All about Artist Trading Cards

 People ask what is so great about "Artist Trading Cards" all the time.

I just have to say that they are fun to make and create! I consider them Miniature works of Art!
Artist Trading cards are also known as ATC's.

Size:
They must be 2.5"x3.5" or 64x89mm. And are meant for trading ONLY. Usually through the mail via various yahoo groups or in person at a gathering. (The art card above was created for a annual Fiskateer event where everyone made 50+ cards with our photo on the front and our personal info on the back.)

Materials:
ATC's usually are made of a sturdy chipboard backing to ensure safe mailing. I like to recycle cereal and cracker boxes for ATC bases. In the past I used to score and cut each card on my paper trimmer. I went through quite a bit of blades this way! 

I have also made my ATC's with painted vinyl, soda cans, fabric, .....
Craft stores carry a line of Trading card sleeves, envelopes and baggies meant to keep them safe till swapped.

There are usually themes for a swap you might participate in. Here the theme was Nesting dolls. And as long as I kept my shape under 2.5"x3.5", I could use any shape. So I created a hand sewn doll that folds out to show to smaller nesting dolls. Go here to see more nesting dolls.

For the Alice in Wonderland swap, instead of making all my ATC's to be the same, I used a few brochures for the new movie and cut out images for each card. Then I accented them with glitter glue and shrink plastic key charms. I accented the edges with a gold leaf pen. See more Alice in Wonderland here!Sometimes the swap host will provide a template of the shape to use. In this case it was a house I printed out and made a template from card board. I hand cut each ATC and covered it with paper, added a vintage packaging tape transfer image, added some wings from a butterfly punch (cut in two) and finished it off with a few rub-ons.

This Bingo card was created with a rubber stamp made just for art cards. Now days you can also find scores of images or back ground stamps in the exact sizing for your art cards.
The butterfly is one of my favorites and I created it using a variety of alcohol inks. 

The theme was Mardi Gras masks. The top piece of the mask was made from the clear packaging some of your craft products come in. You can see the rest of the Mardi Gras masks here.
Here I hand cut women images from fabric and mod podged them to the paper on the card.
I colored one side of clear vinyl with alcohol inks and them stamped the reverse side with a music sheet stamp and staz- on/ The theme was Easter- hence the eggs.

For a fairy tales theme. I stamped a piece of card stock with a Snow white stamp, colored in the parts needed and covered the image with crackle glaze. The rest of the card is covered in vintage inspired wrapping paper, stamped tissue paper and the edges finished with a gold leafing pen.
For the next two Halloween cards, I just accented already great images with glitter glue and buttons. Then I used my FAVORITE pens, Sakura Soufflé pens that turn opaque on dark paper just like magic!

See more Halloween cards here!

For the Witch card, I brushed the raw side of the ATC blank with white gesso, them ran over it with lime green acrylic. Before that had started to set I added one more layer of crackle glaze. The image is just a basic run of the mill photo copy to which I adhered to the card. I rubbed a little of the gesso around the image edges, added some glitter glue and finished with the soufflé pen.

When you are ready to send out your cards, it's important to add the following:

• Your name
• Your city/sate or country
• Name of the swap
• Date 
• ATC number- 1 of 6, 2 of 6, and so on. 

You can all this to the back of each ATC hand or by using
one my of ATC rubber stamps from Blank Page Muse*.
*Save 15% off your order with discount code BPMMichelle

There are many ways to store your art cards. I displayed the Halloween ones on a vacant wall one year for the month of October. I also store them by year in a 3 ring binder using Trading card pockets. These can be found in any store that sells trading cards.

It's nice to browse the book and be re inspired every now and then. :)


If you are interested in participating in some Artist Trading Card swaps, please consider joining our group.- Mixed Media Art Charms and Faerie Garden Swaps. 

Tissue Paper Transfer Cards

One of my favorite things to do when creating cards, is to use common household items!

