ATCs

Here are a few of the ATCs I've made recently. I love the small scale of ATCs as a 'canvas' to try out new ideas, techniques, and products, before using them in bigger projects where mistakes would be more costly in terms of time and materials.

The pear on this ATC is made from polymer clay, painted with acrylic paints and stamped onto. It's set onto textured card, which I painted with fluid acrylics then rubbed with metallic rub on wax to bring out the texture.


This ATC was a way of testing out Brilliance white ink on colourwash & distress ink backgrounds. I used watercolour paper which had been sprayed with several colourwash sprays, then stamped the main image using black Stazon. I used a mask to cover the centre of the image, and added distress inks around the edges using cut and stamp foam. Finally, I stamped using Brilliance Moonlight White.


This was another new technique try out. I created 'luminous paste' by mixing PearlEx with glossy soft gel medium (one of the variations in Julia Andrus's Paper Transformed book), and applied it to painted canvas through a stencil. The letters are die cut. The butterfly is polymer clay - using clay which was rolled out, had a layer of metal leaf added, coloured with alcohol ink, then rolled out thinly so that the metal leaf 'cracks'. I had leftovers from my mian project so put them into the small buttefly mould to see how they looked. Works for me! I'm not sure I like my design here, but it is a little record of the techniques I used, which will act as a reminder for me.

Friendly plastic play

Carol and I have been playing with Friendly Plastic today. One thing we did was make some decorated Friendly Plastic strips.

Take a pale coloured strip of FP - white, mother of pearl, pale gold. Drip alcohol inks onto it - the brights work well. Move the inks around with some kind of tool - I used the end of a fine straw. I dripped more ink on and blew some of it around.



The colours I used were POOL, CLOVER, and PURPLE TWILIGHT. The finished strip looks pretty just covered in the inks.


If you want to go a step further, take a Sakura Souffle pen, and doodle all over the inked strip.
You can now use the decorated strip in your projects.


We also made some beads out of scrap FP - some of the pieces we had managed to turn into grey mush during earlier failed experiments! Drop the bits into the warm water (60-70 degrees C or 140-160 degrees F) for a few moments until they soften. Lift out, and roll together between the palms of your hands. Voila, a very quick and easy bead.


Drop the bead into the cold water bath, and after 30 seconds or so, pierce it with a needle tool to make the hole through the middle (you can also drill the beads once they are fully cold if you prefer).


Give the bead a quick blast of a heat gun, just until the surface turns shiny, then roll it in a box of foil flakes.


Lift the bead out of the flakes, leave for a while, then gently rub the loose flakes off. Enjoy using your glitzy metallic bead. You could seal it if you like.


You can use the same decorative technique, but rolling the bead in PearlEx instead of foil flakes - gives a completely different but equally yummy effect!

Polymer clay 'brocade'

I was reading Donna Kato's 2nd book on Polymer Clay (Surface Effects for Polymer Clay), which I can highly recommend as having great eye candy and clear instructions, when I came across 'polymer clay brocade' and fell in love.

I've really enjoyed making these pieces, and thought I'd share how I did them.

First, gather your supplies - you'll need:

a ceramic tile or piece of silicone coated baking paper to work on
a pasta machine or Wizard die cutting machine if you have one (but you can knead the clay by hand if you don't)
black polymer clay - preferably Kato or Fimo
metallic acrylic paint, plus 3 colours of acrylic paint
rubber stamps - deeply etched with all over texture or pattern rather than images (you could also use texture plates, or perhaps even an opened out Cuttlebug folder)
cornstarch, talc or similar for dusting
rolling pin - preferably acrylic or brass rod or acrylic brayer but I managed with a glass bottle!
metal cookie or similar cutters if you have them

The very basic instructions for the technique are really very simple, as follows:

Condition clay and roll into sheets. Paint clay, and impress with a stamp. paint clay again, and roll flat. Cut into shapes and bake as per manufacturer's instructions. Simple!!!

You'll be pleased to know there are step photos below, with added hints and tips and leaning points from the mistakes I made when I made mine!!!

Gathering the supplies

I chose to make 3 different pieces of 'brocade' - one with a silver base, one gold, one copper. I thought it would be a good way of using up some cheap copper and silver metallic paint I had. This was a BIG mistake. As you will see, this technique works MUCH better using good quality paint, like the Lumieres or Golden products. Here are the paints I started off with:



Next, I chose my acrylic colours for the copper based piece:

and for the silver based piece:

and for the gold based piece:


All the coloured acrylic paints shown above performed very well for this technique.

