Autumn Goodness ATCs

Here are some ATCs that I made for the Autumn Goodness swap on ATCs for All.

Wheat

For the background on this one, I covered the whole card with Antique Linen distress ink, then I used a Tim Holtz "Linen" (TH5061) layering stencil with Tea Dye and Vintage Photo distress inks.  I thought this looked too prominent in the background, so I went over the whole card with diluted gesso.  Once everything was dry, I used a Hero Arts red rubber Tall Wheat stamp (K5517) with Spiced Marmalade distress ink.  That sorta fades into the background, but you can tell it's there in reality.  Then I used Ranger Watermark Resist ink to stamp the wheat again, and this time I used Ranger Detail Embossing Powder in Gold and heat-set it.  After that, I repeated that process but with Ranger Detail Embossing Powder in Copper, offset a bit from the gold impression.  The details of how I put the quote on are below, since they are the same for all of the cards.

Gourds

The background on this one came first.  It's just a pretty simple blend of distress inks, from what I can remember bottom to top, Aged Mahogany, Fired Brick, Spiced Marmalade, and Fossilized Amber.  Then I dribbled some water onto the whole background, let it sit for maybe 10 seconds, then dabbed it up with a towel.  For the focal point, I'd originally thought I'd do a pumpkin with some jute for vines, but there were so many pretty fall squashes and gourds, I changed my mind and decided to do three of them.  Because the background came first, I drew and used colored pencil on each item on a separate piece of cardstock, then I glued them down with Mod Podge.  The details of how I put the quote on are below, since they are the same for all of the cards.

Leaf

OK, the background on this one is way more elaborate than it needed to be, but again it came before the main design idea.  First, I put down some Scattered Straw distress ink on the whole card.  I happened to have a piece of a negative from a Silhouette leaf design cut, and I used it to put down some distress inks on the background (Aged Mahogany, Fossilized Amber, Frayed Burlap).  Then I went over the whole background with diluted gesso.  On a separate piece of cardstock, I drew a larger version of the leaf and outlined it in gold pen (Sharpie Gold Metallic).  To "mask" the outline, I went over it with a Sakura 3D Glaze pen in clear and let it dry.  Then I used the same distress inks as on the background for the large leaf, dribbled some water over them and dabbed with a towel.  I glued the large leaf down with Mod Podge.  The details of how I put the quote on are below, since they are the same for all of the cards.

Dahlia

This one is my favorite.  I looked up fall flowers and found that at least some dahlias bloom in fall, and I just happened to have a Hero Arts Artistic Dahlia stamp (K6214).  For this card, I wanted a different color scheme, so I found a gorgeous dahlia and used colored pencils that are similar.  You can see here that shading and blending make a big difference.  Once the coloring was done, I masked the flower with a full-stick Post-It and diluted and applied three different grey acrylics horizontally, the idea being to create an ombre effect.  I had a Prima wood grain clear stamp (#961930) which is slightly smaller than an ATC (2.5 X 3.5 inches), but I made it work for the texture on the background.  The details of how I put the quote on are below, since they are the same for all of the cards.

The Quotes

Because this is an autumn-themed swap, I looked up some autumn-themed quotes.  They are printed with my Brother P-touch PT-D200 label maker.  That part was easy, as was the sticking down part, since all I had to do was peel off the backing and press it down.  For all of the quotes, I used a diluted acrylic paint wash over thin layer of Mod Podge (to make the paint stick), then I scratched the paint off of the words so that they are more visible.  I added another thin layer of Mod Podge to protect the paint.  On the Wheat card, I lined the tops and bottoms of the words with a gold pen.

That's about all, y'all!  Thanks for taking the time to read this!