This ATC combines several different techniques in an experimental mixture in an attempt to achieve a 3D piece with an atmospheric quality. It uses readily available materials and equipment.

Starting with heavy watercolor paper (which has to be 2.5" x 3.5" for an ATC or ACEO) brush in a suitable background. I've used grey, blue and lemon yellow, with dabs of green and red to create a night scene, leaving the middle bit 'moonlit' to make the owl show up when he's stuck on his branch. Use the paint wet so it runs in together. As long as you keep the middle bit fairly light and the outside bit dark, then you can rely on a happy accident (or a slightly guided accident) to give you a good background for your owl.

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You need to make an origami owl - I won't go into the instructions here because you can put the words 'origami' and 'owl' into your favorite search engine and come up with loads of pages that give instruction. If you run into problems with any of the instructions, though, do drop into the Creativity forum (see on the right of this page) and ask for pointers. If you ask anything in there it will help other people, too, who want to know, but are maybe too shy to ask.

Here are pictures of owls in various stages. They're all different ones and they use a square of my marbled paper. (Marbling is another great jumping off point for your creativity - it's so simple to do and so fascinating and then you can end up with stacks of marbled paper that can be used for all kinds of other creative things - like making owls!) I start with a piece of paper that is 8.5cm square.

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Having completed your origami owl I suggest departing from the whole origami philosophy by applying glue to him. If we were purists we wouldn't dream of such sacrilege, but all we want is to have an owl whose head lies flat and on whose face we can stick eyes in order to complete our ATC. I fold the head over and put glue under it (you'll know what I mean when you do it) and then I cruelly pin his head together with a paper clip or a clothes peg until the glue is dry.

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The eyes can be drawn in or they can be those googly eyes you buy that roll around - you stick them on. Or they could be little sequins or like mine - just circles with black dots and brown eyelids, looking pretty suspicious.

Next, stick your owl onto your ATC, and THEN stick the branch on top of his tail but underneath his 'feet'. My branch was nearly a folded piece of paper to make a branch but I wasn't happy with the way I was folding it so I sneaked a bit of wicker out of my waste paper basket (see pic) and cut it lengthways because it was too wide, and used that as a fence for Owl to sit on.

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I have a nice star cutter and I used that for one star (it's easy to overdo these) out of shiny, sparkly wrapping paper. The other gold dots in the sky, which give the impression of more stars, are fabric paint which dries 3D.

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This is a straightforward design and can be adapted in many ways to try out different techniques and materials for different effect.

I'm going to attach my ATC to a greeting card blank and use it as a birthday present for a young friend of mine. Or maybe I'll frame it up for him as a small gift. Or maybe I'll keep it and make him another one with a different bit of marbled paper or a different background, or something different altogether!

Have a go!

Creatively yours

Susan

Check out my blog here to see the ATCs and ACEOs I paint on a daily basis - not many origami ones there at the moment - I'm into painting just now - but it's nice to do a completely different card every now and then - it peps everything else up. (Monty and Rosie are my Border Collies.)