ATCs - The Original Adult Valentines + $50 Giveaway + Season's Givings Winner Announcement

When I first got onto Splitcoast, it was in the heyday of ATCs - Artist Trading Cards.

I was in some of the most stunning swaps back then. I love how ATCs are like the condensed soup of cardmaking - that smaller canvas (2.5" x 3.5") condenses your design, and I often found them more detailed and higher quality than larger format cards - more of everything. Concentrated.

As I learned how to stamp a little better, I've always found myself more at home in smaller formats - even in my watercolor. I much prefer small scale paintings, for example.

But as I start to see Valentine designs come into the stamp world, it occurs to me that ATCs were really just grown up Valentines we used to make for each other.

I think none of us ever got past how great it was to get those tiny cards from each other as children. I remember wanting so badly to find unique ones that my classmates would love. ATCs capture exactly that sort of innocent enthusiasm for art.

When I first participated in swaps of these, I marveled at the incredibly detailed backgrounds and collage many artists did. Fast forward twenty years, and my vast collection of ready-to-use Gel Press prints makes it all make more sense. I had to create mine from scratch back then. Now I can pull out some prints or backgrounds and half the work is done for me!

I decided to look up the history of ATCs and found it fascinating. It's really not that old - occurring just slightly before I started making them. I'd love to see the catalogs they reference in this article. I bet they are gorgeous.

I purchased this book in 2008, and I still refer to it often - it has some beautiful samples and techniques, and I love the artists featured.

My style is a little different from what I think of as the "classic" ATC style - which is a bit more collage-y and vintage. I like bright colors and clean, simple images.

I've been wanting to use a Hero Arts Kit release for a set of ATCs for a while, and when I saw this month's kit, I knew the time had come. The main kit has images that are perfectly sized for ATCs, AND a bonus stamp of text that's perfect for these little cards. The add-ons and dies are perfect too, so I'll walk you through my process for creating all of them in a video later in this post.

But first - just my approach is this: I decided on a common element for all the cards, and the easiest way for me to do this is to pull some coordinating prints out of my UFO pile and choose backgrounds that tie together.

In this instance - I had lots of orange and pink to work with, so I decided that would be the link. I chose three prints, and one - wait for it - KLEENEX BOX - for the base of the cards. Here's what they look like together.

Aren't those fun? Here they are close up.

I used the cancellation stamp from the main kit, as well as the sentiment and used the banner die in the kit for the perfect size sentiment strip. The flowers in this die-heavy, amazing kit are gorgeous, so I chose the one that would leave me room for the print to shine. I painted it with Daniel Smith watercolor, and used some no-shed glitter paper and a handheld punch for embellishments.

The sweet little postal images are so fun. The print I used was orange and pink, so I wanted to add a little complementary green on the bird in the stamp image. I used the text image from the kit for a little detailed interest. 

Here's what the full kit looks like - the envelope die is ADORABLE.

The add-ons, which you'll see in closeups below, can be bought in a bundle for a discount! Here's what they look like.

The Cup of Love add-on has matching dies, and is also perfectly sized for an ATC. Again, I added green and pink to tie these together. The sentiment is from the same set.

 You'll see in the video that I used a Kleenex box from Costco for this background - I painted it with matte medium so that the ink would stick, and then I used the Unbearably Thankful set with matching dies to add the pink, green and orange that make up my theme. I just thought this heat-map warm bear needed a cool blue background. I used a white gel pen to color the bee.

I went back to a past kit for the images I thought were perfect for the white spots on my pink and orange gel print. I had a bunch of these little girls cut out and in the stamp pocket for the kit and I couldn't resist the throwback as part of this set.

 Finally, I really thought I'd watercolor this stunning bouquet image and cut it out with the matching dies, but it looks so pretty as line art, that I just stamped it and highlighted it with a white paint pen (I got too enthusiastic with it, as you'll see in the video). I used the sentiment from the same set.

Want to watch me make these? Stay tuned afterwards for a $50 giveaway, and the winner of my Seasons Givings Blog Hop giveaway.

My Monthly Hero Kit January 2020 [ HA ] Get Them All - January Add-Ons [ HA ] Togetherness Flower Bouquet [ HA ] Loving Messages [ HA ] Floral Heart Wreath [ HA ] Flower Bouquet Pieces [ HA ] Cup of Love [ HA ] Togetherness Flower Bouquet Frame Cuts [ HA ] Floral Heart Wreath Frame Cuts [ HA ] Flower Bouquet Pieces Frame Cuts [ HA ] Cup of Love Frame Cuts [ HA ] Candy Hearts Peek-a-boo Cling [ HA ] Bird With Bouquet [ HA ] Unbearably Thankful [ HA ] Unbearably Thankful Frame Cuts [ HA ] January Word Fancy Die [ HA ] MMH July 2019 Kit - Hero Arts [ HA ] Liquitex Matte Medium [ BLIC ] Neutrals Glitter Paper Pack - Concord... [ C&9 | ELH | SSS ] Crop-A-Dile Power Punch, 1/4" - Ellen... [ ELH ] Sakura CLASSIC WHITE Fine Line 05... [ SSS ] White Porous Point Pen [ BLIC ] Artist Trading Card Workshop: Create,... [ AMZUS ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | UNT ] Gel Press 5 x 7 REUSABLE GEL PRINTING... [ SSS | BLIC ] Inovart Pro-Roller Brayer [ BLIC | BLIC ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for... [ BRG ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ] Essentials by Ellen Storage... [ ELH ] Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets... [ CHC ] XL Stamp Storage Pockets [ ELH ] Mermaid tidy towel case and glue... [ ETS ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | CST ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ] Hero Arts Blog [ HA ]

As usual, Hero Arts is giving away a $50 gift card to one lucky commenter, so leave me a comment and let me know if you ever did ATC swaps - or any swap!

And I wanted to let my Seasons Givings winner know the happy news! Lauren, please use the Contact Me button in my sidebar to send me your shipping address! Congratulations!

Here's the rest of the Hero team for inspiration! 

Hero Arts

Amy Kolling

Amy Tsuruta

Caly Person

Channin Pelletier

Daniel West

Debi Adams

Emily Midgett

Ilina Crouse

Janette Kausen

Jessica Frost-Ballas

Julee Tilman

Laurie Willison

Lydia Fiedler

Michelle Short

Nichol Spohr

Loveyameanitbye.