Animals With Attitude ATCs

Hi friends! I hope you had a good Easter weekend. We visited an old castle and went to a second hand shop, where I found three really cheap dictionaries which will make their way into my art, and the boys found a really fun space robot that has been walking around at home every since.

It is a new month, and that means that the team at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog is showcasing a specific designer / company, and this week the turn has come to Dyan Reaveley and her Dylusions range by Ranger. You don't have to use Dylusions products to join, but it is always fun if you do.

Our challenge theme is A trio of something, fun theme! Don't miss our April guest designer Paula Roomer aka PaNaRoo, who has a stunning colorful project to share.

I made a trio of ATCs featuring some animals with lots of attitude. Because the animals in Dyan's Heads 'n Tails set are so fun, I decided to make them really colorful. They were painted with Dylusions paints. I didn't get a chance to take step photos unfortunately, since I was doing these in bits and pieces.

I cut the ATC cards from Heavystock paper and rounded the corners. They were coated with gesso. The animals were stamped on tissue paper, large enough to cover the whole card. Adhere them to the card by first applying a layer of gloss multi-medium to the background, carefully placing the stamped tissue down and adding a second layer on top. 

I painted the animals pretty roughly with Dylusions paints. Don't worry if you cover up some of the lines, since it is easy to get them back again with a pen later. The background was painted in a neural beige. I added some additional pen lines too, and highlights with a white gel pen.

I enjoyed picking Clippings Stickers to go with the animals.

I added bodies to the animal heads by first painting and then drawing around them with a permanent pen, and adding some details too, such as the lines on the fox's body. I used the same pen to draw a border around the cards and to add shadows around the stickers.

The animal stamps have numbers and dotted lines as a part of the stamp, and I extended that theme to the background, but stamping it randomly with the number and alphabet stamp from the Dylusions Basic Backgrounds set.

It is hard to spot, but I applied Transparent Gloss Texture Paste through the Honeycomb stencil in three areas on each ATC. It looks really nice in real life. To make them stand out more, I added some rough pen lines around the outlines.

Here's another look at the honeycomb shapes.

The owl is my favourite card, probably because I like birds, and it looks really determined. If you tear the edges of the tissue around the ATC it forms a nice ragged edge. 

By mixing the Clippings Stickers sentiments, you can get so many different variations. I doodled feathers on the owl's body.

I don't know if you see the glossy-ness of the honeycomb better here. The brushstrokes from the gesso and paint also adds texture to the cards.

I hope you will join us this week in our Trio of Something challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until next Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies: 

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.