CLOSE TO MY HEART AUSTRALIAN CONVENTION 2015 - ARTIST TRADING CARD SWAPS AND INSTRUCTIONS - MIXED MEDIA ATC'S - CRICUT DIE CUTTING

One of the highlights of attending Close To My Heart Annual Convention each year is meeting up with other consultants and sharing our creations with each other.  We do this via what we call "Swaps".  Each consultant attending, makes themselves a certain amount of swaps and we swap our creations with each other, to inspire and share ideas on creations.  These creations range from all sorts of projects, such as:  Card fronts, Artist Trading Cards, Broaches, Jewelry, Mini Scrap pages and much much more.  Its so much fun and one of the biggest high lights and

 events attending convention.

This year i decided i would make and swap a Christmas Themed Mixed Media Artist Trading Card.

So firstly i started with Black Card stock and 1 B&T from the White Pines Paper Packet.

I used my cricut machine and Close To My heart Artiste Cricut Collection cartridge, To cut out the a tag in each set at 3.5" and i used our gorgeous Glitter paper to cut out the merry christmas set at 2". 

I cut the white pines paper on an angle as shown below.

I made my own snowflake stencil by laminating a laminating pouch through my laminating machine when it was ready and ran the pouch through the machine twice.

Once the laminated pouch had sealed and cooled, i then placed it on a brand new Cricut Mat

and with a new cricut blade in my cricut.  I used my Close To My Heart Artbooking Cartridge and from the Overlay section on the cartridge, picked out the desired overlay and in this case i set it to cut

at 3".  I set my machine to cut at a speed @ 5 and my depth @ 5 and then set it to cut twice (2).

To cut out the stencil well.  This stencil is reusable.  After use, whether it be textured paste, or our spray pens or sponging technique.  Simply rinse under cold water tap to clean it and then it is ready to be used next time around.

After i cut my white pines paper, i glued it down with our ctmh bonding glue.

Next step is to put the new stencil to work.  N.B.  Keep the snowflakes that were cut out

because you can use them for embellishments in your project or you can save them for another time but as most crafters, we don't throw anything away.

In the below picture you can see the jar of textured paste, now this is not a close to my heart product but you can buy it from any Bunnings Hardware Store for only $14.00

So using the back of the spatula, which i also brought from bunnings, i scrapped a small amount

of the textured paste from the jar and using the back of the spatula, i spread a thick layer of textured paste over the stencil which is in place.

Once you have spread your paste over the stencil, gently peel it backwards to wards you to protect the image underneath. As shown below.

I repeated the process to add more snowflakes as shown below.

Now i like to leave my creation to dry naturally and depending on how thick your textured paste is and the weather, it could take as little as 10mins.  Or you can use your heat gun from a distance to dry it quicker or place it in front of the fan or under the air con, which ever you happen to have.

Once your textured paste has dried,  I like to use our spray pens and reinkers to spritz them to colour the textured paste.  I fill my ctmh spray pen to the 2nd last line on the bottle, then i use my reinker colour of choice, to fill it up, till the last line so that i have a really dense colour. Then spray my textured paste images.  In this instance i have used the new Close To My Heart Exclusive Enchanted colour called Peacock. Drained the excess ink from the card, then laid it down flat to dry.

To finish of my Artist Trading Card, I embellished it with our Silver Foil tape and the Merry Christmas sentiment i had cut out as described above with our Close To My Heart Silver glitter paper and adhered it with our bonding glue.  And finally got to add a bit of bling as well, so i added our Sequins Embellishments.  

CLICK HERE TO GO WINDOW SHOPPING IN MY ONLINE SHOP FOR ANY OF THESE PRODUCTS.

And finally, I placed each of my artist trading cards into and Artist trading card sleeve.  I wanted to give each of my swapees an incentive to continue on collecting ATC's and swapping with others and collecting their own book of creations.  This year i managed to make 80 swaps and am so excited to share with 80 other like minded consultants at the Close To My Heart Brisbane Australasian Convention 2015

Please feel free to either leave me a comment or ring me on mobile: 0402 507 121 or email me: traceyray@live.com.au

if you would like any help or advice on making your own CLOSE TO MY HEART MIXED MEDIA PROJECT