How do you store your collection of ATCs? If you’re playing along with the Creative Squad this month and making ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) to exchange with friends, how about taking a cue from Creative Squad member Judi Kauffman. She created a beautiful ATC Album using my ATC Mixup stencil to store and show off her growing collection.

I liked the sheet of ATCs that looked a lot like faux postage so much that instead of cutting it apart I laminated it onto a sheet of 8.5×11 cardstock and coil-bound it with enough cardstock-weight pages for a swap that the Creative Squad has in the works. Each page holds 4 ATCs in baseball card pockets with plenty of space for writing the name of the maker(s), date, and other notes and info.

Thanks for sharing Judi – we hope you fill that album!

You can find all of my stencils in my Online Store. Here are some of the supplies that Judi used:

Nat

Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a post from Robin Seiz who is sharing a beautiful bevy of ATCs using my ATC Mixup stencil and our theme this month: Time for Texture – Visual texture or actual texture is an element that can give dimension, depth, and touchable interest to any piece of art. Let’s play with texture in a series of ATCs and see what emerges!

Hello friends, The theme for this month, ATCs with texture, is something that really gets me excited. I LOVE texture, of all sorts, and I also love working small. ATCs are such fun because they can be a quick and easy project (or more complex if you want it to be) and they make great happy mail. ATCs are also easy to swap with your artist friends. 

For this project, I wanted to use some of the “bits and bobs” that I have stashed away and rarely use. You’ll see tiny stick-on pearls on one card, a piece of an old movie reel, an old stamp, and a few random jewelry pieces from my jewelry making days on others. I find it satisfying to incorporate what I have; it challenges me to think creatively about a project. 

I knew I wanted a vintage theme for my cards. With the wonders of mixed media, almost anything can be made to look vintage with a little distressed ink or unbleached titanium paint! 

There are days when I want to work on something in the studio, but just can’t get going. On those days, I sit down with my paper scraps, my fabric scraps, and old books, or music and my sewing machine and create little “collages” to use at some point in the future in a journal, on a card, or whatever calls me. I can get lost making these little pieces and before you know it there are 20 or so on my table. I keep all of these in a basket for future projects. When I thought about this project and creating texture, these little gems immediately came to mind. 

I started by cutting the ATCs (2 1/2 x 3 1/2, the standard size) out of card stock. Next I mixed Liquitex Unbleached Titanium paint and Golden light molding paste together to make a gritty textured paste. I laid Nathalie’s ATC Mixup stencils down on the blank ATC cards and using a pallet knife, I spread the paste through the stencil. I used the same background color for each ATC card. The texture is so yummy and gritty! One note of caution, make sure you wash your knife and the stencils right away; if the paste dries, it’s almost impossible to get off. 

Once the paste had a chance to dry, I began pulling all my elements together. This was an intuitive process. I started by choosing from the basket of scraps and began building a story on each ATC. When all the elements were chosen, I auditioned them for placement on the card. For the final vintage touch I used distressed inks to rub over the texture paste and around the edges of the card and on some of the elements. I suggest you just play and see what feels right to you. In some cases, I sewed the elements to the card, others I glued.

I hope these inspire you to have fun, use your imagination, and your supplies! – Robin

Thank you Robin – love hearing your process for getting started in your studio and seeing how the final creations came together. They are each so unique and beautiful but all tied together too.

Give it a try: you can find all my Stencils in my Online Shop and in addition to a selection of bits and bobs and collage material from her stash, here are some of the supplies Robin used:

Looking for more projects? Follow the Creative Squad on Instagram here.

Nat

Are you playing along with the Creative Squad this month and making ATCs (Artist Trading Cards)? We have a great solution for storing those cards from Creative Squad member Judi Kauffman to share with you today. She is using my ATC Mixup stencil to create a simple but stunning way to organize your growing collection.

The wedding and party aisle of many craft stores have small bags and boxes to hold favors. Paint and stencil one to use as a storage box for the ATCs you make and receive in swaps!

Thanks for sharing Judi – what a nice way to hold all those mini masterpieces!

You can find all of my stencils in my Online Store. Here are some of the supplies that Judi used:

Like what you see? Follow the Creative Squad on Instagram for weekly posts, artwork, and inspo.

Nat

Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a post and video from Riikka Kovasin who has created a set of ATCs that will make you chuckle :) using my ATC Mixup stencil and our theme this month: Time for Texture – Visual texture or actual texture is an element that can give dimension, depth, and touchable interest to any piece of art. Let’s play with texture in a series of ATCs and see what emerges!

Snarky Kids

Moikka moi! It’s Riikka here today with some snarky ATCs! Boy, there might be some explaining to do. Not in the project itself, those cards are quite straight forward, but the focal points and the juxtaposition. Let’s get started!

First of all, I’m not sure you are familiar with these “glossy pictures” I’ve used here as focal points. The term is a direct translation of a Finnish word “kiiltokuva”. From what I gather, these items are not widely used or known. For example, Wikipedia article of the subject can be found in Finnish, German, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. Glossy pictures are thought to originate in Germany in mid-19^th century. They are printed images with a glossy finish, cut in shaped sheets with little connecting bridges. The idea was to cut the individual images loose from the sheet. Nowadays collectors are looking for the uncut sheets rather than individual images. The pictures were used to decorate gifts, ornaments or put in little keepsake books.

My glossy pictures may look old, but in fact they are relatively new. They were bought from a local craft store. As a kid I had a huge collection of the pictures, some adhered in books with little poems. I chose these particular pictures because Valentine’s Day is not that far away. But I wanted to add something surprising to the otherwise sweet cards. There’s the candy colors, kids with flowers and then rather snarky comments! My idea was that when you glance the cards you may think they are sweet but when you take a closer look, you see the juxtaposition between the sweetness and the lines. The texts are from Tim Holtz’s “Snarky” sticker book.

Now that we have those explained, let’s go to the theme of the month – texture. I used both visual texture and touchable texture in these. Visual texture for me here is the background design – using acrylic paints to color the white cardstock and then using the ATC Mixup stencil on top to create different clusters of pattern there. Tactile texture is done using the stencil again, but this time with texture paste. To match the white paste to the candy colors better, I colored it using a pink acrylic paint. While the patterns underneath differ from card to card, I used the same doily like design to the raised layer. To see how I created the cards, please see the video below!

As you could see from the video, I started the cards by creating a master sheet. This is the way I tend to start ATCs nowadays. A master sheet allows making a number of backgrounds at once with similar color scheme and patterning but each individual card is still a bit different, each having its own personality. What allows the mix of different patterns here is the wonderful “ATC Mixup” stencil. I just love how this big stencil holds so many great patterns! And as you can move the stencil, you can still make big areas with the pattern easily.

Thank you for stopping by today! Wishing you all the best and happy Valentine’s Day to you all a bit early! 

Xoxo Riikka

Thank you Riikka – these made us laugh so hard!!! But we also appreciate the richly textured backgrounds you created :)

Give it a try: you can find all my Stencils in my Online Shop and in addition to her glossy pictures from her stash and old book pages, here are some of the supplies Riikka used:

Looking for more projects? Follow the Creative Squad on Instagram here.

Nat