Thursday, December 23, 2010

Trashin' the Mailman ATC



Our latest trade was to use the junk mail that we receive and create some ATC's. This gave me a chance to try out a cool new technique for image transfer. Take a color brochure and place packing tape over the image. Overlap if you need to. Then rub the whole image to make sure you get a good print. Once that is done, flip over to the backside, run some sandpaper over it to rough up the surface, then use water to remove the paper backing. This will leave you with a print of the image on the packing tape.
I glued this to watercolor paper that had been painted in pinks, blues and purples to match the colors from the brochures. I used gel medium to adhere it. I then pounced some interference blue over the fronts, then stamped with tiny snowflakes in dark blue. Once that was dry, I added another stamp in white in a random pattern and outlined in dark blue marker.
For the big snowflake, I cut out 2 snowflakes from the brochure and then made photocopies in a larger size. I made extras in case I screwed up ; )
I used glitter glue on top of the snowflakes to make them sparkle then cut each one out when the glue dried. I glued one to each card and added Holiday 2010 from another brochure.
Finally I added eyelets and funky yarn to frame the entire piece. They were hard to photograph as they are very shiney.

Check out our ATC blog to see all the other pieces for this challenge:
http://artsinthecards.blogspot.com/

4 comments:

BeccyRose said...

I did something like the technique you mentioned - but used sticky back plastic.
As long as the paper is a photocopy, when you wet it and rub the paper the design transfers onto the sticky back plastic.
Great for machine embroidering on top.
I love what you've made, its really creative and its a good way of recycling unwanted mail.
Fab! :)

pcoxdesign said...

Ooo. Machine embroidery on top! Great idea! Thanks Becky!

BeccyRose said...

No problem! :)

Kathy said...

Lovely, and a great idea...I haven't done the tape transfer, but the shine might be something I wouldn't want to deal with. Maybe I should try it sometime and then experiment to get RID of the shine!