ATC- Artist Trading Card or Almost Too Cool

Day 3 UNIES!  I hope you are having fun and seeing things you like on my blog this week.  Today I have some ATC's for you.  What is an ATC you ask?  It stands for Artist Trading Card and you make these little 2.5" by 3.5" cards with cute designs and send them to others to add to a collection.  They've been really hot lately since Annie Sterner started blowing up the Show and Tell with all her ATC beauty.  That being said, she sent a lot of them to my sister who was/is in need of a pick me up since she is battling cancer, so I love her for those little ATC's.  To honor Annie's prolific ATC making and to show you don't have to make an A2 card to make someone's day, I give to you 2 artist trading cards I made using some mixed media techniques.

This lil' guy has a lot of bang for the buck, I must say.  I started with my watercolor paper cut to size.  I used Vicki Boutin art crayons colored on my mat and added with water.  I smooshed my card into it to get some random color effects.  I then used a cool wavy stamp from Find your Zen and used the art crayons to color right onto the red rubber. I spritzed the crayon with a water spritz before stamping.  I did the lines in blue crayon and green to make it look dimensional.

I then stamped the sentiment from The Ocean is Calling in Versafine Black Onyx ink and embossed with clear.  The texture on the sides is from another Vicki Boutin product called iridescent glaze.  The glaze comes in a tub and is whitish, but when you add a little bit of her magic crayon scrapings, you can blend the glaze into colors like this!  I just love the color.  I used a palette knife and the Tim Holtz Burlap stencil and went around the sentiment with the glaze.  

One more ATC. For this background, I used Tim Holtz distress spray in cracked pistachio and mermaid lagoon.  The paper is canvas paper, so it has a bit more texture than normal.  I used the tinted Vicki Boutin iridescent glaze through a mini stencil and with a palette knife to get some texture.  Then I got stuck, so I asked the ATC master, Annie Sterner what to do, and she said, "throw a butterfly and a sentiment on there and be done.  It's just a piece of paper!"  She is a wise woman, so I added the image and sentiment from Quilted Wings.  I did add a smidgen of glitter and some white accents to the stamp to make it pop a little.  

I want to know, how do you feel about ATC's (making them or receiving them).  What images or sentiments do you think would be the perfect piece of inspiration on a trading card?  Anyone excited about using glazes through a stencil?  Comment below for a chance to win 25 Unity red rubber stamps!