This is a tutorial for some cute little Mother’s Day artist trading cards (ATCs), featuring the new Tin Teddy Mother and Me Oval collage sheet and a gel plate – and the chance to get very messy!  I am going to make a set of 4 cards so I can trade them with friends later.

If you would like to know more about what Artist Trading Cards are, see my blog post – Introduction to ATCs – What are Artist Trading Cards?

The Mother’s Day artist trading cards – starting the background

I cut a piece of watercolour card to 5″ x 7″.  You may have guessed that I chose this size as it will cut up into 4 ATCs.  I gave it a light coat of light lemon acrylic paint and left this to dry.

Once dry I laid a 5×7 stencil on top.  The stencil is one I made myself (using my Silhouette Portrait cutter) from the cover of an old filing wallet.  It is very thin, which is ideal for this technique.

Home made thin stencil

My Gel Plate,, as luck would have it, is 5″ x 7″.  I put blobs of Pink and Purple acrylic paint on it and spread it around with a brayer.  I didn’t mix them too much, I wanted a “splotchy” lool.  Then I used a stencil with dots, stars and hexagons.  This is an old stencil and I don’t know which brand, but I will link to something similar below.

I laid the dotty stencil on the painty gel plate and dabbed at it with kitchen towel, lifting some of the paint up through the holes.  Then I quickly laid my watercolour card (with its stencil) on top and rolled over the back of the card with the brayer to pull a print.

Acrylic paint print with Gel Plate - first pulling
The first print from the Gel Plate – I will use this as my ATC background

I was very pleased with the result.  I quickly grabbed another bit of card and pulled a second print with what was left on the gel plate.  This second print was also rather nice and will be used in a future project.

Gel Plate print with acrylic paint - second pull
The second print from the Gel Plate – I will keep this for a future project

Continuing the background

I then cleaned the Gel Plate with a baby wipe and left my background card to dry thoroughly.

When the card was dry I cut it into quarters with my Tonic paper trimmer.

I used the same dotty stencil and applied white acrylic mousse with a spatula, down one side of the ATC.  I left this to dry thoroughly over night then rounded the corners with the large size of XCut corner rounder.

Spreading acrylic paste through a stencil

Then I use Picked Raspberry Distress Ink and added a little all around the card, brushing some over the dried acrylic mousse too.  Below you can see the before (left) and after (right) of this process.

Distress Ink applied around the edges
The two on the right have Picked Raspberry Distress Ink on the edges

 

I then sprayed the cards with Iridescent Spray and Sparkle from Crafter’s Companion.  I left this to dry for a couple of hours, to be sure.

 

The Mother’s Day artist trading cards – focal points

I chose four images from the new Tin Teddy Mother and Me Ovals Collage Sheet and cut them out.  I gently ran the side of a Sharpy pen’s nib around the edge of each oval to give a neater finish.

Next, I glued the four ovals on to silver miri card and cut them out with a small border, this helped them stand out better.

A thin bit of paper ribbon was glued on to the left side of each ATC. Then I added each of the Mother and Me ovals to the ATCs using a double-sided sticky foam pad.

I printed out four boxes with the word Mother inside, in brown ink as sentiment labels, then glued them to the cards.

Finally I added some small drop of Violet Galaxy Tonic Nuvo Drops to finish.

Mother's Day artist trading cards - a tutorial on the Tin Teddy Blog

 

Links to supplies on Amazon.com

Links to supplies on Amazon.co.uk

 

If you would like to know more about what Artist Trading Cards are, see my blog post – Introduction to ATCs – What are Artist Trading Cards?

I am entering the Mother’s Day Artist Trading Cards into the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge for March 2018 – my three media are acrylic paints, acrylic mousse and Distress ink.  Plus I also used two stencils 🙂

I am also entering it into the Allsorts Challenge Blog week 457 – Ladies Only, a really great blog that I have recently discovered.

Mother’s Day Artist Trading Cards – ATCs using a Gel Plate – Mixed Media Monthly Challenge March

5 thoughts on “Mother’s Day Artist Trading Cards – ATCs using a Gel Plate – Mixed Media Monthly Challenge March

  • 6 March, 2018 at 11:31 am
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    Pretty colors on these ATC’s and I love the Mother and Me images! Great idea to make your own stencil, too! You are really crafty! Thank you for your lovely comment on my blog! Hugs! Sara Emily

    Reply
  • 6 March, 2018 at 12:54 pm
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    Such a pretty collection of ATC’s for our ‘Ladies only’ theme at Allsorts challenge this week, many thanks for joining in.

    B x

    Reply
  • 6 March, 2018 at 2:39 pm
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    Fabulous atc cards, lovely vintage images.
    Thank you for sharing at Allsorts Challenge.
    Happy Women’s Day;-))m

    Reply
  • 25 March, 2018 at 11:48 pm
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    i see you have used just a few of my favourite products on these awesome ATC’s.. thanks for sharing them with us at Mixed media monthly!

    Reply

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