A trio of easy to make ATC coin holders

I was thinking on how I could present my ATC coins. I have loads of options for the cards, but not for the coins! So I came up with a few. Mostly origami based (kinda) but I am aiming for easy/foolproof. Really, it is all about the measurements!

1. I showed this last week. It is very simple, totally fool proof but I thought it best if I collected them all in one place so I am adding it again here. As with anything folded, thinner card or plain paper is best. Heavyweight card messes up the folds.

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  Begin with a5 3/4 inch square

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  Fold in half to create a triangle

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  With the folded edge at the bottom, fold the tip down to meet the botton

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  Insert your coin, in the centre

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  Fold the remaining tip down to cover

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  Fold one side over, so the fold is close to the edge of the coin inside

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  fold the other side over, sli;pping the tip of the previous folded piece inside to secure

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  Done!

Pop back to Friday’s post to see larger photos

2. This is a simpler version of the totally folded Menko card (you can see that in a video here and believe me you will need the video to make sense of it. I have made them a few times over the years and I still have to go back and watch the process!) While I like the folded version, the coin itself is buried way within the structure (where in the video she puts the seeds) and I didn’t like that. True origami artist will blanch at all the cutting but hey, it works for anyone with ease! Works well with single sided paper or cardstock.

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  Begin with an 8 1/4 inch square

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  Score at 2 3/4 and 5 1/2 on all four sides to create nine squares

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  Cut away the four corners

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  Fold each “arm” as shown, working around clockwise

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  Be sure the edge of the folded down piece does NOT overlap the fold

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  Insert your coin and, again, working clockwise, fold all the points over

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  Tuck the final point behind the first to lock it all in place

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  Neat and tidy

3. I made this version before for another use, and like that one I used two papers to make a more interesting holder. Sorry if there is a bit of a blur on a couple of the photos.

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  Cut 2 strips of 3 x 9 inch patterned paper. It can be double sided or not.

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  Fold over the corners JUST like this

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  Layer the two pieces in a +, taking note of what shows in the centre square

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  Feel free to stick down in the middle and the triangle arms if you like

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  Place the coin inside

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  In a clockwise fashion, fold in the arms, locking the last arm in place under the first

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  The image in the center square from photo 3 is on the front of your envelope

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  Note the size difference between the two versions.

I looked a lot for ATCoin holders and really didn’t see much out there so I hope people who do them will enjoy these. I’ve not tarted them up, just made them from pretty paper, but obviously the options are pretty endless for what you can do!

For those who would find it useful, here is a PDF that has the steps for each of these.

A Card A Day – Week FOUR

Part two. OK, so I made all these cards in one day (Thursday) because I had a bunch of scraps on my desk from other cards, and looking at them they seemed to create little cards all by themselves.

I had a small stack of really small kraft cardstock cards with envelopes that managed to use up almost all of the scraps! I also had a test punch of a leafy frond and some previously die cut sentiments that I figured I might as well use up:

See what I mean about creating themselves? Basically I was just pushing the scraps around on top of the card fronts and sticking them down!

You can see the leftovers from each card – only the stripey one had enough to save and maybe use for another card!

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I’ll get back on track, but I suspect that I will once again do a foursome when I amass enough scraps that I can use them up!

A Card A Day – Week FOUR

Sunday I am really liking the slimline cards, although in some ways they are a struggle. They don’t have a lot of surface to cover, so not really burning thru my scraps when I make them, and sometimes the design options seem a bit limited. I mean, I could make 100 cards that look more or less just like this one with ease:

I won’t, but I could.

Monday So this one, I was trying to use a set that had a sentiment and a surround, but very much another case of you-get-what-you-pay-for. I had a sample that I tried, using Distress Oxide ink swiped across an embossing folder and then embossed so the detain popped forward in white. It’s something I have seen a LOT recently using the new 3D embossing folders, but of course it works with old folders too, perfectly well. Anyway, although by ACAD challenge is to use up stuff, I decided to use that sample and a scalloped strip from my scrap stash

I just want you to look carefully at the letters. Virtually all of them (except the Hap of Happy) are disconnected. In a quality die, all the letters are going to be joined. It was pretty infuriating to get things nicely positioned in the backing mat. But in the end it looks cute and I don’t have a test sample hanging about waiting to be used.

