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.

Amazing Little Cards

One of my favorite swaps on Scraps of Darkness/Elegance's Facebook is their Artist Trading Card swap.  ATC's are standard trading card size, in theory, at 2.5" x 3.5".  I have made a few ATCs at this point and they never stay neat and little.  Here are some of the ATCs I have created.  I love making them and if you would like one drop me a little Fiverr request.  I did start making some ATCs for a test sale at my garage sale this weekend.  If they don't sale then I will probably make an Epsy account and you can find already created ATCs there.  I do like custom making them to fit the receiver though.  I have tried to get more personal with them as I go.

In no particular order, here are some ATCs.

Once Upon a Story with Graphic 45.  I love fussy cutting and I really enjoyed making this one.  The wings on the butterfly have Reneaboquets Shattered Glass glitter.  It's a little hard to see in the picture, but the fairy wings have dots of brick colored embossing dots.  I loved how the wood grained scrapbook paper (I think it was from Michael's) adds to the rest of the ATC.  

Grandmother and Smiles.  I made these specifically for a crafter that I swapped with who was also a grandmother.  I wanted them to be somewhat matching, but also unique.  The papers were just scraps from my stash.  The Yellow flower came from a Quick Quotes kit that I took apart.  The black and gray flowers are from Michael's.  The butterflies are stickers that I added to cardstock and then cut out.  The black and white mini hearts were scraps from another project where I made a heart boarder.  I thought, "well, lets keep these, I cold put them on something."  I am very much a, "waste not," boarding on hoarder type crafter.  Sometimes it makes my craft room a pain to organize, other times it works out.

Graphic 45 Mime.  The original paper I got this from (Graphic 45) was all monochrome.  I wanted to play with my Chameleon Pens.  I colored all of the yellow and the red.  The little black flower was just something from my stash and the Admit One charm is from Tim Holtz.  I just used some jeweler's wire to make it a small necklace.  The little ticket is 7 Gypsies.  I was happy with how this came out and I hope to use my Chameleon Pens more in the future.  

This is a quick one I put together for a girl on a house cleaning and organization group I have tried to get going on Facebook.  I thought maybe a little incentive to get some participation.  The recipient put pictures of her kitchen in my group so I tried to match colors on a sign she had hanging up for decoration.  

Love and more Graphic 45.  I had some Valentines papers and was sending cards to a recipient who had recently gushed about how supportive her significant other was of her crafting.  So, I made her some grungy romance ATCs.  The butterfly and rose come from Michael's generic embellishments they sell in their discount area.  The background of the Love (only) card and the little clocks come from Tim Holtz.  

A peek-a-boo tree,  This one was experimental for me.  The tree is hand drawn on spray misted ATC canvas.  The tree was drawn with a Chameleon pen.  I did draw the tree in it's entirety before overlaying the simi-transparent paper.  You can see the tree behind the paper a little better in the actual piece.  I am still working on that art photography thing.  This probably would have worked better and more dramatically on a larger canvas.  Working with the wire in such a small setting was pretty challenging.  I am pretty happy with it, though I can't say it's a favorite of mine.  I will probably redo with more details on a larger canvas at some point.

My first ATC.  I really wanted to add some hand painted and slight surreal feel to it.  I added some bits from an ephemera pack I had bought and sent it along.  The recipient seemed pretty happy with it.  I want to add painted elements and more surrealism to ATCs in the future.  So, stay tuned.

Let me know what you thought.  Any input is always appreciated.  If you are a Fivver customer then please let me know if any of these styles suit you.  Also, stay tuned for more pages on ATCs.

ATV Doll House

ATV Doll House

I made this for a Scraps of Darkness & Elegance Swap on their facebook page.  I got the idea after looking at dollhouse miniatures online and though it be fun to create a dollhouse ATV.  I had grander plans, but when you are working with that tiny space, it's hard to get too crazy.  The photo above is my second house attempt.  The first house had "wallpaper."  However the constant opening and closing as I glued and modified it made the wallpaper start to split at the seam.  It was more of a box than just a card as above.  My house wasn't really old or retro looking, so I pealed off my windows and doors and started again.  I started over, looked at the house like paper I had and went with the one with the "best" already attached wallpaper.  So, not super fancy, but it will stay together.  Because I changed my house, though, my windows ended up being a bit large. The original one was square instead of house shaped.  I was already a bit behind, so I just went with it.

I don't have a tutorial for every single thing, but I have a few items and some supplies are listed at the bottom.  For this, be creative, no need to find every little supply part I used.

I wanted my windows to be transparent, so I cut them from vellum (the lighter variety) and painted them with Tattered Angel's Cloudy Blue glimmer glaze.  The windows and doors were cut out of Birch veneer cardstock.

 I wanted to add depth.  I used a paper spring on the back of the Christmas tree and some jeweler's wire on the back of the little banner.  The banner is hooked on by the Christmas lights on the outside of the card.  It was a bit tricky, everything was pretty small.  I did manage to finally get things together after a few tries.

These were by far the most frustrating part of the project.  I ended up putting glue on the back of the ornament and then picking it up with the wire.  I used Beacon's All in One glue.  I reinforced the ornaments after the first bit of gluing dried to make sure they were really going to stick.  I used a needle for this and my small puppies to try and keep things from getting stuck to my fingers.

And, of course, some tiny puppies.  I used the needle to help handle the little pieces.  The dogs, windows, house, doors, and couch were all cut from Cricut's online studio.  I just guesstimated the sizes.  The eyes and anything really small I just doted on with a fine tipped sharpie.

The wreath and the little green decoration on the inside of the door were both cut from Graphic 45 paper.  The tree and banner are from a Christmas theme ephemera pack, which I didn't keep the name of.  The clock on the wall is Tim Holtz.

I will never get this posted if I don't just do so... it's already a few months old.  If you want to know what something is then drop a msg and I will look it up.

Some Supplies used:

Cardstock Warehouse #65 Birch wood veneer cardstock
Graphic 45 Time To Flourish December Cut Apart

Kaiser Craft self adhesive pearls (inside door knob)
Tim Holtz Idealogy custom brads