Artist Trading Card: Hearts, Hearts, Hearts!!

With Valentine's Day being right around the corner there are loads of swaps and challenges out there with LOVE as their theme. I recently took part in one over at Swap-Bot. It was an ATC (artist trading card) swap called "Hearts, Hearts, Hearts". 

Here is my ATC:

I really love creating ATC's. I can use up so many of my scraps from other projects - I hate throwing anything away!

I started out with some left over patterned papers and a snippet of rick-rack. 

I also had a few  love-related cutouts 

I made with my Silhouette machine. I LOVE my Silhouette. I can do soooo many things with it!  

Punched out lots of small hearts from the scrap paper too.

I took a standard ATC-sized piece of white cardboard (2.5" x 3.5") and went over the edges with a pink stamp pad and then did a little fill in with the pad too.

Threw the "I Heart You" cutout into the Xyron machine - so much easier than trying to glue it down!'Love my Xyron too!

Next I went to the sewing machine and stitched the rick-rack and heart cutouts into place. I love the look and texture of stitching! 

After stitching I "fluffed" up the top layer on the hearts for extra dimension. I love lots of layers, textures and dimension! 

I used Glossy Accents to embellish a couple of the hearts, as well as tack down the tiny heart punches. I love dimension (did I say that already?!) 

OH, here's a little tip: I find everytime I go to use the Glossy Accents the spout is clogged. Now I leave a pin in the spout and screw the cap on to store it. When ready to use again, just give a little "up and down" with the pin and you are ready to go!

So, that's the first of my Valentine's Day projects, more to come so stay tuned!