The inchworm and apple card that I promised will have to wait. I gotta show you guys this ATC. My friend Stevie has ATC swaps every few months. No product restrictions, the theme was 'spring'.
So I came up with these!
I hate to iron clothes, but love to iron cardstock!!!!
The rest of this post is how I made these, so if you are gonna stop reading now I hope you have a great rest of the weekend and hope to see you here tomorrow!!
How I did these ATC's: Fire up your craft iron (wanted to start out with that, because it makes me sound like I'm giving you a cooking recipe, like 'set oven to 350 - lol) and cut your ATC's (2-1/2" x 3-1/2") from
7gypsies Cantania paper. If you are saying "Good GRIEF she is
using that paper again!" well guys I am
so in love with this paper, mostly because it comes already looking old and aged so half of the work is already done... :) The French script I love, but can't read, so for all I know it could be some raunchy stuff... :-D
Stamp 'see the flowers smiling' (Hero Arts) onto dusty pink mulberry paper using black waterproof ink (Archival Jet Black from Ranger). Using an aquapainter or a clean paintbrush and water, paint around the sentiment and gently pull mulberry paper apart (it's fun - reminds me of pulling cotton candy apart - yum!). Set aside.
Thread vintage shell buttons with
tan linen thread and set aside. It is harder than it looks. Requires thread to be cut on a slant. Sometimes more than once. One button per ATC.
I am now craving cotton candy.
Stamp
B-Line Designs Ironworks at base of Catania paper in same waterproof ink. Stamp
Hero Arts A Real Wild Poppy flower repeatedly in Distress Embossing Ink pad. Submerge in clear embossing powder and heat set. Stamp Poppy image repeatedly using Vintage Photo Distress pad.
Now, the really fun and messy part starts! Get a worksurface and get some
Glimmer Mist. I used Black Cherry and Aspen Yellow (from Eclectic Paperie!). My worksurface is a 18x24 piece of thick matboard that has seen better days but in some ways is attractive (like me in the morning!) To describe the matboard, think of what the floor would look like after a half dozen three and four-year-olds played unsupervised with 50 bottles of Glimmer Mist. Well that is what my matboard looks like!
I placed two Bounty paper towels on top of the worksurface to absorb some of the Glimmer Mist and went to town. First I sprayed them all over with a few hits of the Aspen Yellow, then I hit them from the
right side only (very important) with one good spray (or two not so good sprays) of the Black Cherry.
I decided that was not enough color variation for the look I wanted, so I took a
mini-mister and put a whole dropper full of Distress Brushed Corduroy reinker and about 1/8 tsp. of gold
Perfect Pearls. Filled the mister about 3/4 full (gotta leave room for the stuff to shake, shake, shake!) with water and shook it up real good. I spritzed this solution in areas that needed to be a bit darker. Your ATC's will curl due to all that liquid combined with the thin nature of the Catania paper, but we'll take care of that in a minute.
Now if you are wondering why I asked you to waste electricity by firing up your craft iron, now is the time! I don't have room for (or rather, I don't want to waste the time to fetch) an ironing board in my craft area, so I improvise:
Take an old cotton placemat (and yes, mine is splattered with ink and glimmer mist and soldering flux and something orange from what I don't remember, but hey - it ain't a placemat no more! It's a
work cloth...) and spread that out on your counter top. Then cover it with one of
Tim's craft sheets. They are heat resistant in addition to being totally non-stick (even superglue won't stick). I'd love to find this stuff by the yard and cover my tables with it...
Anyway, presto! Instant ironing board!
On top of the craft sheet I placed two more Bounty towels, placed an ATC
face down, and ironed. Repeat for all ATC's.
The ironing did three things: it dried the Glimmer Mist right away, it flattened the ATC nice and neat, and......(drumroll)....it re-heats the clear embossing powder and melts it onto the Bounty towel! This removes any trace of the shiny powder that acted as a barrier to all the Glimmer Mist you attacked it with. :) :) :)
And if you are like me and saw this for the first time, I'd be asking you, "how did you do that?!"
To finish up, affix the stamped mulberry paper, glue the vintage button, trim the ATC down a tad and mat onto ATC sized
black cardstock (Memory Box Licorice). Sign, date and number and...done!
I'll be posting again tomorrow so see you then!!! Thanking you for stopping by, cindy
