For July, I created three different cards. One for the first group I joined, the ATC group of Custom Impressions in Los Alamitos/ This group meets on the last Sunday of the month. And we do demos and trades with an optional theme. I also made two for a group where I trade by mail. This group is called ATCs Unleashed.
GAME PIECES
The July theme for the Custom Impressions group was game pieces. I decided to make cards that featured the game Clue (or Cluedo.) This card was a different style for me, because I used mostly images of the internet instead of stamps or scrapbook paper. I started by finding an image of the board you play on and combined it in Photoshop with an image from the Clue movie ethat showed the backs of all the suspects holding various weapons. I printed this image at 3.5 x2.5 and it became my background for the ATC. Then I found and printed tiny game cards of the suspects, weapons & rooms from different versions of the game. I hand trimmed these and layered them with pop on to the background image so that each ATC card had a different combo of suspect, room and weapon. On the backs, I altered the classic backs from the game and added my name and the date. They feel simpler than some of my other cards to me, but I think they are cute, fun and represent a game I have fone memories of playing.
BODY PARTS
For the ATC Unleashed group there are usually two themes. I choose to use the body parts theme for all seven of my main trades. I decided to do these in a multimedia / art journal style. (I am so obsessing on Dyan Reavely's style right now.) So, I just HAD to use the Daddy Long Legs Dylusions stamp that I had just bought during So Cal Shop Hop. So I had legs as the body part. For the background, I used more Dylusions with their inks, paints and stencils. I started by spraying the entire card (Strathmore multimedia paper cut to ATC size) with lemon peel yellow ink. I added lime green ink spray thru the small rectangles stencil over top; on the edges of the card I added the chocolate brown Dylusions paint with a blending tool. Over the background, I stamped a pair of stripe stocking-ed legs (in heels of course) with black Stazon ink. I filled in any light or "bad" areas with a black pen using stripes or doodles. I also doodled a bit on the corners.For a finishing touch, I hand wrote a quote from fashion guru Iris Aptel along the top of the leg. "Fashion can be bought, Style you possess."
'SHROOMS
The my second or bonus cards forATC Unleashed are always a free theme and only require two card to be submitted. These are sometimes the card I try new techniques or outlandish ideas for. And am adding step by step pictures. Since I was already enjoying the Dyan Reavely / Dylusions products so much m (and already had them out,) I used them again. I started the card backgrounds by spraying it with funky fuchsia and tangerine dream inks.
I blotted them with paper towels and let them dry a bit. I then used the Dylusions large circle stencil and sprayed plain water thru it.After letting the water sit for a few seconds, I blotted again. This created what Dyan calls ghosting, where the ink is removed where the water re-moistened it.
Then to create a very basic stencil, I stamped the mushroom image (a Dylusions stamp again) on a blank piece of heavy weight paper. I cut around the mushroom image leaving a slight border to create a stencil the roughly the shape of the stamp. It didn't have to be exact, in fact, I wanted it to look handmade and slightly imperfect.
Using the lime green Dylusions paint and a round Timmy blender, I painted the stencil on the left of all the cards and allowed them to dry thoroughly before moving on. I really like how the inks react and bleed into the paint letting you see the ghost circles beneath.
Now that the paint was fully dry, I stamped the mushrooms image on top of it with black Stazon ink. I tried to line it up with the stenciled area. On the right side I added a quote from Lewis Carroll: "Its no use going back to YESTERDAY because I was a DIFFERENT person then." I used a little of Tim Holtz Distress paint in picket fence to color in the circles on the mushrooms. And dotted a bit on or over the handwritten text. And as a last note, a tiny bit of bling.
I hope you liked seeing my cards for this month and learning a bit about my creative process. I will try and share a bit about my cards each month. Do you guys make ATC cards? If you are in Southern California, come join us some Sunday!
