Harvinaisen Kaunis Elämä: Winter Joy ATC - Finnabair Creative Team Tutorial

I created a sweet, little ATC card in soft pastel tones, having one of my favourite flowers, ranunculus, in mind. It’s usually only at the wintertime it’s available here in Finland, and I always treat myself some at my birthday in January. This gave me an idea of creating icy pink ATC card, reflecting the tones of breathtakingly airy and delicate, soft pink ranunculi and the sparkling snow of January.

I used some Prima Marketing papers and cut an ATC base and ripped a couple of smaller pieces to go into the middle of the base to give a bit depth to the card. Then I attached these with Soft Gloss Gel and gave it a soft wash with white Heavy Gesso.

Next, I added just a tiny amount of Nude Liquid Acrylic paint into the middle, and then mixed Phoenix Effect Paste and White Gold Icing Paste and using a stencil, added some texture into the card.

Then, using the same mix of Nude Liquid Acrylic, and Phoenix Effect Paste, I painted some white die cuts bits, to give them gentle pinky shimmer.

I used Heavy Body Gel as a glue and attached first the painted die cuts, then two Prima Marketing paper roses, and on top a tiny bobby lace bit circling around the other embellishments.

Then I added some soft pink Prima Marketing pearls, again using Heavy Body Gel as glue. I wanted the ATC card to glimmer like sun in the sparkling snow and mixed a small amount of Gold Rush Glass Glitter and Pearl Glass Glitter with silver and gold Metallic Micro Beads, and with a brush, I added some Soft Gloss Gel where I wanted them to go and sprinkled the mix on the card.

As a finishing touch, I added white Art Sugar coating, again using Soft Gloss Gel as glue.

This ATC card was very much not my usual vintage style, but that’s the whole point of it. It’s so lovely to test something completely different once in a while, just let go and see what happens. Also, I had this one promise I made myself to fulfill this year: to try to use as much materials as humanly possible in my artwork. I know, it sounds silly! But, as a disability pensioner, I have used to create my art in the lines of “maximum-fuss-with-minimum-materia”, and I have toned that into art itself, using recycled vintage papers and only the merest minimum of mixed media and embellishments. It is actually rather difficult, to change to top gear and be extravagantly liberal with all kinds of embellishments, when you have used to something different entirely, and to include colours into your palette of neutrals that goes with everything and everywhere. So, this is my first trial on that path of extravagant indulgence, a winter joy.