ATC Fun with Puffy Paint

I'm not sure where August went, but it's been some two months since my last post! Life has been busy, and if you're ever wondering what I'm up to you can always check out my Flickr account, which gets an update at least once a week. Last month I was experimenting with Tulip brand Puffy fabric paint.

Here are some ATCs I've made for the Milwaukee Artist Trading Card group's July theme Life's A Beach:

You can see the full set here. The foamy wave texture was made with white Puffy paint swirled with my finger over the collaged images (Bathing Beauties faux postage from Ten Two Studios). I let the puffy paint dry over night and then hit it with an heat gun so the swirls puffed up to make the cool texture. Then I painted the swirls with several washes of blue & green acrylic paints. (The puffed paint acts like a sponge sucking up the color.) The embellishments are hand-spun yarn from my friend Kathi and vintage shell buttons.

Using the same technique for a completely different look, I made another set of ATCs inspired by the opening credits of the HBO series Treme, which includes vintage photos of New Orleans and family photos damaged by water and mold.

You can see the full set here. This time I created the organic root-like texture by pressing two surfaces wet with white puffy paint together and pulling them apart again. I used the heat gun while the puffy paint was still wet, and it bubbled up more, making weird mold-like growth. And I used darker colors - purple, brown & green. The images are from Ten Two Studios' Octavia and Storyville collage sheets.

Pretty funky!