That's a horrible idea - ATC by Elisa Ablett

Hi Stamp lovers!

My turn up on the Viva blog today with my latest inspiration for you, a fun Artist Trading Card or ATC featuring loads of Viva Las VegaStamps.

I just love Bicycle Man stamp, so many possibilities for a fun and snarky card or art journal page.

And that sentiment...well that's me all over. 

Here are some close ups of the ATC and I have included a step by step for you as well to see how it came together!

Viva Las VegaStamps products:

SKU 5439 Crackle Background

SKU 18077 Nesting Gears

SKU 20282 That's a horrible idea

SKU 4665 Bicycle Man

https://vlvstamps.com/plate-1495.html

Other products:

AB Studio paper collection, Sepia and Black Versafine ink pads, Uniquely Creative Cityscape Die Cut, Polaroid Die cut, Distress Oxide Inkpads, Distress Ink pads, Decoart Extreme Sheen Paint, Cream Cardstock.

STEP BY STEP:-

Grab your selection of Viva Las VegaStamps, for this project I have included a list above with direct links to the website for VLVS. Stamp your sentiment and Bicycle Man stamp onto cream heavy weight cardstock using Sepia archival ink. Fussy cut your images out and using watercolours and Distress Oxide inkpads and a paint brush, add colour to your stamped images.

Next step is to cut two pieces of cream cardstock around 4 x 6 inch in size and another piece of patterned card to fit on one of the background cardstock with a small border showing. The second piece of cardstock is to use to cut your dies...The cityscape and Polaroid dies.

Add some splatters of distress oxide ink to your background and also around the edges. Colour your city scape die cut as well as a few pieces of ephemera including tickets and music paper. I like to add colour by scraping my inkpad over a craft messy mat and spritz the ink with water until it beads. then I dip my paper and tap it in the colour on the messy mat and dry with a heat gun.

Paint your polaroid die cut in a lovely bronze paint and then once dry, stamp your crackle background over the top of the painted die cut. You can also heat emboss it with black embossing powder at this stage here as well for that extra texture.

Using Aged Mahogany stamp pad, stamp your Nesting Gears Stamp over the bottom half of your ATC, you can see that i have run my ATC through my sewing machine roughly around the edges as well. 

On another piece of spare cream cardstock, using the swipe and smoosh technique for distress oxide ink pads as discussed in the steps above, add a bit of colour to the cardstock, let it dry or heat to dry. Then once dry, stamp using the mixed media edge stamp above using black versafine ink. Then fussy cut it out.

Add some stitching to your tickets and cluster on the left hand side of your ATC and glue to your background.

Start your layering, adhere your cityscape over the tickets then using 3D mounting tape or squares, adhere your polaroid frame over the top as shown above. Then glue your fussy cut Bicycle Man stamped image to the bottom right hand side. 

I decided to re-stamp my quote onto a patterned background and I also added more colour to the quote before adhering to my ATC.

Glue your sentiment onto your ATC and using a black fine tip marker, trace around the edges to make it stand out a bit. 

And you are finished!!

Thanks for stopping by the blog today, make sure you leave some love!

Elisa x

Snark and Sass ...

Hello crafty friends!

Today I want to share a fun snarky set of ATCs.

Who doesn't love a little sass? I have so many sassy stamps, and never enough time to share them! These three will be sent out to a friend. :) 

I hope you all enjoy these!

Stamps Used:

Lady looking out window

 Love your hair

Apparently I have an attitude

 Everytime I think of exercising

Housewife

Do you have a favorite snarky saying?

What time? by Elina Stromberg

Hi!
One of the recently released stamp plates contains a super cool text that always makes me smile. I combined it with the intriguing 'Lid Lady' image, and made a card and a matching ATC:

For the background I used the large 'Stained Glass/Mosaic Background' stamp that has the perfect size a 4"x6" card base. I stamped it on a piece of mixed media cardstock, and heat embossed the pattern using white embossing powder. Melted powder resists watercolors, so for coloring the background I simply painted over the entire pattern with yellow, red and brown watercolors. Once the paper was dry I decorated some of the darker areas with a number pattern stamp.

As usual, I stamped two main images on one go, colored them with my Promarkers, and cut out. I also stamped and colored two backgrounds; one of them I used for my card, and the other I trimmed to ATC size. I think the ATC looks quite nice, too!