Tuesday I had another stamp&die set that was floral, and I had the idea to stamp the rather sketchy flowers over patterned paper rather than plain card, to see what sort of effect it gave. It was OK

This is quite an odd set. It has this flower, a larger die that cuts outlines, a bunch of center piece dies and a couple more stamps. I have not sorted out how they are all meant to fit together, really, and the card is not my favourite but I guess it is good for my stash. I suspect maybe the stamped flower might fit behind the outlined ones but not sure.

At this point my little stack of cards is getting pretty big. I want to make a few cards that I may need (like a few sympathy cards) instead of all the Just a note…, Hi there… generic ones and Happy Birthday ones that I know I will need. But tomorrow I will add a group of four that I kinda cheated on, making them all in one day. It’ll make sense when you see them, I promise!

My very first ever Artists Trading Coins and a fab folded envelope for them.

The envelope is right near the bottom. There was a challenge on the Mixed Media Emporium for watercolours and doodling. Two things I REALLY struggle with, I’m not gonna lie. But I had a bash. I did a whole sheet using coffee and watercolours – OMG it smelled so good while I was working on them. Then I punched out the coins and did some doodling. Not stellar, but OK.

Some of the doodling was actually done with strong coffee and a dip pen. And when I draagged out the stamps to add some extra texture, I spotted that little stamped image I think I shared before, and it took my coins in a totally different direction LOL!

I dragged out one of the Tim Holtz word sticker books and found a sort of progression from despair to hope :

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There is a lot of symbolism in it that may mean something only to me (like the direction of the fish and the 456 as we progress from 45 to 46) but in the end the underlying message is that as individuals we need to do all the good we can, rather than wait for the slowly turning wheels of government to solve things. I hope the set is ultimately hopeful. Not very trade-able, perhaps but these are the very first ATC(oins) I have ever made so I am happy with them.

I am really happy with this little origami folded envelope. It took m a few tries to get the sizing right and (hopefully) turn it into a more foolproof thing, but here goes:

Begin with a 5 3/4inch square of paper. Fold it in half, corner to corner, to create a triangle. Orientate so the folded edge is at the bottom

Fold down the top point of the top piece to meet the bottom edge

Slip your ATCoin into the fold, centre it as best you can.

Now fold the top tip down to cover the coin

Adjust the position of the coin, again, aiming to centre it. Fold over one side, so the fold line is very close to the edge of the coin

This part is a little tricky. Fold the other point over while slipping the folded tip inside the two pieces of the new fold

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The trick is that sometimes one of the two sides will fit better into the other, and you may have to try both ways to see. It should create as close to a square as possible and the coin will be trapped inside. You can then decorate the reverse.

It’s not as elegant, but the Menko pocket I showed previously could easily double as am ATCoin holder as well. I’ll have to work out the exact dimensions but it’s tricky!

Still considering the A Card A Day. I’ve made about 40 cards, between the warm-ups and the daily cards and I wonder how many more is enough? And like the 100 Days project, I have made barely a dent in my card-making scraps. It all seems rather pointless some days, as scraps beget scraps….

{sigh}

Today is the exact middle of the year (day 182) and that day is kinda a deadline for the junk journal and a move-on-to-the-nest-phase day. So on Monday there might be a new project beginning…fingers crossed…

Watercolour texture challenge – such fun!

