Artist Trading Cards for a swap. These are my Doris Eaton/Zigfield collection. The images are from the book Century Girl.

ATCs featuring Zigfeld Girls

I've been having fun lately creating ATCs. It's fun to work in the 2.5 x 3.5 small format.

I had a challenge for hearts and used images of Doris and Charlie Eaton from the book "Century Girl - 100 years in the life of Doris Eaton Travis. Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies" by Lauren Redniss. Everyone in the follies were beautiful people and it's so much fun to work with thier images.

 My second challenge was mermaids. I was a little hesitant because I'm not someone who draws people. I started by creating cards with just tails going into the water. Hubby wasn't a fan so I decided to see if any of the follies girls would like to be mermaids. It appears that they were very happy to serve in this capacity for me. I was able to use some really old blue foil that I've had for many years on these cards. I like the look of just some foil but not too much.

I sent an email to Tim Holtz about this book. I hope that he can obtain copyright laws to some of the images and create a new series of his paper dolls. 

Tim Holtz Hipster Card

Hipster card for my friends birthday

Distress Oxide Rose Card

I wanted to create a very large, impressive card as a going away gift to my boss. She told me that she liked embossing so I started with an inherited flower stamp that was on a wood block. I removed it from the wood and used Grafix Cling Film to allow the stamp to be used with my Tonic Stamping platform by Tim Holtz. This worked wonderfully as the platform allowed me to stamp the flowers multiple times. I like to use Distress Oxide Inks on my gelli plate. For my flowers and stems I used Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Paper. I stamped with Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black and embossed with Ranger Clear Embossing powder on the flowers. I like this paper because it works like a cold press watercolor paper - it has a smooth surface. That makes it take the colors of the distress ink better when dragging the paper across the geli plate. I just cut strips of paper for the stems and dragged them through the ink on the plate. I used Peeled Paint and Fossilized Amber for the stems, leaves and the border of the card. For the flowers I used Worn lipstick and fossilized amber. I wanted coral flowers with a little pink. Stamp the gelli plate, spritz with water and drag the cut out flowers through the ink The base card was 600lb watercolor paper that I had from an art store going out of business sale. I wanted a very large card (12 x 10) a) I didn't need to make an envelope b) I knew that lots of people would sign the card and wanted to give them plenty of room. The background paper was something from a pack that I had at home. I choose paper that worked with the flower colors. I used foam dots to get the flowers to stand out.