For these cards I used the following VLVS! stamps:
Lid Lady
Stained Glass/Mosaic Background
Rows of Numbers

Wishing you a wonderful day. Thanks for stopping by!

Mark Maker ATC's

Hi VLVS! Friends!
Elina here with you today, sharing my first projects as a brand-new member in this amazing VLVS! design team. I’m so excited to start this journey with you!

In just a few months’ time I’ll be travelling to Netherlands to attend a great stamping event, ARTSpecially. I’ve been to a few workshops in Netherlands before but this specific one will be a new experience for me. But I’m sure it will be a lot of fun!

My crafty friend who has participated in this event before suggested that I should bring a pile of ATC cards with me. Event participants will swap them during the weekend, and for being able to join the fun I’d better be prepared. I love ATC’s and do have quite many ready in my stash, but I thought it was a good idea to make a few more:

Many of my projects are very colorful, but I also like to play with contrasts between bright colors and grey tones. Like on this ATC set: To highlight the cool stamped main images I colored them with grey markers, and placed them on a grungy orange-yellow-brown inked background.

The patterns on the bottom of the background were made with a stencil: I first inked the background with Distress inks, placed a stencil on top, and lifted some of the ink by misting the stencil with water. Once dry I decorated the background with VLVS! pattern stamps.

I hope these ATC’s will get new owners in April!

Supplies used:

VLVS! stamps:
20162 Carved Xs
20165 Cross Marks Background
20161 Punchinella/Sequin Waste
20168 Mark Maker
19359 Whimsical Boy in Hat
7605 Sandwich Board/Large
6727 Clown Face
7658 Clown

Other Supplies:
Stamping inks: Memento - Tuxedo Black; VersaFine - Onyx Black; Archival Inks – Saffron; Plum
Distress Inks -  Rusty Hinge; Walnut Stain; Ripe Persimmon; Mustard Seed
Stencil: Crafter's Workshop - Corncob Etching
Water mister
Cardstock in white and black


Thank you for stopping by!
xx Elina

A Florescent Trio by Fiona

Hello my VLVS! friends, Fiona here with you today to share a trio of Fluro ATC cards I created using the fabo rubber stamps designed by Mary Vogel Lozinak

I have become totally in love with florescent paint recently. I find I'm using it more and more!!

Combined with these fabulous and quirky stamps, the ATC's came together so smoothly!

I'm finding lately that my style is changing again. Or maybe it's just becoming what it really wants to be. I'm enjoying the randomness of the brush strokes.

Either way, I'm enjoying the mess and the color!!

VLVSTAMPS!

Whimsical Heart Machine

Whimsical Fairy Lady

Whimsical Man-Face Fish

Carved X's

ATC Freaky Little Thing by Cheetarah

Hey all, it's Cheetarah here today and I'm sharing an ATC I have made with our wonderful Viva Las VegaStamps! It's based on this month's challenge inspiration board. 

 

The gorgeous blue green colors of the mood board inspired me as well as stamps by Mary Vogel Lozinak! We'd also like to inspire you with words like SPRING! flowers, doodles, buds, whimsical, patterns, checkerboard, stars, wings, Mary Vogel Lozinak, banners, green, teal, white, black... and whatever else you may be inspired from by seeing the mood board.

I've used a fun and easy resist technique for the background with heavy matte medium and ecoline watercolors.

First I took a 6x6 piece of patterned scrap book paper, put a thin layer of gesso over it and then brayered on some Paper Artsy fresco paint Hint of Mint.  You still see a bit of the design of the paper showing through for some muted texture. Then I took a stencil from the Crafter's Workshop and messily applied some heavy gel medium though it with a credit card. After that dried I took some blue and green ecoline water colors and a brush to color the raised aria's. The gel medium will soak up the color and the paint will resist it somewhat. You can take a baby wipe to wipe off excess color around the textured aria. I cut this piece with my ATC die cut to use as my background.


Next I stamped Whimsical Face with horns on ivory paper and colored her in with promarkers. I added some accents with a white gel pen. I find using bold complimentary colors make the image on the foreground pop.



The sentiment She was a freaky little thing was stamped on some left over paper where these wings were stamped on and also had some brick texture on it. I took a black distress crayon to darken the edges of the sentiment as well at the card to give it more dimension. Finally I matted it onto an ivory card stock on which I also darkened the edges with the crayon.

