Our second benefit swap for Art for Cures will be benefiting Susan G. Komen during October/November for Breast Cancer Awareness month. The color theme for this swap is based on the color pink as a symbol for breast cancer awareness. Entitled "Woman as Goddess", you will be working with feminine imagery. Your colors are shades of pink, in medium to light range, no reds. The additional colors you are allowed to use are gray, white and silver. You may use black but only in subtle touches, like with line art. As with all our color themes, you should be able to stand back from your collage sheet and see the overall color theme which should be mostly pink.

WHAT IS A BENEFIT SWAP?

All Art for Cures swaps are "benefit swaps". Benefit swaps work the same way that regular swaps do with one exception: All participants make a few extras as contributions for larger auction pieces. For Inchies, we will be auctioning off shadowboxed Inchie grids. For pages, we will auction off additional copies of the final books. For

As a participant, you will be swapping Inchies as you would in any normal swap, but with two differences: you will be using my one sheet "collage88" tutorial, and the extras will be made into various auction pieces, mostly framed wall displays, that will be auctioned off on eBay through Missionfish as a benefit for the swap's benefiting charity.

WHAT ARE INCHIES?

Inchies are one inch-squared collage, miniature collages one inch by one inch square in size. Tiny little bits of expression you can make and trade, Inchies have become an addiction. As anyone who has ever done an Inchie before knows, though, they can also be rather intimidating to create, especially if you are in a swap with a large number of participants. But fear no more hearty collagers!

Some of you prefer making your Inchies individually but there is an alternative to collaging more than ten of those itty bitty, eye straining little pieces of art that I have named "collage88". If you can collage one standard 8.5" x 11" inch sheet of paper, guess what? You just made 88 inchies! Here is the tutorial...

"collage88", THE TUTORIAL

Your page must measure 8.5" x 11" exactly for this to work. Watercolor blocks measuring 9"x12" yield 108 Inchies and I am more than happy to accept extras as donations for the auction pieces.

You can make your Inchies out of anything involving paper but my personal preference for this is 140lb weight watercolor paper. You can pick up a cheap pad of Canson or Strathmore for around 7 bucks at any Michael's or Hobby Lobby. Note: The watercolor paper they sell at WalMart is paper thin (no pun intended) and I wouldn't advise it due to buckling. Thin matboard will also work and you are welcome to use textiles (fabrics and fibers) BUT since this is a paper arts swap there should be some kind of paper involved in your work AND remember: You have to cut up your sheet into 88 Inchies when you are done! Don't make it too thick or you will have issues.

Keep your collage pattern "tight" so that all of your wonderful details and variations will be on your individual Inchies. Since your final pieces will only be one inch squared, you want to make sure there are no large gaps in between your collage elements. If you want to add more detail after your collage sheet is cut, look at this as making a background for further embellishing.

For our "Woman as Goddess" theme, you can use vintage fashion magazines, you can use sheet music, rubber stamps, text, retro housewives (aka "domestic goddesses" hehe), classic art images of women, etc. Go for more of a fine art, retro or vintage approach vs. contemporary magazine clippings.

Thin matboard, stiffened fabric, or cardstock is what you want to shoot for on thickness so they stand up to collaging. What I use is 140lb weight watercolor paper. It loves both watercolor AND acrylic paints, works well with PVA, glue stick or Elmer's and is thick enough to withstand a lot of collage work.

If you have done Inchies before then ignore me, you know what to do. Experiment! Play! Try different mediums! Make them out of paper, textiles, paint, rubber stamped images, text, ephemera, scrapbook papers, etc. H A V E F U N !

DEADLINES

The deadline for signing up is Friday, October 19th at midnight EST.

This is not a closed call which means you can invite anyone and everyone you would like, the more the merrier and the more good we can do! Please, pass this around to anyone you think might be interested. With the fact that we are doing this as a sheet then cutting it up into 88 pieces, I can max out this swap at 39 participants so everyone has two (2) Inchies from each player OR 26 players with three (3) each and still have enough for 10 or more limited edition auction pieces!

In order to sign up for this swap you will need to email me at renmeleon@gmail.com with the words "Art For Cures LLS Inchies" in the subject line so I can keep track of everyone. In your email, PLEASE include the following information:

Name
Art "Nickname"
Full Mailing Address
Email Address

I keep a swap database just in case I can't read your return address on the envelope. I will never sell or give out your information to anyone. The only time you will hear from me is for swap updates or new swap announcements. If you are a member of my Non_Cents paper arts group or the Art for Cures group, you also have the option of signing up on the list and/or posting your address in the group database.

Everyone will have almost three (3) full weeks to make and mail their Inchies.

The POSTMARK deadline for your Inchies is Wednesday, November 7th, which is almost three weeks from the signup deadline BUT since you already know how many to make you can start now. You are always welcome to get them done and mail them early too! There are several of us who are making more than one sheet as well which is always an option...

