include a participant from the USA as well which is brilliant. We have a different postal agreement whereby she sends me multiple months' worth of ATCs and I hang on to her cards to send her back multiple ones once we've worked out how much the postage back will be. Hopefully it's a system that will work well although she will have to wait longer for her happy mail to arrive. I really hope that this little swap continues to grow, even if by just one person per month as I am absolutely loving it - the more cards the merrier!
I didn't take any close up images for the blog on the last two themes so I thought I would start and you can more easily see some of the techniques used and the beautiful execution of stitches. There's a mix of hand and machine embroidery which I really like, and often an element of mixed media as well.
I can't remember if I've mentioned it before but there is a page on my website dedicated to this swap which has a photo album per month if you wanted to easily look back on any themes. I've linked to it here.
