The Official Visible Image Artist trading card swap.

Hello it's time for my fortnightly blogged design team make for Visible Image. Last month, with their blessing, I started up an "official" Visible Image Artist trading card (ATC) swap over on the customer page. I pair up participants who create an ATC using the theme given and then post to one another. It was a great success and everyone voted to continue it as a regular event. If you like trading ATCs I highly recommend you come over to the customer page and join us. So far 53 Visible Image fans worldwide have take part. Some of the design team (including myself) also take part. 

Above is a selection of the ATCs I have made in the past and below is the swap I made for the first "just be you" swap.

I thought today it might be useful for people who have either never heard of or don't know where to start, to show from start to finish my way of making an ATC. This post might also be useful for future reference. Please bear in mind that this is how I personally approach my ATC making and there are many different ways of doing so. 

The theme for the current swap is "here comes summer". The swap on Facebook is for one ATC but I always chose to make 4 as I keep one, I send one to my 7 year old crafting granddaughter and I swap one elsewhere. 

The first thing I did was to choose which stamp sets I wanted to use for the theme. I decided to work with the Summer wings butterflies 

and to add some background interest to my ATCs I also chose to use the gorgeous grunge circles stamp from the Butterfly effect

 

To make my background I used one of my shaving foam distress re inker marbled backgrounds. I wanted something really light with lots of white space. There are lots of videos on line if you are not familiar with this really old technique. I first made these with food colouring when I was at primary school! This one was made using Squeezed lemonade, Salvaged Patina and Kitsch Flamingo re inkers.   I then cut four 3.5 by 2.5 inch backgrounds from the sheet.  All ATCs need to be this "standard" size. Many people including me, display them in trading card pockets and if they are not this size they won't fit. 

I stamped the word summer from the  Summer wings set using Versafine ink and clear embossed to give a shiny appearance and add some texture

ATCs can be created in portrait or landscape form so I decided to make 2 of each. I always like add some background detail so I stamped the grungy circles from the

 Butterfly effect set using the new Salvaged patina distress ink. I love this new colour and yes you can stamp regular distress inks using Visible Image stamps. Their quality is such that the ink does not bead.  Regular distress ink give a lovely subtle vintage effect which you can see above. If you stamped in an oxide you would get a much more intense effect but that was not was I was looking for. 

Next I got out my bag of inky scraps and chose some pieces which co ordinated with the backgrounds. 

I stamped out lots of the 3 sizes of butterflies and cut them out.  They are so useful for adding to any project that it's always a time saver to have some ready to go. I cut off the antennae as I would be re stamping the whole butterfly again on the ATC.

To me what makes an interesting ATC is lots of little details. I often use my sewing machine to sew around the edges but you can also use a "faux" sewing effect with a sewing marking wheel. Just use it against a ruler. I use the metal edge of my ruler.

It leaves holes behind like those from a sewing machine.

You can then use a pen to go over the line and it looks like stitching. Try to not be too neat as it looks much more realistic! I used a gold pen this time but black and silver also looks good.

I added some ink to the edges.

I then played with placement of the butterflies. When designing odd numbers always look better than even and 3 of something is very pleasing to the eye. I used 2 large and 1 small for my 3 butterflies. Once I was satisfied with the placement of  the butterflies on each card I stamped them in Versafine.

I then adhered the butterflies on top.

To give the cards a good thickness of around 300gsm I back mine with the inside of a Weetabix packet. This is really good quality kraft card and free! Just cut it slightly smaller than the ATC and adhere together. 

For finishing details I added a wink of Stella clear glitter pen to parts of the wings and some of the small circles and then Glossy accents on top for real sparkle.

The final touch was to add some co ordinating sequins. 

So here are the 4 all together as a group

and individually

This is the one sent to my Visible Image group swap partner

and one final photo

I hope this tutorial has been useful. If you have never made an ATC do have a go. They are such fun and a great challenge to design in a small scale. You don't need tiny stamps either...these 5 below were made using the new large A5 Dragonfly reflection set...I just used parts of the dragonfly with the words.

  All the Visible Image links are listed below

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group is here ...it would be lovely to see you there. You will see lots of gorgeous makes by the DT and customers to inspire your own creativity. I also organize the ATC swap there, there will be a new one coming up at the end of the month. 

The main Visible Image Facebook page is here; there are regular giveaways...open world wide. Do check out the Facebook LIVES and videos where you will be able to see lots more samples and ideas. 

Their Instagram page can be found here 

Pinterest here

And once again the shop web site is here; where all their gorgeous stamps and stencils can be purchased.

 I do not blog everything I make so if you would like to check me out on Instagram you then won't miss anything.  This is the link to my account, @jane.tyrrell

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Before I go I just want to mention that FeedBurner are removing their "follow by email" function from Blogger at the end of the month. I have removed it from my side bar already. I have over 1,000 existing lovely email subscribers who I would hate to loose. If you have a Blogger account and currently get notifications by email of my new blog posts I would love if you would just hit my "follow" button on my side bar. My posts will then show up in your reader list feed. Otherwise if you follow me on Instagram, this is me here; or you can find me as @jane.tyrrell I will always mention there which of my posts are blogged. Thanks so much for all your support, Jx