Artist Trading Cards

I have discovered a new love; ATC's (Artist Trading Cards). They are small cards. That are not made to be sold, but only traded. By definition they must be 3 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches. They are fun and very addicting to make. These are the first three designs that I came up with to be swapped in Denver at the SU convention. Because they are small in size they do not use as much raw material also they are relatively quick to make. Also it is easy to try out a new technique because the technique itself becomes the card.

The first ATC here used the Serene Sunflower stamp set, one of the few sets that I own that SU is NOT retiring. I stamped the sunflower on Natural White card stock and then layered a piece of vellum over it on which I stamped the sentiment. I really like the muted effect this gives the sunflower. Also I created the center of the sunflower by stamping it three times with three different colored inks.

My goal on the second card was to create something very glitzy and play with Dazzling Diamonds, a glitter type product from SU. First I stamped the word "happy" using elegant eggplant ink. Then I covered the entire front of that card with versamark ink, poured dazzling diamonds powder on it and then heat set the top. This made the "happy" sentiment quite faint so I went over it with a elegant eggplant marker. The flower from Heartfelt Thanks was stamped on Natural White card stock and is raised using stampin' dimensionals. I used markers to color the flower stamp not ink pads.

Finally, my third card was purely for fun. "Ahoy, Matey" and it's corresponding jumbo wheel is another of my sets that is not retiring. (So is "Heartfelt Thanks" used above). I think this is a cute set, but is pretty child oreinted and so I tried to come up with an idea using it that was more adult oriented. So I used the treasure chest and the words "celebrate and hope" to indicate that hope is important and the hope is in what might be found in the treasure chest. The treasure map at the top of the card is from the wheel. I made 20 of these cards to swap and the challenge was to get the same part of the wheel at the top of each. With care it can be done. I simply colored it in with markers and the sand under the chest was done using a sponge and ink pad. The chest is raised.

One thing I learned making these cards is that they look much better with some dimension and/or embellishment. Simply stamping them makes them rather boring.