Artist Trading Cards

Over that last year or two I've toyed with making Artist Trading Cards. Last week I got inspired to make a new series from this purple and blue cardboard background - an empty tissue box! In addition to the cardboard, I gathered scrapbook papers, glitter, colored pencils, lace, brads, my sewing machine, a heart punch, a mini hole punch, scallop-edged scissors, some lilac parchment card stock, and three different adhesives.

I was inspired to make an ATC with a dragonfly theme because during this last summer, we saw more dragonflies in our yard than ever before. They really are amazing animals. I started my ATC by stacking two scrapbook papers and sewing them onto the cardboard.

I scanned one of the dragonflies from the scrapbook paper and enlarged it to use for the main dragonfly feature, then carefully cut them out. Using a colored pencil, I filled in the white background around the antennae and tail. I chose to add some dimension by gluing one dragonfly to the cardboard, then I glued glitter to the wings of an identical dragonfly and tacked it on top, curling the wings a little.

I cut individual flowers from a piece of lace and attached it to the card with spray adhesive. The little hearts were made with a punch and attached to the card with a colorful mini brad. Then I trimmed the edge of the card with scallop-edged scissors. The last step was to attached the decorated card to the violet card stock with double-sided tape.

Dragonfly Summer

I made a series of six of this ATC design. The back of the card is signed, dated, numbered, and named: "Dragonfly Summer."

The first four of these Artist Trading Cards have been spoken for, but I'd love to trade the last two cards. If you'd like to create an ATC and trade with me, please leave a comment and we'll work out a trade!

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