ATC’s with self-made background paper, embellished with Butterflies & Moths

Hi, it’s Hege here with my very first post as a member of the Design Team! I have made two ATC’s with motivational sentiments to start the new year using the lovely Butterflies and Moths stamp set. I need to be reminded to play more, seek inspiration and find perfection in imperfection!

I love making my own background papers, and I will show you a step-by-step tutorial on how to make the background paper I have used on the ATC’s. 
To make a background like this I have to let go of any need of perfection and cleanliness, and just go with the flow and play without thinking of the end result.
It is important to select colours that don’t make mud when mixed, so for this background I have used blues and greens together with black and white, and a little orange.
First I used a palette knife to spread paint randomly on a A4-sized paper. It looked very messy and chaotic at this stage… Then I used a makeup-sponge to apply paint through stencils.

I used the side of the palette knife to make lines with black and white paint. For contrast I applied orange paint using the back end of a paintbrush. To finish up the background paper I used stamps from Mix It Up 4, black Versafine Ink pad and orange Archival Ink pad.

And voilà; a finished background I can use for ATC’s and other paper craft projects!

To make the ATC’s I cut of two pieces of the background paper measuring 2,5 inches by 3,5 inches (the rest of the sheet will be used for future projects!), and embellished them with stamped images I coloured a little with watercolour markers and finished of with stamped sentiments.

I hope this can inspire you to make your own background!
Until next time: take care and enjoy creating! Hege

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