A warm welcome to all my visitors,

Thank you for taking the time to come and look at my blog, I really do appreciate it. I would love you to leave me a comment, even if it’s just to say Hi. It means I can come visit you!

All my designs are original, so copyrighted to me. If I have been inspired by someone elses work, I have named them in the post, and where able, I have provided a link.

Please feel free to use my designs for inspiration, I just ask you to credit me, and provide a link back to my blog.

Thanks, Shaz XX

Wednesday 15 June 2016

The Making of the ATC's.

Ok, so I've been intending to do a post about my ATC's and I thought it's about time I got around to it.
 The actual backgrounds were done with a slightly unusual technique I'd watched in a video by Andy Skinner.
 He calls it the Alcohol Ink Floating background, and this HERE is the link to his video, if you want to watch it.
 We've all seen the marbling technique done with shaving foam, but this one uses just plain water and alcohol inks. You will need a tub for the water, and it needs to be deep enough to dip your sheet of card into, not lay it on top.
So, you need to cut your card accordingly, and I cut most of mine down to A5 & A6. I found the tub that washing capsules come in was a great size for this, but Ice Cream containers and similar would work just as well. What you do is pretty much fill your container with water, then drip some Alcohol inks onto the surface. You can swirl it a little if you want. Then take your card and dip it fully down into the water, then lift out. You will need a surface with paper towels/ handtowels on to absorb the water.



 You can see I cut my pieces down to ATC size, then backed them onto ready cut ATC cards, as there is often a little curling in the wet cards, which you can get rid of most of by weighing them down when dry.You will get totally unrepeatable sheets of marbled card- and the best bit is that there is colour on both sides, so whilst one side may be poor, the other side can be amazing!






 First image to stamp was the heart, and this was a new purchase from Honey-Doo crafts, when I went to Port Sunlight. I stamped it at an angle, and partly off the card to give me room for everything else.


 Rather than doing each card entirely, I had a bit of a production line on the go- stamping each element on every card before going on to the next step.





 The inkpad I'm using is Archival, Cobalt Blue, by the way.



Next stamp was 'Laugh' and this was part of a set from WOW embossing powders, and also contains the two other words I used, 'Love' & 'Live'.
















Now I've added the number 7, and that comes from a Tim Holtz set, called Mini Worn Text, which has letters, numbers & punctuation.

















Here I've added the WOYWW letters around the edge of the heart, and also drawn an outline around the heart, this time using a Distress Marker, in  Faded Jeans.
I used a fine tipped black pen to draw a box around the words, and to colour in the first 'W'.


Now I added a white line around them too, as a highlight.
 I'm showing you a different ATC each time, so you can see the amazing range of colours you can get with this technique.






I've added some highlight to the '7'.








Adding some Faded Jeans around the edges with the round blending tool.







 A final touch up with the white gel pen, as I thought it had faded too much.



Filling in the backs, having used a stamp from Lost Coast Designs.

17 comments:

Kim said...

Thanks for sharing how you did the ATC's, they are lovely...Have a great week! Hugs!
-K #50

Sharon said...

Beautiful ATCs. Thanks for sharing your technique with us.

Have a great week
Sharon K #39

Unknown said...

WOW!! These are cool! And loved how you explained you made them! Thanks for the visit and I hope you are getting more and more energy! God bless!
Carol N #38

Helen said...

wowzers these look fab, I've never tried this with my alcohol inks.. der!! thanks for sharing.

Lynne Mizera said...

What a wonderful tutorial! I have not seen this particular technique before and I thought I had seen them all, so THANK YOU for sharing. And OF COURSE I just threw away a laundry soap pod tub that I have been keeping for over a year but finally admitted that I would probably never use it... and NOW I NEED IT! Grin Isn't that always the way?? Happy WOYWW from Lynne #46

Sue said...

Hi Shaz, WOW!!! What beautiful ATCs.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Happy WOYWW
Sue #29

Andrea said...

What a fab technique and great tutorial..you do explain things well. The effect is great and variety amazing ,I do love your creativity have a good weekend Andrea#53 (i messed up the first time around when linking before work this morning !)

Anonymous said...

What a nice technique, I should give it a try one day. Thanks for sharing.
Your atc is lovely.

BJ said...

Great to see all your ATCs in the making. Thanks for visiting BJ#27

Twiglet said...

The little ATCs are beautiful and it's lovely to see how you clever folk make them - so muchlove, thought and effort in each one. Thanks Shaz. x Jo

Shaz in Oz.CalligraphyCards said...

Awesome to see how those wee little atcs were made Shaz really appreciate it, so many steps as with all creativity well done on having photos all the way, I usually slip up somewhere. I must check that video out.
Thanks for sending me one too, very spoilt!
Shaz in Oz.x 30

Kelly said...

What a cool idea... and your backgrounds came out beautiful! Creative Blessings! Kelly #52

Cara said...

Brilliant tutorial, love that heart stamp. Cara x

Mrs.D said...

Shaz, I'll cheat and comment on your WOYWW and ATCs here.
Well done for getting all you stamps organised, when I get home I am going to have to do something like that.
Thanks for sharing the 'marbling' technique, I have seen something very similar done with cheap nail varnish, but haven't done it.
Thanks for visiting my 'desk', yes the weather can be a bit of a nuisance, but we had a really nice day today, only started raining about 10 minutes ago.
Chris #17

LisaDV said...

They are gorgeous.

lisa said...

I haven't seen that alcohol ink technique before, Shaz. I need to give that a go so thanks for sharing. Your ATC's are beautiful.
Thank you for popping by earlier. Yes, Fountains Abbey is definitely worth a visit. It's National Trust and there's a lovely cafe...not that I like cake or anything you understand!!!!
Hugs Lisax #12

Morti said...

Hey Shaz...

Thanks for stopping by this week, and taking the time to drag your way to the end of the post! Heheheheh.....

Love the step by step of your ATCs. I'd not thought about using alcohol inks the way you have for the backgrounds - might just inspire me to try a few of my own. I had to laugh when I started to put ATCs into my folder, the ATC I did this year was almost identical to the one I made a couple of years back! Hah! I'm going slightly mad....

Keep well and keep smiling.

Morti

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