HIP 2 BE SQUARE "Leonardo" Artist Trading Block

Howzit Lost Coasters!

 Are you all enjoying our HIP 2 BE SQUARE event over at Lost Coast Portal to Creativity?

 Our fabulous team of LCDesigners and Guest Designers are currently sharing daily SQUARE projects through to August 31st and our Linky Party closes at 5 to midnight on September 4th so why not get in on the action for the chance to win a shopping spree at Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda? 

Enter your projects that are either square shaped, involve squares in some way or feature our SQUARE shaped rubber stamps...we've got quite a collection of them: 

Check out our large selection of SQUARE stamps:
Carmen's Veranda Squares
Lost Coast Designs Doodling Squares
Lost Coast Designs Zentangle Squares

 

Today I'm sharing the "Leonardo" themed Artist Trading Block (ATB) I made for Day 1 of HIP 2 BE SQUARE!

An Artist Trading Block is an altered or decorated cube and they are traded just like Artist Trading Cards (ATCs).  Craft stores sell wooden blocks in various sizes or you can make your own out of heavy weight cardstock or cardboard.  Sizzix has made life even easier with their ATB dies and you can also get ATB files for cutting machines like the the Cameo, etc.

For my ATB project I made my own cube specifically sized to fit our SQUARE Carmen's Veranda stamps which all measure 2.75 inches square!

I started out with a sheet of 8.5 x 11 inch black cardstock and prepared two pieces as shown in my photo below:  the left panel measurement is 3.5 inches wide by 10 inches long and the right panel is

 4 inches by 9.5 inches.  I wanted my ATB to be 3 inches squared so that each of my stamped panels would have a .25 inch black border.  I scored the folds with a bone folder, slotted the two pieces together and adhered the flaps with Scotch Quick Dry adhesive to form a 6 sided cube.

I then cut out 6 2.75 inch squares from tan cardstock and stamped them all with Onyx Black Versafine ink.  Two of them are decorated with the Carmen's Veranda Cracked Face Square stamp.  I've had these CV square stamps for many years now and I originally planned to use the Calligraphy Square too but couldn't find it in my stash, well guess what I found yesterday when I wasn't looking for it!  PHAH!  The rest of my panels were stamped with Lost Coast Designs Cosmos Collage and the Leonardo Accessories Set.

Each panel was coloured with Prismacolor pencils and the backgrounds done with Derwent pastel pencils and blended with a Dove Blender pen.  I distressed the edges of each panel with Tim's Paper Distresser tool and applied Tea Dye Distress Ink.  I then adhered each panel to the ATB with Quick Dry adhesive and also added the little "Leonardo" text from the Leonardo Accessories set.

I'm really pleased with how my ATB turned out!  They're so much fun to make so why don't you give one a go and share with us?  Enter your SQUARE projects in our HIP 2 BE SQUARE Linky Party by 5 to midnight on Sept 4th! 

FYI...I've got more templates on my LeighSBDesigns blog if you'd like to check them out!

I'm sharing my project in the Simon Says It's Hip to Be Square Challenge :0)
 

 Thanks for stopping by to see my project today and have a great weekend!

Happy Stamping!

 Leigh S-B

THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN