Second on the 2nd: Altered Playing Cards

 

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This post is for Second on the 2nd.  If your second look and your T Tuesday post are the same, please add it both places.

 

As most of you know, I like my second look each month to reflect our host at Art Journal Journey's (AJJ) theme. That means I needed to find something related to Winter. 

In 2014, I made the mistake of joining a 16 week, 52 card altered playing card group.  We altered two playing cards every week.  Most of the supplies the host Claudine used and asked for, I didn't have.  I had to improvise a lot of the time.  Below is the post in its entirety when the prompt was Winter. BTW, Claudine hasn't posted new content on her blog since 2016.

This is Week 11 of Claudine's altered playing card (APC) challenge, and we are in full winter mode.  Not just because the APCs are inspired by winter, but because winter has hit my front door with lots of snow, below freezing temperatures, a few record lows, and high, blustery winds.  And mine isn't the only place.  It seems every state in the US, except Hawaii, and much of Canada, had freezing temperatures Monday night.

So, yes, my APCs have a definite winter feel to them this week.

As usual, I had practically none of the supplies Claudine asked for.  In fact, I was thrilled when I found this partial piece of dyed paper towel, all that was left after I used most of it earlier this year  (As an aside, if you want to see how I dyed it, please go here or here, and how I used the dyed paper towels here).

Supplies, from back left clockwise:

Dark blue acrylic paint
White glue, although I ended up using a glue stick instead
White pigment ink
Paint brush
Foam snowflake stamp
Dyed paper towel using printer ink
Computer generated cup, which I fussy cut
Two gessoed playing cards

So why, you ask, did I simply show the supplies and not take any more step out photos?  Because it's so cold in my craft room and my hands (and entire body) were shaking so hard when I tried to take a photo, I decided to simply explain what I did and save photos for when my craft room warms a bit.

For the first playing card, I made something similar to Claudine's card that used a dyed paper towel.  However, Claudine's paper towel had been dyed with spray mists, which will bleed when wet, while mine was made using printer ink, which did not bleed.   I colored the cup and found a small piece of scrap paper I'd dyed with some of my shimmering mists and wrote the sentiment by hand.  It reads "Make mine cocoa please."

For my second card, I knew the paper towel wouldn't bleed like Claudine showed us.  So I opted to paint my playing card with dark blue paint, then add pigment ink snowflakes after the paint had dried.  Once the snowflakes were dried, I once again found a scrap piece of paper and wrote the sentiment: "Snowflakes are winter's flowers."  I used a black Micron 25mm pen for both sentiments.

I realize these are rather simple altered cards this week, but by the time I had finished these two, I was definitely ready to warm my numb hands and get to my less cold office to document the process.

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I've shown you mine, now it's your turn to share your own Second on the 2nd.  Be aware, this link is for your second look only.  If you are also sharing a T Tuesday post as your second look, please add your link both places.

 

 

 

 

 

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