I have been doing the Mixed Media Emporium challenges from a Facebook group and it’s been interesting. I had rather let my watercolours sit ignored and it was fun to drag them out again. The Watercolour Texture challenge really got me playing and I thought I would share my samples. The one I liked perhaps best of all was a disc of heavy watercolour paper that I sponged with a bit of iridescent medium using a sea sponge. It gave a really cool texture and a bit of a glimmer, and once I sprinkled on a few grains of brown and black Brushos (each made up of a multitude of individual grains of many colours) and a drop or two of alcohol, it was quite magical – not sure the photos really do this justice,

I tried angling it in the sunlight but still not as amazing as it is IRL.

More Brushos, with some larger alcohol drops to disperse the wet watercolours and some more colour

So then I had to drag out some old supplies, like those damn Silkies and spatter a bit of those over the Brusho sprinkles, wet and then dried:

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And then another favourite – I tried the technique of sprinkling water on the paper, then adding embossing powder (which clings to the water and if you are fast, and have pre-heated your heat tool, you can emboss it before the water dries and the powder blows away) first Distress Embossing powder:

Then some very old gold UTEE – which gave very distinct dots, as it is so chunky.

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The green one also has an interesting addition – I mixed a tiny bit of yellow Brushos with a few drops of alcohol and dotted that over the green (I misted it with water so the wet paint could react with the alcohol+Brushos) and I love how that turned out.

Don’t mix up too much and work quickly before the alcohol evaporates. I kinda feel like these could be nice ATC (Artists Trading COINS rather than CARDS) but not sure how to finish them off – too much would hide the yummy texture and leaving them plain isn’t really appealing for a trade. Maybe I will see about making some sort of sample book, as someone suggested, so I can keep them.

DOH!

WOYWW 630 – is clean too boring?

Happy WOYWW to all! WOW. The days are rocketing by. I am thinking a clean desk every week might be a bit boring, and vowed to snap some progression shots of what I have been working on. I didn’t remember but will try to do so for next week if I can! A few things, like some samples for one of the Mixed Media Emporium’s challenges, Watercolour Texture, have graced my desk:

Clearing those away, I made some ATC(oins) using the little stamp that you can just about see in the box next to the glue blue bottle, shown better in the middle here:

They are done now but won’t share them today (texture challenge tomorrow, coins on Friday.) And there were many more stages of chaos that I didn’t grab a shot of, so I guess it is the boring clean desk that is the main one this week:

After snapping this, I got set-up for a cardmaking session that is a bit of a cheat, but I’ll explain THAT in a weekend ACAD post:

Man Bites Dog – I waffled between 340Lb. Psychic Blames Banker and this one. I wonder what you do if the pulls make no sense? I first got 340Lb. Banker Blames Wed, so I pulled another card. Must ask Kyla what her method is!

Knitting mates come for a natter today, but I will get to all the desks as soon as I can. Have a great WOYWW day and hopefully there will be a whole day of SUN sometime soon.

WOYWW Junk Journal Additions

Oh dear. I fear I might have forgotten all the correct people who sent what, but I am going to do my best! I got a LOT of stuff from Spyder. The ATC folder was actually cut in half, and each side filled with a little multi-coloured notepad made up of hand-dyed papers. The little top stapled holder was part of her envelope!

There was a belly-band around the holder, and that became a belly-band on another page, with the little journalingg cards created from another bit of the envelope:

The back of both cards again, lined with hand-dyed paper. This is some of the ones dyed with Dylusions spray ink! And that envelope was not yet done. The last bit made a pocke to hold more journaling cards:

Honestly, I think I used every scrap of that envelope except the tiny bit I punched out here and that bit was slightly ripped so it was fine to toss it in the bin. Lastly, I had the ATC holder from Susan Renshaw. It was so cute, and made a perfect pocket just as it was, although I added a punched circle (and promptly broke my punch, no idea how, and made the little folded journaling stripto fit inside from a scrap of card on my desk and yet more hand-dyed paper.

In the end I regretted chopping up Julia’s card so I opted not the use the lovely postcards from bothe Spyder and Sue. Maybe I’ll scan the writing and keep that then use the cards. Finally, eye test for me today and my daughter on Thursday, WOYWW tomorrow, and my knitting friends are popping round for a session in the garden, if the weather holds… Busy week!

