One-Off Set of ATC and a Coin

Decided to participate with a talented crafter I met in Unity’s Show and Tell FB group in a mixed media Artis Trading Card and Coin exchange! This was so fun as there - no hard deadlines, try something new... anything goes kind of exchange, no limit on brands, no need to make replicas (just one of each)! So, here’s what I did!

For the coin, a 2 1/2” circle, pulled out a circle die and my Ranger mixed media paper. I then pulled out a new blue Dylusions ink spray, and a Brutus Monroe Silver spray. After spraying and drying the paper I did use a Tim Holtz letter stamp that ended up getting covered up. After that, I took a silver and black patterned glitter paper from a pad and tore up 3 small strips that I ended up gluing on. I then used a dark silver paste along the edges to smooth out the paper edges. I then used a white Brea Reese paste to add circles using a TCW stencil. I also wanted to try this very chunky blue Bo Bunny paste that seems to have large silver pieces in it. I used another part of the stencil to apply that 3 times and wow...is it shiny! Leaving all that to dry, I pulled out Watercolor paper and stamped the small moon/star image from 7/18 SMAK kit using a dark blue Stazon ink. I watercolored the image with blue and gray Distress inks and added a clear glitter ink. I fussy cut it out and inked up the edges with pen and ink. I used the same stamp and ink to add stars to the the base coin. I then inked up the sentiment twice only using a Brutus Monroe Silver embossing powder on the word SHINE and blue paint to the Chose to part. I then fussy cut both out. I used a blue pen and then a black pen to color in the word shine (to make it a dark navy).  To complete the coin, I inked up the edges, glued the image and sentiment on, and then used a black pen around all the pieces.

For the ATC, I used the same ranger paper and, this time, I sprayed a Prima red spray and tried to use up a Primary Elements green/gold concoction I made up for a previous card. After that dried, I started inking up pieces from a Finnabair stamp set I picked up on sale at Micheals using Red Stazon ink. I then pulled out a green BoBunny paste and a gold paste and combined to the 2 together and added large dots using a stencil. This ended up blending well with the colors. I then took a burlap doily and added red color to that and glued it on and cut off the excess. Letting all that dry (and really not thinking ahead that well...if I did I may have used different images), I inked up a couple coffee cups using watercolor paper, dark red inks, glitter ink and gold glitter pens. I fussy cut them out. Wanting to pull more green into the ATC, I found a Washi tape that would help and added 3 pieces. I then inked up the Tim Holtz sentiment that I love (and, actually, is applicable, as my husband is away from home...so the mess I made went undetected). I then fussy cut that out, inked up the edges and dirtied the paper a little with distress inks. I glued everything on, added cute embellishments and string, and again, used pen to outline everything.

I must admit I am having fun playing with pastes, sprays and colors. The ATCS are offering up a great opportunity to play, but I’d like to move on to larger canvases as I’d have more real estate to break up the busyness of the layout. I still need much more practice with colors and design.

Thanks, Dawn, for agreeing to play with me! This was a fun way to break up the January blahs! I’m thinking of trying my hand at videoing what I’m doing as writing all this down and remembering what I did is tedious! If you think this would be useful, let me know! I’m also interested if you’ve done this before in what products you use to hold the camera pointed down, the microphone, the light source, etc...and how tos. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!