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Formica Chip ATCs

Amy McIntire
Trailblazers
Paper Arts & Multi Media Designer

This project is a great use of scrap papers, ribbons and other embellishments. Ordinary Formica chip samples that are found at your local hardware store are a great canvas to showcase a number of fun stamping techniques. Here are some techniques that I focused on with this project: Collage, paper tearing, inking, paper piecing (also called Paper doll technique), and watercolor blending. 

Supplies:

•  Peace, Love, Joy (The Angel Company)
•  Just Dance (The Angel Company)
•  So Girly (The Angel Company)
•  Twilight Inspirational Words (La Pluma, Inc)
•  Sepia Archival ink (Ranger Industries)
•  Pink Lemonade, Wild Cherry, Banana Split, Cotton Candy cardstock (Basic Grey - Lollipop Shoppe Collection) 
•  Flint cardstock (Basic Grey - Motifica Collection)
•  Strawberry Cream Cardstock (Basic Grey – Sublime Collection)
•  Plot of Dots, Green Stripe, Goo-Goo Green patterned paper (SEI - Aunt Gerti's Garden Collection)
•  Blue Swirl paper (Die Cuts with a View)
•  Blue natural paper (Unknown)
•  Starwhite Studio cardstocks (Fox River Paper)
•  Yellow/orange textured vellum (Unknown)
•  Mica coated metallic papers (CTI Paper USA)
•  7 – Formica chip samples (Hardware store)
•  Loose binder ring (Office supply)
•  Eyelets (Sewing notions)
•  Eyelet setting tools (Making Memories)
•  Ribbon (Offray and Rusty Pickle)
•  Square and circle punches – at 1 ¼” and 1 ½” (Creative Memories)
•  Black pen - fine tip
•  Adhesive (Tombow)
•  White eraser
•  Cotton
•  Silk flower, bingo chip, brown trim and clear page embellishments
•  Watercolor pencils 

Instructions (to complete each tile):

To prep Formica chips, use a white eraser to rub off black print. The print can also be covered up with paper or other items. Then set an eyelet into each of the center of the Formica chip holes. When chips are completed, clip them to the binder ring and tie-off the ring with 4 pieces of ribbon. 

A. "Inspiration":

1.    Punch out 2 squares and 2 circles.

2.    Stamp the word inspiration onto a small scrap piece of Pink Lemonade paper and ink the edges.

3.    Adhere a bingo chip to the circle mat.

4.    Snip petal sides of a silk flower, attach brad to the center and adhere to the bingo chip. 

B. "Dream":

1.    To start the paper piecing technique, stamp moon image onto cream colored cardstock. Then stamp the same moon again onto Flint paper.

2.    Cut out this moon image and adhere it to the stamped image on the cream cardstock, cut this out also.

3.    Outline edges and face features with a black fine-tip pen.

4.    Highlight with colors using watercolor pencils.

5.    Next, punch out 2 different sizes of the squares (one in Flint the other in Goo-Goo Green) and ink the square sides. Adhere the two squares together and turn it so it resembles a diamond shape.

6.    Adhere the pieced moon onto the squares.

7.    Use scrap pieces of the Flint paper to adorn the top of the tile as shown.

8.    Stamp word onto paper and adhere to bottom center of the tile.

9.    Adhere cotton pieces as shown. 

C. "Joy":

1.    Take scrap pieces of Banana Split paper and cover tile as shown.

2.    Stamp woman image onto cream cardstock and stamp again onto light blue metallic paper. Cut out dress and hat only.

3.    Take dress and hat pieces and adhere to the first stamped image on the cream colored cardstock. Cut around the pieced image.

4.    Outline edges and dress stripes with black fine tip pen.

5.    Stamp word onto Wild Cherry paper scrap and add on pieces as shown. 

D. "Love":

1.    Stamp word on Goo-Goo Green paper.

2.    Stamp winged heart image onto Strawberry Cream paper, cut out the heart and the wings (separately).

3.    Stamp the same winged heart image onto cream cardstock and adhere the cutout from the last step to it. Add the cut out wings as shown to the light green paper.

4.    Collage scraps of the green paper and the Pink Lemon aid papers as shown on the tile. Outline areas with a black pen. 

E. "Hope":

1.    Stamp sun image onto cream-colored cardstock and add highlight colors with watercolor pencils.

2.    Stamp the sun image again onto a piece of the textured vellum.  Cut out and adhere to the stamped and colored image on the cream cardstock.

3.    Stamp word onto Blue Swirl paper.

4.    Adhere scrap pieces of the textured vellum (reverse side), the stamped word and the pieced sun onto the tile as shown in photo. Outline edges and the face of the sun. 

F. "Peace":

1.    Cover tile with pieces of torn natural blue paper as shown.

2.    Stamp star image onto white cardstock and color in with watercolor pencils.

3.    Stamp word onto cardstock and highlight with light blue pencil.

4.    Adhere star and word pieces onto the tile and place a clear embellishment over top of each piece. 

G. "Success":

1.    Collage scrap pieces of Cotton Candy paper on the tile.

2.    Stamp woman image onto textured white cardstock and highlight with red and purple watercolor pencils, blend colors together.

3.    Layer the stamped image onto a coordinating piece of cardstock and a piece of copper metallic paper.

4.    Do this same process with the stamped word (color, blend and layer). Adhere these pieces to the collaged tile as shown.

If you would like to print this technique including a near-full size image of the layout, click here.  Once you've saved or printed the technique sheet, use your browser's back button to return.

Note: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to obtain this file.  If you do not have Adobe Acrobat, click here to download and install.