mixed media magic
Creating mixed media cards and transforming them into cards.
Hi friends! It's Julee stopping by with a bit of inspiration using the January Box of the Month! I just love the crisp blues and greens in the Fresh Start and Blue Florals paper packs, and used that for the inspiration for today's project.Today I'll be sharing the process of creating a couple of mixed media ATC's and then turning them into standard A2 sized greeting cards. I have the full write up below, but if you're more of a visual processor, I'll have a video up on my YouTube channel later this morning.
Creating the ATC's
Artist trading cards (ATC's) are small 2.5" x 3.5" pieces of art that artists often trade with each other. I really enjoy the process of creating on this smaller canvas, but don't always have someone in mind to trade with. So for today's project I'll be creating ATC's and turning them into standard A2 sized greeting cards.

I began with a 4.25" x 5.5" piece of watercolor cardstock, knowing I'd be able to create two ATC's from the one background. To get some color down, I started the background with some watercolor paints in blue and green colors to match the palette of this month's papers.
I love the process of adding layers upon layers to build up the color, then smooshing with a piece of acetate and watercolor ink to get more texture. After these layers of color, I swiped on some white gesso with a scraper. Gesso is a medium to prep your surfaces to accept different inks and paints, but here I'm just using it more like a white craft paint. You can add texture and control how opaque or translucent the white is, depending on how thick or thin you apply the white.
Once this was dry, I added some splatters with the same watercolors and some of the white gesso. To add texture and interest, I pulled out one of the sentiments from the Inside Birthday Greetings to randomly stamp on the panel in archival black ink. I wasn't making a birthday card, but I knew by the end of all the layers you wouldn't be able to tell it was a birthday themed stamp. You definitely want to stamp with an archival ink if you think you'll be adding any more wet mediums to your project, or your stamping might smear or bleed.
At this point, I trimmed the panel down to ATC size and ink around the edges with black soot distress ink. I used. black acrylic ink and a couple of bottle caps I found in my art studio to dip into the paint and stamp circles randomly on the panels. Using two different sizes of caps really adds interest, so look around your studio for objects you can use to make marks. I splattered the ATC's with black paint and then added some collage papers and rub-ons from my stash to add a bit more texture to the cards.
To create the focal points for the ATC's, I selected a couple of pieces from the Fresh Start ephemera and chose some rub on sentiments to add to strips of watercolor paper. I inked the edges of these sentiment strips with black ink and hen added a bit of watercolor to give them a cohesive look with the rest of the panel. You could stop here and leave these projects as ATC's, arranging the elements so they fit on the ATC panel, but I decided to keep going and turn them into cards.
Turning the ATC's into Cards
At this point, I switch gears and begin thinking about the ATC's as large focal points on a card. I look for soft backgrounds that aren't too busy and will complement the colors in the ATC. Big scene papers like the gorgeous hillside paper in the Fresh Start paper pack are a great place to look. Here the colors in the paper repeat the tones in the ephemera, bringing a cohesive look to the entire card.

A great way to really make your paper stand out without adding more layers is to frame it with a bit of ink around the edges. I love how it gives the illusion of dimension against the white background. Once I selected the paper for the background, I took note of the direction of the image and cut a 1" strip from the bottom of the paper. I set the 1" strip aside for another project, then cut the resulting piece into a 3.75" x 5" panel and a 2.5" x 5" panel.
I inked around all the paper edges with black soot ink, then added the 2.5" panel to a 3.75" x 5" piece of cardstock and inked some more. I finished up the cards by arranging the ATC's and background paper panels onto two A2 sized card bases.
Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you're inspired to go get inky!