This atc has a felt bacground, some textured organza ribbon, heart charms and free motion stitching. The edges are glued and gold leafed and it is backed with a playing card.
This afternoon, I had a play with embossing powder and plastics. I have seen a video where plastic was embossed with an embosser like a cuttle bug
here . This doesn't require heat. and although I will try it, it wasn't what I wanted.
I tried quite a few different types of plastics. (This table
here is an overwiew of recyclable plastics.) The first plastic I tried was a number 5 or poly propylene (PP) . It is not completely clear and is more soft rather than brittle. Generally it is from take away or thin microwaveable plastic containers - like the ones you can get in packs of six at the supermarket.
the plastic puckered a tiny bit, but it can be flattened while still warm after using the heat gun. i found it best to hold the gun high up, at least 8 inches and wait a bit longer as there was less puckering this way.
Buoyed on by this success, I tried a few more types of plastic.
Acetate, or transparency did not work as it buckled up straight away and never got anywhere near melting the embossing powder.
This one is PET or number 1 plastic. This is generally what soda/fizzy drink bottles are made of or frozen meals, but I got it from a non-food packaging. It didn't work either, buckling under the least heat.
This one didn't have a label, but was from a chinese take away type container and it felt the same as the PP (5) above. It worked the same as the poly propylene.
The last two plastics I tried are a bit different. They both came out of an LCD computer screen when hubby pulled it apart. The first one is slightly frosted and looks just like quilting stencil plastic.
I have put it on a coloured surface so you could see what I mean. It worked really well. I also tried a piece of stencil plastic, to put my mind at rest (not shown) and it worked as well.
This last one is the one I liked the best of all. It is a reflective clear plastic that I have been collecting from computer sreen demolitions, because it is lovely and shiny like a pearl or a mirror. It worked very well.
Here is a shot of this reflective plastic so you can sort of see what I mean. When the light shines through it, it makes rainbows, I must be a bit of a Pollyanna, I suppose.
The reason this one appealed to me so much is that a friend is going to run a dream catcher workshop at our community house, and I thought that if these were suspended at the bottom, they would just top it off.
I am sure you will be seeing this technique in my ATCs (when I get all the hearts out of my system, lol)
Make sure you play every day.
