Yes, in spring, the color we all long to see is green. Here in upstate NY, I will be very happy when green replaces the brown – and, unfortunately, the occasional white – that is the outside right now.
In honor of spring, I joined an ATC – Artist Trading Card – swap at The Latest Trends in Mixed Media. Unfortunately, I had to bow out of the actual swap as I didn’t get my ATCs in the mail in time, due to work, but here is the work. The theme was monochromatic green.
The first step was a background. I decided to use a shaving cream background. I used Stampin’ Up! Pretty in Pink and Passion Pink re-inkers for the color.
Background
Then, I realized that the ATCs were rolling up so I had to flatten them out. Out came the ironing board, a linen tea towel and the iron. This also heat sets the ATCs.
Flattened, heat set ATCs
Next was trying to figure out what to put on the ATCs. I knew that I wanted to use some cupcake picks that I had received in a swap a year or so ago. Did I want to stamp on the ATC? I have these two foam stamps that are conversation hearts but they never leave a good image. I tried them on two ATCs but didn’t like the images they were producing so went back to my original thought – die cuts.
I had borrowed my girlfriend’s Sizzix some time ago and did a mess of die cuts. I used red primitive hearts on the ATCs and then put the cupcake picks.
All the ATCs
Individual ATC
Individual ATC
I am in a Halloween ATC swap through The Latest Trends in Mixed Media. I went a little out of the ordinary as my ATC is off the basic size of 3.5″ x 2.5″. I put a popup haunted house on the background that is offset – making the card too big. It is creative license – I hope.
I was going for the haunted house where the house is night all the time, even though it was daylight around the house. How did I do?
I finally received my book – Paper Transformed by Julia Andrus in the mail. The more I read about marbling, the more I was sure I wanted to use some of the other supplies I have around to marble additional papers.
I have mordant mixed up so that is not a problem. Both boys had events last night so I was home alone for a good two hours. I had several projects I am in the middle of but I set up a marbling station. The station consisted of a 9×13 aluminum pan with about a quarter of an inch of water in it, a set of papers already treated with mordant and dry to be marbled, a place to dry the marbled papers, a plastic knife for scraping and several plastic forks for swirling the marbling.
This particular attempt was made using about a quarter inch of water in the pan. I, then, took the plastic knife and scraped pigment off three different blue pastels. When I placed the treated piece of cold pressed watercolor paper in the water, it came out like the yellow and orange piece below. I had a paintbrush near by so I wet it and ran it across the paper also. This is how I got the piece above.
The particular piece above is just the pastel without any help from a paintbrush. What I just noticed as I was scanning these papers is that the pastel pigment in this example was not really – even after treating the paper to accept the marbling – take. I have orange and yellow pastel all over my scanner. I just took a tissue and rubbed this particulare one and it looks more like the blue one now – just yellow and orange and red.
The marbling above was also done using water as the size. I found, in my craft stash, old iridescent inks from Stampa Rosa – a company that has long since gone out of business. I splashed inks on top of the water. I, then, laid treated cardstock on the water and lifted it off. It dried overnight.
So maybe the background on this ATC (artist trading card) looks familiar to you. I did write about it in a workshop I am doing – marbling. The workshop is based on Julia Andrus’s book Paper Transformed.
I used denim, espresso and eggplant to create what I was hoping would look like a stormy sky as a background. Then, since the swap required that you sew buttons on the ATC, I took my white buttons and made snowmen. I love snowmen!
Above is the finished product!
Combining several things I am doing this year, I am reading a book called Paper Transformed by Julia Andrus. Lesson one is on marbling so off I went.
I used shaving cream – the old fashioned actual cream type. Then, I put drops of dye re-inkers in the shaving cream. I took plastic forks and “marbled” the ink in and then pressed the cardstock into the design.
As the shaving cream got rather thick, I pressed one piece onto another piece. You can almost see which two are the pairs.
These were done in ATC (Artist Trading Cards) size – 2.5″ by 3.5″. I have a project in mind!