Tea bag puches in my junk journal

Oops. Sorry about the typo. POUCHES. If I change it I think it will mess up the permalink to the post so Imma gonna leave it. Oh the shame of it….

I have been beavering away on that junk journal and am very nearly to the point where I can make the covers. Almost all pages have an addition of some spot for journaling added to them and I have used most of the bits from the WOYWW swap – at least the ones I can find. I know Caro sent me some bit and I know I tucked them away in a “safe place” (HA!) and will add them as soon as I remember where that is. But I had to make some tea for The Hubster yesterday and he had bought some tea with colourful packaging, so I decided to make use of it.

I needed to keep the box intact (mostly) as there are still many tea bags stored in it, but I felt the lid coud come off now. Not too complex at all. I cut down the tea bag pouches:

I wasn’t sure if I should cover the writing, but for now, I left it. I do have a die that MIGHT pretty much fit the spot but I don’t mind seeing the “junk” aspect of the things I am adding. I seem to have missed out a photo of adding hand-dyed paper with lines to the back of each half of the lid (cut to fit inside the pouches) and adding the ea bag labels as a pull to the top, but here they are in place in the journal:

I think they are pretty cute! I will probably do a quick re-cap of all the other WOYWW swap mailings that I used tomorrow, so the people who pop round on Wednesday can see them. Finding interesting ways to use as much of the stuff as I can was a fun process!

A Card A Day – Week THREE

Part TWO:

Thursday, I had a handful of these card fronts that have an embossed area in the middle. They are VERY old. But I’d like to use them up so:

Pretty basic stuff but I was glad to use that heart die that I have had kicking around for ages. Not 100% sure of the two-different-heart styles but it’s fine.

And I left the scraps on my desk for Friday and just shuffled the scraps around to create another card.

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And I still had a couple of scraps at the end. Really, this process is just scraps making scraps until those scraps are too small to be useful. It’s endless!

Yesterday (Saturday), I could have maybe tried to make another card with the leftovers but I wanted a change of colour. I have to say, I do love this one. I have a ring full of curves that I used for a scrapbooking class I tough 10 years ago. And a curved ruler as well that I never really use anymore. In the end I just used the ruler, cause I could run my blade along it and cut, where I can’t do that with the cardboard curves. I just grabbed some cardstock that (mostly) spanned the width of the card front and stacked the curves

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I also used a sentiment die and both cut a printed sentiment AND some plain strips to create this kinda snarky card – I have someone in mind for this one LOL! These sentiment dies are so much more useful than just cutting the stamps that come with them.

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A Card A Day week THREE

Part one:

I dragged out some paper strips, pre-punched borders and a pack of slimline cards for my Sunday card. a very fast one, and a little tip.

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I have some foam squares that seem to be sticky only on one side. I save them for using in the middle of popped items. That way the full sticky-on-both-sides squares do the actual attaching round the perimeter of the element and the one-side-sticky ones stick to either the card or the element and still do the work of popping where it doesn’t matter. Instead of just tossing them in the bin I can actually use them. You can see the top protective film is just falling off, but the bottom is fully sticky.

On Monday I made another simple card with two coordinating designs of patterned paper, from another paper pad with scraps tucked inside I seem to have a lot of them. Again, using the waste from die cutting the sentiment then I filled it with a stack of white card topped with the other patterned paper. I did the base card then added two different elements tot he envelope for adding as needed, one more masculine and one more feminine:

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I don’t think the pearl dots make it too feminine, especially with the colours, but the floral elements make is girly, despite the colours! I will possibly do this more often, doing no-sentiment cards, for example, as a stash of for-any-occasion cards to have on stand-by.

Tuesday:

As I was putting away the paper pad from the Happy Birthday card, the paper pad from a card last week caught my eye. There were still scraps in that one so I tried to use them up if I could.

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I still have a smidge of the solid pink but I used up some big chunks and a couple of bits from a cut-apart sheet.