Voyage Beneath the Sea ATCs

I LOVE Graphic 45 for paper crafting.  Their images are the best for cutting things out and they are so detailed.  They also do a lot with Steampunk and some darker images.  Though they have plenty of flowers and pretties, they also have less pretty things which I appeal to me.  Though the world of paper crafts has given me new appreciation for flowers and pinks, I have never been much of a flowers and lace type.  I love companies that have a lot of variety while still keeping a sense of style.  Graphic 45 has that down.

I had to make some ATCs with their newer Voyage Beneath the Sea set.  The paper set is great, especially if you like Mermaids.  She is not in this art set, but they also have a fabulous image with a Octopus Lady, which I will have to put on something fantastic (not sure what yet).  You can see the entire set here: Graphic 45's Voyage Beneath The Sea

Without further ado:

Fish Man: not technically an ATC, but I loved this fish and needed to do something with him.  I glued him to some Silhouette chip board and fussy-cut him, chipboard and all.  I then cut out the Sea is Calling tag which came from the same paper as the fish man.  I used my Aqua Marine Chameleon Pen at full color to outline the words and make it stand out more.  The globe/button at the top of his head is from Tim Holtz and it was originally a little gear sticker brad.  I colored the sticker with a mx of Tim Holtz gold mixative and Lindy Stamp Gang's Magical tainted love teal pigment powder.  The paint is under the epoxy sticker that comes with his, "Custom brad," set.  I used the same mixture on the two gears and the brads that are holding them down.  I ended up going over the gears with multi medium matte since I was worried the alcohol ink wouldn't stick well.  When I did so it made the blue from the powdered pigment really pop out.  The gold wire is just simple jeweler's wire.  I put a few little dabs of mult medium matte mix and the gold/blue mix on the wire as well.  The wire is strung through the fish man's hands, though it does make it look as if he's holding it in a strange way.  I wanted something a bit more solid than the original paper though.  It is somewhat simple, but it took me an hour and 20 mins for the cutting, painting, wire, etc.  It was worth the time though.

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Mermaid Travels ATC: This one is a traditional ATC.  I didn't do any fancy cutting with this one.  Originally I wanted the, "The Sea is Calling and I Must Go," phrase to show, but it didn't really work out well composition wise.  The three flowers are from Petaloo.  They are their original color, though they are made to be painted.  The embossed seahorse in the back is from Inkadoo.  I used Stampin up embossing powder which is fairly fine and nice for the more detailed images.  The teal hints on the background are from Faber-Castell's Metallic Mint Gelato.  I just smudged it around with my fingers after giving the edge some outline.  

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I hope you enjoyed seeing these little guys.  If you like Graphic 45 as much as I do then stay tuned.  There will be plenty more in the future.

Bo Bunny Trail Mix ATCs

I decided to use up some (though not really much) of my Bo Bunny stash.  I have taken advantage of a few Bo Bunny Grab Bags which means I have some excess in some areas.  Their Trail Mix line being one in which I have a few duplicates.  So I decided to make a few ATCs that also double as magnets.  I am going to sell/display them at a garage sale I am starting tomorrow to see if anyone buys them.  If not, I still had fun making them.  Some details below.

Astoria ATC: Astoria is a old historical town next to the one I live in.  It is also the home of the Goonies house.  The scene where the kid Truffle Shuffles is kind of fun to watch now since I can easily recognize Astoria in the background.  This is a simple card and technically a bit larger than a ATC.  The Bo Bunny tag/paper is inside of a 3"x4" plastic card protector.  The Astoria is made with two Tim Holtz Fragments on some Bo Bunny scraps and letter stickers from the Trail Mix sticker sheet.  I have a container of ArtMinds Mosaic Glass from another project I never actually started, and there were some that were the perfect color for this, so I added them.  The fragments and mosaic pieces are all glued on top of the card protector.  The extra space did make the layout on this much easier.  Originally I was going to stick with a traditional ATC, but Astoria didn't really fit very well.

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Cabin Life ATC.  I am pretty happy with how the wood vellum piece ties in the Bo Bunny stickers and the dark brown cardstock.  The cardstock is just a generic dark brown piece from Michael's.  The wood vellum is actual thin wood and gives some nice texture.  I used Mocha Mama powderpuff from Quick Quotes to add a little more depth and outline to the binoculars ribbon paper and the Cabin Life sticker.  I fussy cut the ribbon out, which was not too difficult.  The lantern is a chipboard sticker from the same matching set. 

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Fishing Life ATC: This one is somewhat simple.  The Fishing box and pole piece is a sticker and the world, "Fishing," is a separate one.  I used some green cardstock I had in my scraps and added some Tattered Angels Cardboard Baseboard spray to it.  There was a design, but the spray didn't really work well with my stencil.  It did add some nice little mystery blotches though.  Fishing is messy work, right?  The fish is a stamp from Inkadoo and I embossed it with Ranger Brick embossing powder.  I also stamped the fishing box sticker with a set of stamps I have from a unknown company (bought them used) that look like vintage post office stamps.  They didn't show up really strong, but I like how they are kind of hinted.  I was going for a slight post card feel with that.

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If you have any comments please feel free to post below!  If you make ATCs I would love to see them, post a link to your blog/site below and I will be happy to visit.