Artist Trading Cards - Summer Fun

I am participating in a swap of Artist Trading Cards (ATC) over at Soul Scrappers themed Summer Fun.  There are 10 participants. ATC's are little just 2.5" x 3.5".  They are a great way to practice new techniques. Here are the cards I created:

Summer to me includes ice-cream and gelato - love the colours. As an aside - who remembers Gelato knitting yarns - same colours and I made many a top with them in the day.

Now, how did I create these?  I have had Ranger Oxide Distress Inks (only 6 of first issue colours) for sometime now, and like many I have watched Utube, read blogs, scoured Pinterest but never really put 'ink to paper'.  The time is right.  I have used the inks 4 ways: First I 'smooched' the first ink colour onto my craft sheet, sprayed and then lay 12' square of cardstock on top, then proceeded to do the same with 3 other colours, drying as needed between applications. This is closer to the colours rather than the photos above.

I also thought initially I would use the cardstock (CS) coloured to create the embellishment - so I made a few more on other CS - the top left is the result of my picking up remaining ink on my craft sheet between colours. 

I then mixed some of the Cracked Pistachio ink with Ranger Whipped Spackle and applied via a mask the individual ATC's which I had by now cut out.  After experimenting with some of smaller CS in above image I decided it was too much of a match and just blended into the background. So putting my thinking cap on - I stamped my favourite Tim Holtz (TH) Crazy Bird stamp onto white CS and using the Oxide Inks to watercolour each bird before die cutting.
To finish off I used the direct to paper method of running the ink over white CS and then used TH die cut the word Hello from Friendship Words, Script die.
I love the resulting ATC's and I hope you do as well. They are on the way to USA later today. Thank you for looking,  Margaret :)