Capture Joy ATC

I really enjoy blog challenges. I find them an excellent source of inspiration and I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting ones. So I was pleased to find a blog dedicated to the ATC (that's Artist Trading Card to the uninitiated).  The subject of the latest Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge is "polka dots".

I've heard of ATC's but have never made one before.  I thought that having a smaller area to work with would be easier, but it's every bit as challenging as trying to fill a large page!  Anyway, this is my attempt:

I started by covering an ATC-sized piece of Kraft card with polka dot patterned paper.  I went over that with a thin layer of gesso to mute the colour a bit. Then I randomly stamped small honeycombs and flourishes all over using silver and black pigment ink.  I tried to ink through some stencils that I made, but it didn't really work out.  It just kind of looks like I've smudged ink on the background 😀.  I used a white gel pen to draw different sized circles on the background.  Then I die cut and embossed the umbrella (from the Sizzix "Hello Rainbow" set) three times from patterned paper, silver mirror card and black paper, then pieced them together.  The raised parts of the umbrella were highlighted with the white gel pen.  

I then stuck on the hearts (waste from another die cut << never throw anything away!) with largest at the bottom and teeny tiny ones at the top, to give the impression that they were floating off into the distance.  I went around the umbrella and the hearts with a grey marker, and dotted around the hearts with the white gel pen again to help lift them from the background. Finally, I stamped and embossed the sentiment, which unfortunately didn't stamp very crisply or cleanly.  More practice needed!  

I really enjoyed making this tiny piece of art and I'm looking forward to the next challenge.