Shaker ATC tutorial

Another post I found hiding in my drafts folder...  I'm ashamed to say this was written in January 2016 but I didn't hit the publish button!

I was asked by the wonderful Jessica Brogan, leader of the Card Deck Swap, to put together a tutorial for the ATC's I sent in a previous swap.  Here is what I put together...

To make these shaker ATC’s you will need some sort of background, a transparent material and some small ‘shaky’ pieces.  

I have used a watercolour background cut down to ATC size, and a playing card.  You could use patterned paper, mixed media artwork, magazine pages, book pages, fabric... the list is endless.   

I’ve used netting/tulle, vellum and a glassine bag for the shaker fronts.  You could also try scrapbook page protectors, thick plastic packaging and acetate.  

I’ve used sequins, beads and punched shapes as my shaky bits – anything small and relatively thin will work... try buttons, wood veneer shapes, die cut paper shapes. 

I’ve used a sewing machine to put my cards together.  You could also sew by hand, used thin double sided tape, washi tape, a FUSE tool, and if your shaky pieces aren’t too small you could even get away with stapling around the edge.

Here is a video and brief step by step of my method of creating.  (My way is not the only way, just a guide to get you started if you would like to try.)

•  Play with watercolours on wet watercolour paper.  Add sea salt when wet.
• Allow to dry completely and brush salt off.  TIP; moving the salt before everything is completely dry lessens the effect the salt has.
• Stop and admire the effect the salt leaves!
• Add another layer of colour using watercolours, ink and ink sprays.  Add water to get the colours to spread.  Again add sea salt when the colour is wet and allow to dry completely.
• When completely dry brush the salt off and cut the background paper down to ATC size.
• Cut your transparent material slightly bigger than the ATC and sew around three sides.  TIP; use a fairly long stitch.  Too short a stitch gives the effect of perforating the card!
• Add your shaker pieces and sew up the fourth side capturing all the little pieces inside.
• Knot the threads on the back.  TIP; you can seal your knots with a little blob of glue or clear nail varnish.
• Trim your transparent material to size and add your words/image to the front of the card with strong double sided tape.  TIP; If you’ve used tulle/netting wet glue will seep through to the background and stop the shaky bits from shaking!

All the sequin mixes I used are from SpiegelMom Scraps.  If you want to stock up on sequins and get your hands on some glassine bags quote the code Laura15 at the checkout for 15% off your order.

This tutorial is just an idea to start you off, let your imagination run wild!  If you do make something inspired by this tag me @beadsbuttonsandbirds on instagram so I can check your work out.