Forest Green & Rust is the color combination for the June ATCs I made for Colour Groupies -- a small, closed group of mixed media & fabric artists. As always, I love the challenge this group gives me to create for them, at least as much as I enjoy receiving all of the different interpretations!

Below is a photo diary on how I created mine. I started out by laying cotton batting in approximately the correct size (2.5" x 3.5") on top of the forest green fabric I chose; I had found some scraps of just the right color in different sizes in my studio. Sewing the batting to the fabric first, I then added some decorative stitches from my machine. Then I cut the ATCs out.

I used a different fabric for the back - but did not add this fabric until I had finished adding my elements to the front of the ATCs.

I found some old rusty bottlecaps, filled them each with an ARTchix Studio image and my very favorite iridescent glass spheres from Alpha Stamps and a few micro beads. Next, I added Glossy Accents over the image and the glass spheres and beads within the bottle cap and left it to dry. Looking for a little something more, I found a piece of copper mesh that someone had given me through one of my swaps, perfect! I aged it - made it look more "rusty" by sponging on brown paint. When the Glossy Accents (dimensional glue) was set and the mesh ribbon was dry, I glued both the mesh ribbon and bottlecap to the front of the ATC with Goop Glue (E-6000) which is great for gluing metal to fabric. Then before I added the backs to these ATCs, I hand sewed a few rusty brown wooden beads onto each one.

Then off they went to my 4 friends. This was a lot of fun - thanks again, Colour Groupies! : )