Brutus Monroe Hop - ATCs

Hello crafty friends! Thanks for joining me today. The Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team is creating ATCs this week! For those of you who are unfamiliar, ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards. Crafters and artists make these small pieces to trade and share with other artists. Many people collect them and put them in plastic page protectors. I have seen very cool examples of these online, but I've never made any! I was excited to try to make something in a smaller size. ATCs are typically 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches, and people often make them in groups of 3 or 5. I cut 3 panels of aqua pigment paper slightly larger, so I could tape them down around the edges. I came across a Jennifer McGuire video recently (although the video itself is actually 2 years old!) where she used a watercolor "lifting" technique with heat embossing, and decided to try it. 



I first used the new metallic aqua pigments on the three panels. My color combos are: cactus/periwinkle, sunflower/marigold, and rose/iris. I layered the color about 4 times, drying with a heat tool in between, so that the colors were nice and deep. Then I took the floral image from the "Conservatory of Quotes" stamp set, and heat embossed it using the Icicle (clear) embossing powder in various positions on the cards. Once the heat embossing had cooled, I used a spray bottle to completely soak the card fronts, and after letting the water sit for a moment, blotted it dry with a paper towel. I repeated this process two more times on each piece, and as the water lifts the surrounding color, the deeper colors are preserved under the heat embossing, making the image stand out darker against the background. I absolutely love how this background technique worked! I dried them quickly with a heat tool, and then splattered Gilded liquid element over them.
I blended surface inks in coordinating colors very very gently around the edges. I used Cabana/Speckled Egg, Phonebook/Jack O Lantern, and Aubergine/Rouge.



I heat embossed three sentiments from the "Conservatory of Quotes" stamp set
onto Raven cardstock with Alabaster EP. I trimmed them down with a paper trimmer, but then cut them even further into tiny strips using the Brutus Monroe fussy cutting scissors. I popped each one up using very small pieces of foam tap, and tied a coordinating string color from my stash around the middle of each card. I finished them off with a few sequins and acrylic bubbles.






Have you ever made ATCs? Have you traded with other artists? Post your projects on social media, and be sure to use the hashtags #BrutusMonroe and #CreateYourOwnEnding so we can see what you make!
Next, hop on over to Marie's blog and see her super cool ATCs!

 JESS
 ASHLEY


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