XOXO Valentine ATCs

There is an in-person ATC swap in Des Moines this coming Saturday with a Valentine's theme that I'm hoping to make it to so I did a batch.  

The backgrounds use Wendy Vecchi's Archival Ink re-inker technique (here's a video showing it).  I cut a piece of Specialty Stamping paper in 3 1/2" strips and then used Wendy's red geranium reinker color along with magenta hue.  I forgot to add some metallic mixative but it still worked fine, just no shimmer from the metallic.  After the strips were dry I cut them into 2 1/2" sections for the atcs.  This left me with 3 small strips that I glued to an atc blank and trimmed off the excess (first atc in first row).  

For the torn hearts... I used Wendy's 'never enough hearts' stencil and a scrap piece of cardstock.  I did one small heart with embossing paste repeatedly on the paper leaving enough space to tear a border around each one.  While the paste was still wet I sprayed a script background stamp with water and stamped into the paste to create texture.  After the paste was dry I tore out each heart (a few were inked first and then torn out to leave a white border around the ink).  Some were sprayed with Dylusions, some inked with Archival.  Some have Viva Inka Gold rubbed on the texture.  A couple have Distress Stickles on them.  

Any hearts on the background were stenciled using either white paint or ink.  The stems paired with a torn out heart are also a Wendy stencil, 'create a flower', inked with Archival fern green and then a white gel pen and/or black fine tip pen for highlights/shading.  

There is a script stamp used in the background of some atcs.  Some others use a new Quietfire Design stamp 'Valentine' from the Calligraphic Love Bits set stamped either with white paint or Archival ink.  One atc uses the new QF stamp The Door Was Marked "You".  There is also a diamond stencil and a dot stencil (both Wendy's) and one used a speckled stamp.  All of the ATCs have the XOXO stamp (love this stamp) from the Calligraphic Love Bits set stamped using Archival Ink jet black.  On the second atc in the first row I accidently grabbed the wrong ink pad the first time I stamped the XOXO and so stamped again with the black, of course not getting them lined up, but it's ok.  

The leaves on the second atc below are a Wendy stencil.  The word 'love' on some atcs is hand written.

The green stem is a die cut with the leaves removed and replaced with punched hearts... extra fine Sharpie paint marker for the white dots.  A piece of red rickrack across the bottom.

All the torn out heart are stuck on with foam mounting tape for added dimension.