3x3 ATC's in Vintage Theme

I joined a mingle in one of my very favorite groups Altered Designs for 3x3 Vintage ATC's and so these are 2 of the 4 ATC's required in the mingle.... I am really enjoying ATC's more-so than I ever thought I would. I think this is my new little Niche :) I have received some lovely one's since I started exchanging them and I hope to share pictures of them soon.

I've just begun creating my own backgrounds and things to use with my creations. And this was sort of a creation of my own, instead of using any tutorials that I could find. I First took a white crayon and drew out the cirly-q's onto the paper... -> make sure to bare down pretty hard so that the white really sticks and the effect works <- Then I took my watercolors (I actually used the cheap cakes of watercolor that you can buy for like $1 instead of using my liquid watercolors, or my watercolor pencils.) I painted the paper with blues, and greens ina design that I liked.. putting some darker spots here and there and pouncing in places with a paper towel to make the white come through a bit. The water color will not completely stick to the white crayon and you can see the designs you drew previously coming through the watercolor, but like I said it depends on how hard you press when you draw the actual designs as to how much the design shows through once you paint over it. After that I took black watercolor and went around the edges sort of blending it with the rest of the colors. This is while everything is still wet, mind you. Let the piece dry completely.... then I attached my vintage print out that I found at the following website, its a wonderful place for finding vintage graphics to use on your creations: -> Click Here <- I then took a mini-rose stamp and stamped a few roses here and there with black ink to accent the roses the lady has on the table beside of her and using a vellum saying I found I attached it with vellum tape. The final touch was taking a white gel pen and going around the edges of the ATC and highlighting a few of the cirly-q's one last time. :)

The image for this ATC was actually a weekly challenge image for Altered Designs. Each week they post a new image to challenge the members to create something with.... This was my creation. I actually took a piece of decorative map paper for the background. Then I found this quote -> "As we sail thru life, don't avoid rough waters, sail on because calm waters won't make a skillful sailor" <- in my quotes collections (I loooove collecting thoughts, poetry, and quotes and have a great many of them in books and saved on my computer & 360 blog.) So I printed it out on regular printing paper. Tore it out and took brown and black watercolors to paint the page and make it look like burnt paper. I then took a small sun stamp and stamped the corner of the page with black ink. Then I just attached all of the components together and wha-la! :) I really enjoyed making both of these but I think that the first is my favorite for the amount of time and energy I spent on it. I really liked creating my own background technique :) Hopefully I can get to creating lots more ATC's as this is really fun and relaxing for me :) I hope someone can use my technique or I have inspired someone to create something today!

Porcionas de Amor <3