Monday, February 6, 2012

All Inked Up!

...for those of you who follow my "creative capers" -  you would remember me posting about an ATC swap challenge I was participating in...with a group of "Scrappy Friends"??!! Today I would like to update you on that journey... and share some of my Artist Trading Cards with you. Initially I found it really difficult to work on such a tiny surface - I am big 12 x 12" girl myself  ;) but now I am amazed by just how much detail you can place on a 2.5 x 3.5" piece of cardstock!!...and I have been experimenting with "inks" -  they are a very popular medium amongst my "Scrappy Friends" but not one I have had much to do with...but I managed to use them on all 3 of my latest ATC's


January's Theme was "Sizzlin' Summer" and my ATC was created using hybrid techniques - the base is cardstock from Creative Memories called Mediterranean and using a digital kit "Cheerful Tropical Additions" from Creative Memories I made a "sun, sand & sea" scene and embellished with seagull diecuts and twine. The edges were inked using "Antique Linen" from the Tim Holtz range of distress inks and "stitched" with white gel pen - a small introduction to ink LOL!

February's Theme is "Show us some LOVE" - I got a lot more adventurous with the ink! I was struggling to find background paper for this challenge so again, I thought I would create my own. I printed up the word "love" in a variety of fonts on plain old white 210gsm card and then set about turning it into a vintage pink colour using "Victorian Velvet"  Tim Holtz Distress Ink....then I embellished with some Vintage images from "darkroom door" called Love Letters from the Filmstrip range, some cobweb lace, paper flowers and adhesive pearls all compliments of a visit I made to my friend Karen & Co at Scrap2Relax 


....and then I was hooked!! LOL!! so I decided I would keep ahead of the challenges and tackle March's Theme which is "Autumn Antics". One of the things I have loved about creating ATC's is that anything goes! and I have discovered all sorts of "goodies" in my craft room. In my stash I found some old BasicGrey paper called "Tangerine" from the Fusion collection it matched perfectly with some Paper Flowers from the Creative Memories Reminisce Power Palette and I thought they were the perfect colour to base my ATC around.


I found a little poem about Autumn that was really sweet, so I adapted it and printed it up on little tags....I then inked these tags along with some more white background paper in an assortment of Autumn tones - "Bundled Sage" from Tim Holtz Distress Inks and "Really Rust", "Close to Cocoa" and "Apricot Appeal" - Stampin' Up Inks. Added a yellow adhesive rhinestone to the centre of the paper flower and some leaf punches and I was done!! - now I wonder what ink I can add to my April ATC - I think I am a bit addicted LOL!! -  stay tuned!

2 comments:

Veronica said...

Good to see you were able to use some punches and die cuts too! They look great. I haven't made any ATC cards in a long time, but I do remember they were fun to do.

Sammi said...

These are AWESOME!!
Aren't ATCs fun!! I think you have inspired me to make some again - Thanks!