VLVS! Stamps used:
She was a freaky little thing
Whimsical girl with horns
Set of Wings

Others: 
Heavy gel medium
The Crafter's Workshop stencil
Ecoline inks
Letraset promarkers
Paperartsy Fresco paints Hint of Mint
white gelpen
Memento Tuxedo black
Distress crayon in black

Hopefully this will inspire you to play along with this month's challenge as well. 

Thanks for stopping by today and have a wonderful weekend!

Radioactive Trio of ATC Cards

Happy Wednesday!

Tina here today with my first Viva Las Vegastamps project post! For my first project, I thought I'd create one of my favorite types of projects, a trio of ATC cards.  I love creating in three's and ATC cards are the perfect match.

When creating a trio of ATC cards, I love to repeat certain elements and design features for a cohesive look.  To create the cohesive theme, I used the following stamps:

Crackle Background  

Whimsical Face with Horns

For the background of each card, I randomly applied gesso, then heat embossed with white embossing powder.  For a splash of color, I sprayed several shades of spray mist, letting me mix and mingle.  Instant background!

For my face element, I stamped the image on white glossy cardstock, then sprayed with a white shimmer spray, just for an added element.

  Now that I've created a common theme, I embellish each card with similiar, yet different elements.  I may either use the same element in different colors, or different elements in similiar colors.  I chose the later for this trio.

 I used red molded resin casts, gold metallic pieces, and white painted chipboard.  Even though the individual pieces are different, there is still a cohesive look due to the background and face elements.

  
 As an added design element, I stamped words for the faces and added them to 2 of the cards.  

Word Stamps used:

Radioactive

Biohazard

 And just like that, you have a trio of ATC works of Art!

 I hope you enjoyed my trio of cards!  Here's to a wonderful Wednesday and beautiful week!

VLVS and Pocket Letter Pals

Hello Everyone!!
I'm So excited to be back as a part of the VLVS design team!! I hope you all are ready for some fun stamping inspiration!!!
(It may get a little photo heavy in here)

Have you heard of the new fun craze in the crafty mail world? 

It's called Pocket Letter Pals!! Read about it HERE or a short video HERE from the woman who started it. 

I am in love with creating these!!! 

Naturally I love creating ATC's and you know any excuse to create a decorative envelope gets me excited!! So, needless to say this new trend is right up my alley!!!

 I hope you all love what I have to share with you and give it a try also! I know you will love it too!

Stamps used:
Plate 1455 (seriously a MUST HAVE plate! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this plate!!!) 

Pair of Boots 2 1/2 x 2 1/2

Grunge Plus Sign 3/4 x 3/4

Coffee Ring Stain 2 3/4 x 2 1/4

Banksy Achieve Greatness 1 1/2 x 2 1/4

Skinny Minnie 1 x 2 3/4

Pen Tips 2 3/4 x 2

Large Lightbulb 2 x 3

Moon Circle 1 3/4 x 1 1/2

Whimsical Owl in Clothes 1 3/4 x 3

Window Fish 2 1/2 x 3 1/2

Other supplies: 
 Dylusions paints (or whatever you want to create your background with)
Black Ink
Memento Ink in pink (optional used for some background stamping)
Scissors for fussy cutting the owl out
pink marker (color in top right card)
White Gel Pen (add highlights and depth)
Black Marker (to draw "hello")

I started with these super fun painted backgrounds (these two were actually created for me by my mom :D whom is also a craft addict! her blog is HERE) 

           (created the owl card with a cut out from this sheet)

Next I cut the paper up into individual cards measuring 2.25in x 3.25 in (if you don't want to mount yours on black standard ATC size is fine also)... NOW the fun begins!!!

(Here you can see how my layout started... {Sorry this photo is a bit washed out}
and
from the final picture you can see things have been moved around some)

I start by arranging my base cards so that they are pleasing to the eye.. then I start stamping :D I like to add something tea or coffee related since people often send these items with thier letters, so thats what I start with. my next step is usually my "Hello" or about me card. From there i tend to bounce around adding qoutes, and things that blend nicely and make me smile :D 

(Feel free to simplify yours I got super excited and went stamping crazy!! )

Below are some close up - detail shots

(the boots and fish are my 2 favorites... :D )






(had to share one more close-up of this one! I love it!!)

(with VLVS there is no limit to what you can do with these things! Some prefer to work by theme, or style or even color inspiration... Heck you could do cats, dogs or things that start with a specific letter..lol) 

I hope you feel inspired and as excited as I am about these! Let us know if you'd like to see more Pocket Letter inspiration!!