ATC's OOO ARRRRRHHHHH

I mentioned in my first blog post about the crafts I used to do before giving it up.

One of the things I used to make were Artist Trading Cards, a trend that had been revived from the 19th Century.

The fact that artists couldn't afford to do big paintings, and the fact that they were too big to cart around was a big issue for them. To help them promote their talents many of them started to create small pieces of art on the back of playing cards and other small bits of card.

These were known as Artist Trading cards, and were a more simpler way to get their work out there, they would hand them out to people, or show them to the well off, with the hopes of being asked to commission a work of art.

A few years ago, this trend was revived by crafters around the world, This time though, they were being swapped and gifted to others for fun.

When I used to make them, there weren't many others around me, for me to trade with.

Since then the internet is being used far more with Social media sites, popping up all over the place. 

I am a member of a facebook group (the link is at the side as card making tips.)

I made a friend in there-the lady I blogged about swapping with) and she has posted an ATC, tonight, that she made. It quickly inspired me to make my first one in about five years.

I wanted to centre it around an embellishment that I had made yesterday, It was a coin, made with my glue gun (of course) a penny and gold embossing powder. I heated it back up today, with my heat tool, and then pressed into it a stamp, nothing fancy, as it needed to look old. I inked the stamp with black ink and pressed it into the wet coin. It gave me the desired effect that I was hoping for. As soon as I had done this, I knew I wanted my trading card to look old and distressed. This then morphed into a Pirates of the Carribean theme, so I created two different colour paper feathers, and added some black stamping to the background, as well as doing a little bit of matting and layering under my embellishments.

This was the ATC I made tonight, after seening my friends post

I feel like there will be many more of these in the pipeline, as they're sooooo addictive to make.

 I find that, sometimes, I really want to craft, but I don't necessarily want to make a card. These are perfect makes for such occassions. 

At least now I have somewhere I can find others to swap with, even if it's through the post.

If you haven't yet had a go at these little gems of delight, then please do. You won't be sorry.

I'd love to see them too, so hit me up over on instagram 

at #lindsiloolabell79

and I'm also on google+ and pinterest 

XOXO