I love showing people that you don't need to spend much money to making something beautiful.

Ready? Lets create!  

Supplies used:

• Petals and Flowers By: Michelle Frae Cummings
• Medallions Ornate Patterns By: Michelle Frae Cummings
• Ink pads in coordinating colors
• White gift wrap tissue paper
• Saran or plastic wrap
• 2 large pieces of parchment paper
• A iron set to cotton, no steam
• A heat proof surface
• Cardstock paper 

1. Your tissue paper will have 2 sides. A slightly glossy side and a matte side. Place the tissue paper matte side up onto a large piece of card stock. The card stock will absorb any excess ink while you are stamping. 

2. Randomly stamp all over the tissue paper, with the various stamps and coordinating ink pad colors.

3. When you have finished stamping, Place one piece of parchment paper onto the heat proof surface. 

4. Next place your card fronts. If you don't have room for more than 2 cards, consider making a bookmark or small tags instead of wasting the tissue paper! 

5. Carefully lay down the plastic wrap over the cards. Its ok if there are few wrinkles in the wrap- you won't see them in the end.

6. Lay your stamped tissue paper onto the plastic wrap. It doesn't matter the its matte or glossy side up.

7. Lastly, place the 2nd piece of parchment paper on top of the stamped tissue paper.

8. Quickly iron over the parchment paper. Make sure to get all the card corners. 

9. Remove the parchment paper and trim off the excess tissue paper and plastic wrap from the cards. 

10. Trim the cards slightly to fit on a card base. 

11. For good measure, before finishing your cards, sandwich your trimmed cards in parchment paper and iron quickly to set any loose areas. 

12. Adhere to your card blanks and then create some more! 

So much fun, right?

 

Thanks for coming by, I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial and will now try some of your own. 

Feel free to join our Fan Page on Facebook to see what others are doing with our stamps and maybe you too can share your favorite Blank Page Muse projects!

~ Michelle

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My 41st Birthday & Valentines Day Week in Photos

 This past week I celebrated my 41st Birthday. It's always the day before Valentines Day.

In the above vintage Kewpi-cupid vase, I have some Birthday flowers.
I only bring him out once a year. Isn't he a cute?
He was a hand me down from my late Mother-in-law.

 Dyllan and I went to a dollar tree store looking for party favors. He was memorized by all the balloons they had, Tons! Next year, you should go there for $1 balloons. Same with greeting cards if you don't make your own. All Hallmark quality for $1 each. The lady in front of us at the check out, bought 30 cards. Maybe for co-workers. Either way...any where else. those cards would have been $5 a piece!

 On the 2nd Monday of every month, I get together with a wonderful group of card making friends.
We always have a themed swap, plus Birthday cards for the people celebrating that month and we take turns hosting a demo.
Here are some of the Birthday cards my friends made for me. 

 The Granny is a riot! Below is the inside of the card. :)

 

 Here we are at my kitchen table. I'm sorry I don't have a photo of the demo.
It was super fun to make.

 Here are the cards the ladies swapped at tonight's meeting.

I had my husband snap a photos because it's rare that we are all at a meeting. Some travel, or work gets in the way.  Most of the meetings are at my home because I have the table space. Sometimes a few other ladies host, which I appreciate. I really like the friendship and fun!
Here's our group on Meet-up if you are interested in joining.
Mixed Media Arts & Crafting Club
We now do other events beside card making...jewelry, painting, sewing and more!

Here are some cards I received from other crafty friends for my Birthday. 
So creative! Don't you agree?

Some  favorite "Valentines" for Dyllan from his classmates...

Handmade Owl Gift Cards

The theme this month is "Handmade Gifts".
What better gift than a Owl gift card set?
Materials used:

1. These Owl Rubber Stamps.
2. Colorful paper. I used Gelli-printed paper scraps.
3. Black ink.
4. Zig glue pen.
5. Colorful foil transfer sheets
6. Scissors
7. Foam tape
8. Glitter gel pens
9. Blank cards.

