Monday Artday!

I just found a fun website/blog called Monday Artday.  They have a weekly challenge, like our Try It Tuesday and Illustration Friday, but their day is Monday!  :)  I think I'll post their challenges over on our trading site, too.

I'm a little concerned that some kids may think they need to do it all.  All the challenges, all the art on every day of the week, all the fun stuff over there.  So, just for the record, you get to be picky!  You don't have to do *any* of them, if you don't feel like it.  We don't in our house!  Sometimes, you just gotta go with the flow and it's not anyone else's flow that counts - just yours.

HOWEVER!

If you don't know what to draw/paint/mold or hammer into leather/metal, then there's gobs of ideas out there for you to pull from.  *AND* you don't have to do the most recent thing - if there's a topic you like that was from a month ago and you feel like doing that one instead of the current one, you go right ahead and do that!

Trading on ATCsJr

Once you get an approved account on ATCsJr.com, you'll find that trading your cards with someone else is a lot of fun!  Here's the most common ways to trade on ATCsJr:

1a. 1 to 1 Trades (1:1 Trades).  An Artist posts a card to their gallery and you like it a lot.  You check the tags to see if it's available or not (should be listed when you click on the card to bring up the whole image).  If it's available, you PM them and ask them to browse your gallery and, if they like your style(s), they request your card - or you may need to make a special one to get the card you wanted.  If it's not available, you could ask them to make a second one just for you...

1b. 1:1 Trades.  Using the 1:1 Trading & Challenges button, you post that you've got a card on a particular theme that you'd like to trade for a card on [pick your own theme].  For instance, I have a dragon egg that I'm looking to trade for a dragon based card.  It's set aside, waiting for someone to take me up on my trading offer.  (You can take a look at how I've done it here.)

2.  Swaps.  A person, approved by the moderator(s) or admin(s), steps forward and volunteers to run a Swap.  They choose a Theme to post in the forums, becoming the Swap Host.  Then others sign up for the swap on that theme.  The swap may be a 1:1, 3:3, or 6:6 and it's generally got a date that everyone must have their cards to the Swap Host.  Everyone who signs up creates their cards and sends their cards (and an envelope and enough postage to cover the postage back to themselves) to the Swap Host.  The Swap Host gathers all the cards, then distributes them at random into the participant's envelopes and mails them all out.  Each person gets back as many cards as they sent.  It's also considered good form to send a Host Gift Card (an extra ATC on the same theme) as a thank you gift for the Host - because it's a LOT of work to host.

3.  Pay-It-Forward (PIF).  On the PIF forum, a player lists three themes on which they'd make a card.  The next player accepts their card and lists three new themes on which they'd make a card and the cycle continues indefinitely.

4.  Make-Me-Happy (MMH).  On the MMH forum, a player lists three themes that they'd love to see in their mailbox.  The next player tells them which theme they'll make a card for them and lists three themes that would make Player2 happy.  This cycle continues indefinitely.

5.  Challenges.  This is not really a trading thing, but it can get a player to create something new for their gallery and get others to follow them.  It's a way to populate the gallery and initiate an "Oh!  I love that - wanna trade?" sort of response.  :)  A player posts (in the 1:1 Trading & Challenges section), perhaps singling out another player as I've done with Daphne, or it could be an ongoing group challenge like the Sketch-a-Day Challenges.  When the players get their cards finished, they upload to the Challenges section.  Once the challenge is complete, there may be an offer to trade or it may have just been an exercise in fun.

*****

There's a LOT going on here at ATCsJr.  It's kind of tough to figure it out and you have to be a little curious and maybe a lot headstrong about getting the trades you want!  You have to troll the galleries and see what's new out there and be fearless about asking for trades that you want.

Trading Site Update! It's GOING!!

Traded ATC card.  Winter Moon II by Jayme 

I've been working on getting the Trading part of the site back up and running for a little while now.  I'm happy to say that it's now ONLINE and ready for you to register!

Since it's on my own server, I've also made it so the "no one under 13" rule is out the window.  If you're 4 and your parents are ok with you logging on under your own account, we're ready for you!  (I tested this out with a four-year-old version of myself.)  lol.


The site is quite a bit like the original ning site, but better because we can grow in this interface.  :)

Traded ATC card.  Winter Moon III by Jayme.

There's still some work that needs to be done (like the polls - I don't know if what I've got is going to work out), and the editing of the pictures is a little wonky.  Maybe this will work with a FAQ or a WIKI so I can show you how to work it?  Anyway, those are a few of the things I'm still contemplating.

I hope you love it!

News and goings on

You're probably most anxious for some details about when the trading section of our site is going to be opened again...  So, here's the skinny on what's up.  I've chosen our new software and it's going to be Oxwall!  It's a free open source social network software that's really grown up from the last time I looked at it.  If you'd like to see how it works, I do have a test of it set up at atcsjr.wall.fm.  That's not going to be the final ATCsJr social network, though, so if you sign up, just know that it's a temporary set up to test on and see what I'm thinking the interface will be like.  Currently, on that site, there's ads.  There won't be ads on our network once I've got it installed on my own servers, though.  So, if you head out there and poke around, you'll have to just trust me that those things are going away and resolve to ignore them for now.  Deal?

Our lavender is just about ready to harvest!
It'll take a whole weekend to get it harvested and hung up to dry.

Where I had hoped to have us all back up and running on our new home by tomorrow, I don't think it's going to happen unless there's some miracle.  I'm having a little difficulty getting Oxwall installed on my server at ATCsJr, though, so I've had to bump the problem up to the developers at Oxwall.  But maybe if we all cross our fingers, toes, eyes, arms and legs we'll be able to come up with that miracle?

I'm so excited to roll this out for everyone, I can't hardly stand the wait!  There's lots of similarities between this software and the Ning sites.  It's easy to lock down, for great security, & it looks like I can make sure you don't have to be a certain age to join (but that you have to go through me to get an account).  Over all, it looks like it'll be perfect.  If I can get it installed!  lol.

This used to be a nice place to sit and draw.
Now, it's the seat of the wild roses taking it over.  It still makes
for a beautiful subject, though, don't you think?

Right now, my email is a little messed up, too, so please don't email "jayme atsign atcsjr dotcom" for the time being.  Email "jayme atsign chocolateoniondotcom" instead.  It's a surefire way to get hold of me!  I keep both, just in case of things like what's going on right now!  I'll update this blog when I get the green light for my original email addy.

My latest piece of art, though it's not an ATC.
I did a watercolor background, then, because I didn't have
liquid masking to keep the flower petals white, I used
acrylics to do the flowers and dark thrushes in the foreground.

 Hope you're all having a spectacular summer so far!