Next I chose my rubber stamps, these need to be all over textures or patterns, and one large stamp is easier to use than stamping more than once with a smaller one. The effect is better with deeply cut stamps, rather than shallow ones. The stamps I chose are (from left to right) from Innovative Stamp Creations, Stamp Camp, and Polymer Clay Express. The one on the right worked best of all - it was big, deeply cut, and designed for using with polymer clay.


A rolling pin. Preferably an acrylic one or a brass rod, but I didn't have either. I used this tall thin glass bottle, as I had read somewhere that you can work on clay tiles or sheets of glass and the clay doesn't stick to them. The clay stuck to it. So I used a layer of silicone coated baking paper between the clay and the bottle and it worked absolutely FINE. A wooden rolling pin and a sheet of silicone coated baking parchment would work, too. As would a thick metal knitting needle.


Something to dust your stamps with. You could grab a square of muslin and put some cornflour (cornstarch) in it and hold it together with an elastic band, or perhaps try using talc, or you could take the easy option and use one of these if you have one:


Polymer clay. I used Fimo soft clay. I want to try Kato clay, and have ordered some from the US, but I couldn't wait for it to arrive to try this technique so used what I had. I made about 30 embellishments out of one small pack, which cost less than £2.

Instructions

Condition the clay by running it though a pasta machine a few times, folding the sheets into smaller packages before running them through the machine again. You can also use the Wizard (and maybe even other die cutting machines) for this bit, just sandwich the clay between two pieces of silicone coated baking paper, run it through, and fold up the sheets of clay before running though again. If you don't have a pasta machine or Wizard, you can condition the clay by hand by kneading it until it feels smooth and soft. This will take you between 5 and 15 minutes, depending on how much effort you put in and how hot your hands are!

Once the clay is conditioned, you need to roll it into sheets. If you use a pasta machine to do this, use the thickest setting. If you roll by hand, use something either side of your clay to ensure an even thickness - you could use double thickness of chip board, for instance. They are somewhere between 1/8th and 3/16th of an inch thick. The thickness is not critical, if your finished 'brocade' is too thin, you can layer it onto another thin sheet of plain clay. I got 3 sheets from my small packet, here are the two smaller ones, the tiles they are on are 6 inches square. I was a little concerned at the obvious ridges, but they didn't show at all in the finished 'brocade', so you don't need to be too picky about pasta machine or rolling pin marks.

Now, dab a very thin layer of metallic paint all over the clay, using your fingertips. Less is definitely more, you will build up 4 or maybe even 5 thin layers. As I found out, if you put the paint on too thick, it will come off when you add the next layer. So, this is what it looks like after 1 layer, I tried using my finger to apply the paint on the left, and a sponge brush for the piece on the right:

Allow 10 minutes for the paint to dry between layers. This next pic is after the second layer, and this is where I began to notice the difference between the cheap paint on the right and the better quality Lumiere paint on the left:


The cheap paint was looking distinctly thin and patchy, but I added a third layer, and found that the cheap paint was coming off as fast as it was going on. The better quality paints have better binders and more pigment, working on polymer clay needs a good binder and lots of pigment.

I tried using my fingers instead of the sponge brush but it got worse, so I decided to change paint, for this high quality one by Golden (but I think any good quality, highly pigmented paint would work just as well).

Just look at the difference, after the 4th coat:


Because I'd used the cheap paint and got poor coverage, I added a fifth coat of the copper. if I'd used good paint form the outset, I think 4 coats would be enough.



The next step is to THOROUGHLY dust your stamp, then lay it on top of the clay (patterned side facing downwards) and take you rolling pin and roll it ONCE, pressing down hard. This is where you find out if you dusted well enough. If you didn't, you'll be picking bits off clay off your stamp for a while, believe me. This is what my gold sheet looked like after impressing the stamp into it:


And this is what the copper one looked like. I used a smaller stamp, and impressed twice. You can see the join line at this point, but not in the finished 'brocade'.

I completely forgot to dust the stamp in between impressing it into the clay. After the second impression, it was hard to get the stamp off the clay, and the sheet broke into small pieces while I was trying. And this last small piece was not the easiest thing to get off the stamp. I picked it all of bit by bit and scrubbed the stamp with warm soapy water and it is fine, but I learnt how important dusting the stamps is!