 Stamp your owls onto your colored paper.

 Decide where you want your foil to be, then apply your glue pen.
It goes on blue and dries to a tacky finish when clear.
You want your glue to be clear and tacky for the foil.
 Your foil will be shiny on one side and matte on the other.
 Place the foil matte side down onto your tacky glue.
Press down gently with your finger onto all the glue areas. Then peel the foil away rather quickly.
If the foil did not stick to a certain spot, add more glue.
 Alternate with different foils.

Re-use the foil sheets until they are void of color and all sticky areas on the owls are covered.

 Use foam to adhere your owls to the cards. Embellish with the gel pens.
The two flowers you see above are from this stamp set.

 I prefer to leave the cards sentiment free so people can write their own.

 The owl above is accompanied by this Medallion stamp.

Bundle all the cards together with a pretty ribbon or yarn.
 Great gifts for teachers, family and friends.
Thanks for coming by!
See more gift giving idea's here.

Rinea Foil Greeting Cards

Hi everyone!
Recently I was gifted with some specialty foils from Germany called Rinea foils. 
Let me just start off by telling you that these foils are amazing! They are thin, but not so thin that they tear easily. They have more of a paper quality that can be cut with decorative and regular scissors, or die cut. The foils can also be embossed by hand or with a machine.

My inspiration for these cards came from my love of Iris folding. Only with these foils, there is no need to "fold" as foil is so perfect as is!

 

Supplies used:

1. Rinea Foils
2. A printed Iris folding pattern (free online). 
3. Prepared blank cards plus extra cardstock for inside of card.
4. Scissors
5. Clear tape, double sided tape and some removable tape (painters tape).
6. Adhesive
7. A pencil and glitter gel pens

As you can see, the foils are gorgeous. Some are readily embossed....

While some are ready for 'you' to emboss or leave plain.

The foils are also double sided. Some with the same color, some with a bright gold.

Instructions:

1.  Print out your pattern to be smaller than the front of your card.
2.  Center the pattern and trace the outline with a pencil, pressing into the card.
3.  Reinforce the trace with a pencil and carefully cut the circle out. You can now use the circle or whatever shape you decide on, to trace for more than one card.

4.  Before you can begin working with the foils, you need to have your tape ready. Attach pieces of the clear tape to something where you can get to them easily. I used a oversized clipboard. I had 18 spaces on my pattern to cover so I  made sure to have double that in tape ready plus some extra pieces.

5.  Place the pattern over the top of your card so the design peeks through the hole. Hold it in place with one piece of removable tape- this will act as a 'hinge' to check your progress.

6.  Your pattern spaces are numbered. You'll want a different color of foil per number.
7. Open your card so the pattern is showing through the outside of the card.
You can now start adding your foils.

• Cut strips of foil so that it is a little longer than the opening.
• Line up a strip of foil with the inside edge of the area labeled with a "1"
• Tape both ends of the strip of foil face down to the card as shown- the backside of the purple foil is gold.
• Repeat with your next color foil for #2.

• Occasionally close your card to check your progress, lifting the pattern back on its 'tape' hinge. 
• Continue on with the 3rd foil for #3.
• Before you add your center foil, use any leftover tape strips to secure loose edges of the other foils. 
• Add the center piece with full strips of tape. 
• Place long strips of the double sided tape over the foil and at the edges of the card. Affix your extra cardstock in place to hide your work.

• Close your card and remove the pattern. Add any additional foil shapes with adhesive and accent the card with your gel pens.

Here are some variations.....


After I completed the bottom card, I used a dull pencil to draw some designs into the foil.
Thanks for coming by! I hope you liked my cards as much as I enjoyed making them!
Be sure to visit The Designer Crafts Connection blog to see more foil creations.
Then enter for a chance to win an amazing prize pack of 20 sheets of Rinea foil to play with!
Good luck!