PROJECT DONATIONS ACCEPTED

If you are feeling industrious and would like to make more than one collage sheet of Inchies - must be cut before you mail them - feel free to drop me a note and send in as many as you would like. I will continue to mount the Inchies and have them framed for auction pieces. If you would like to donate money toward the framing, I will happily accept it though keep in mind that whatever is unused will be pooled for the next charity's framing; i.e. If I run out of Inchies for one benefit swap, any remaining monies from that swap will go toward helping the next one. I will post totals on a regular basis on the list and on the Art for Cures site that I will be posting by the end of the weekend with any luck.

Any donations sent in to me will be used toward Art for Cures costs such as framing, postage, and advertising or promotional items/incentives. If you would like to donate money to Susan G. Komen for the Cure you will need to do that directly through them as I will not be taking donations:

http://cms.komen.org/komen/Donations/index.htm

Unless you have someone else you would like to donate on behalf of, I would love it if you donated "in honor of" Art for Cures under the Designate Your Donation section. Also, the section below that allows you to "Notify Someone Else of Your Donation". I will be sending you the information I would like to ask you to fill in so that I can track donations made as a result of this project.

This is only to notify me so that I can count your donation amount in the project totals; I will provide a complete breakdown for everyone of all the donations and auction totals as they come in. Again, keep in mind this is a project and I do not have non-profit status despite the fact that I will not be benefiting from this project; this is a 100% donation project for the selected charities. I may look into making Art for Cures a non-profit in the future but I am still researching everything. For now this is a way for me to host swaps that do some good for the community.

COMMUNICATION, Mandatory

I'm blunt as a trainwreck so I'll just say it: If you run into issues PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE just email me. I don't mind delays if you are having health issues - you know, like decapitation, death j/k - but I need communication so I know what is going on. I do not like making participants wait because of one person and have been forced to get 'harder edged' about this. No communication, hospitalization not withstanding, will get you banned from any other swap I host; no excuse for "no shows". Life happens, just email me. :)

COST (postage and framing)

All participants will need to include $10.00US in cash or postal money order (must be a postal one) in with their Inchies or PayPal it to me at the address I will give you when you sign up. Please make your postal money orders payable to "Ana Maria Seaton". This will cover the POSTAGE for returns BUT it will also be going toward the FRAMING for the auction pieces as well. I have a friend here locally who owns a frame shop that I will be going through for the final pieces. I do not want to take money out of the totals under any circumstances for the framing so I really need your help with this.

If you are outside the US, drop me a note if you cannot include US funds and we will see what we can work out.

MAILING ADDRESS

You will be sent the mailing address as confirmation that you have registered for the swap.

ALLOW DRYING/CURING TIME FOR YOUR PAINTS AND ADHESIVES. Let them dry! If your Inchies arrive allstucktogether and I am unable to pull them apart without damaging them I will mail them back to you. Freezer paper is your friend and the shiny side doesn't stick, usually. Repeat this mantra:

Lay your pieces out with paper in between them if you aren't sure. When in doubt, play it safe. There is nothing more heartbreaking than getting a 'glob' of what could be beautiful art in the mail and having to mail it back.

THE BACKS OF YOUR INCHIES & CONTRIBUTOR SHEETS

PLEASE make sure to put your name and email address or site on the back of your Inchies. The information on the backs of your Inchies will not be visible in the framed pieces but I will be making contributor's sheets for all of the auction pieces. If you would like your name, email address and one link listed please let me know prior to the postmark deadline.

QUANTITY & SWAP OUT

You will be making 88 inchies from one collage sheet. Depending on the number of participants we have, is how the returns will be divided up. I will let everyone know once the signup is closed what the returns will look like. We need either 26 or 39 participants total including myself to make this work right.

The cool thing is that doing it this way allows you to start making your sheets now if you want to get a head start. Once I have everyone's Inchies I will swap them out and mail them back. You WILL be getting some of your own back, so don't worry about making extra for yourself.

COPYRIGHT

All artwork submitted for swaps remain the copyright of the individual artists. Once you have your returns, if you want to use someone's art in whole or in part for any reason, you should contact the individual artist themselves for permission. I recently saw someone posting other artists' work as part of their own with no credit given to the original artists. This is something I believe to be not only in bad taste but blatant theft of someone else's work. This is just my opinion but I think an email to the artist as common courtesy should prevail.

QUESTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

I try to be thorough (read long-winded) but if anyone has questions, please feel free to email me at renmeleon@gmail.com and I will do my best to answer you. If you are on a list where I have posted this, please use your own judgment as to list etiquette in replying to outside swaps. Non_Cents, Art for Cures and Flickr members can reply to the list or posting.

Thank you to everyone for participating, I could not do this without all of you. I am looking forward to seeing everyone's art and raising some money for a great charity!!!

Namaste,
Ria :)
aka Renmeleon
Art for Cures, founder
Non_Cents Paper Arts, founder