After impressing the clay, you add colour, again with you fingertips. Here's what the copper colour looked like after adding my paints:


After the paint dries (about 10 minutes) you roll the piece flat, here's what the gold sheet looked like after painting and rolling flat:


Finally, make embellishments from your sheets of 'biocade'. Here are a selection of the embellishments I made from the gold and copper sheets:




Here are pictures of my third sheet, using the same process. This sheet is about 3.5 inches wide and 7-8 inches long. I began this sheet with cheap paint and switched to better paint mid way:


Top half has a third coat of the Golden paint, the bottom half has a third coat of the cheap stuff:




After stamping:


After adding 3 acrylic colours with my fingertips:


After rolling to create a flat surface:


And here are some embellishments I made from the finished 'brocade' - I poked holes into these with an awl before baking, so that they can be made into pendants and earrings:


There will always be left over polymer clay when you do something like this. I rolled all my scraps up and ran them though the pasta machine a few times. All the acrylic paimnt got absorbed by the clay, and I used the scraps to make some moulded embellishments.



If you brush your moulds with PearlEx before putting the clay in, then bake in the mould, this is the sort of thing you get:


This was made in a home made mould, taken from a milagro ornament I bought in an art gallery shop in 2007. I brushed the mould with 3 colours of PearlEx before pushing the polymer clay into the mould, and baking it.

An interesting swap

I've been involved in an interesting swap over the last 2 weeks or so. We were divided into groups of 4 players. The idea is that each player made 4 ATCs using their own stamp, then mailed the stamp onto the next player, who made 4 ATCs then mailed the stamp on to the next player, and so on. Once we had worked with all 4 stamps, we mailed a set of the 4 ATCs we had made to the other players. I was in 2 groups, and here are the ATCs I made.

This was made using a Home Impressions stamp provided by Rosie - I used half of the stamp, rotated and stamped 3 times. The background was 4 Radiant Rain interference colours sprayed onto black card stock. I stamped with versamark and embossed with Moonlight Bronze Obsidian embossing powder from Lindy's Stamp Gang, and punched some small flowers from plain black card and glued them on. I mounted the image onto a striped silver metallic background, which I coloured with Brilliance Pearlescent Crimson ink.


This was Mawgan's stamp - made by Paper Artsy - background was made from Amaeretti de Soronno biscuit wrappers glued onto cardstock and coated with gesso, then stamped with Ranger archival ink in sepia. The 'ribbon' down the side is self adhesive paper ribbon, which I coloured with distress ink. The heart was punched form a hand made background paper, embossed in a cuttlebug folder, and highlighted with Teasure Gold. A few tiny copper coloured peel offs finished it off.


The background for this ATC is stamped with Brilliance Coffee Bean ink onto some glossy cardstock coloured with alcohol inks, using a Madjac stamp. Liz's stamp was the inkspot and text stamp, which I stamped onto shrink plastic, texturised while still hot, and attached with a brad. There is a face behind the shrink plastic 'door'.


This was Carol's stamp. I struggle with Victorian images, and had trouble with this stamp, which didn't 'grab' me. Eventually I stamped it onto a Twelve x 12 paper using purple ink and green iridescent embossing powder, then stamped some faint scrolls in the corners with a chalk ink. I added a polymer clay butterfly to finish, and mounted it onto purple pearlescent cardstock.


Annie was mean to me, she knows I love this stamp by Cory Celaya, but find it hard to use. Well, I had to use it this time LOL. I stamped the background by stamping the stamp 3 times in 3 colours, offsetting it each time. I stamped the image onto 'mother of pearl' fantasy film using blue Stazon ink, and cut round the image and used this as the focal point. I made a sheet of 'paper' by fusing angelina fibres together with inclusions of fantasy film, and cut small squares out and added them to the ATC with wire, threading small beads onto the wire to add interest. Finally, I mounted it onto dark purple pearlescent card.


This was an interesting stamp, by Queen's Dresser Drawers, again from Annie. I had some 'wrap around' cardboard ATC holders, so daubed them with several colours of Radiant Rain, then embossed them inside and out with 2 texture stamps and Moonglow Bronze Obsidian embossing powder. I made polymer clay embellishments as 'closures'. These were black clay pushed into home made silicone moulds which had been brushed with PearlEx, and 'cooked' for 15 minutes in the Melt Pot. The ATC inside was stamped onto 'waste' paper which has overspray of Radiant Rain from other projects, and embossed with the same embossing powder. I punched holes down the left hand side and mounted onto deep red cardstock.


This was my own stamp. I stamped it onto a hand made background, layered some of the paper 'ribbon' which I'd coloured to match on top, and mounted it all onto some dark green textured card stock.


This was also my stamp, by Queens Dresser Drawers, stamped onto a background paper made by spraying gold colourwash spray from Outside the Margins onto watercolour paper, then stamping the image and embossing with Moonglow Bronze embossing powder, and adding a black Hearty air dry clay shell moulded piece coloured with Treasure Gold.

I will ask the other players in the swap if I can add their ATCs to this post so that you can see how we each used the same stamps. Watch this space!