 We are here to do a little tutorial for the artist trading coins I made for the month of June of 2019 for a challenge that went on in the Facebook group Artjoy of Sharing. We were challenged to do an artist trading card every day for the whole month of June. Now I chose to do coins mostly because I'm lazy and I already had them punched out. At least the center plain white circle part that you see here in the middle of the screen and the backer card also that you see the little coin for the back. Before I moved in September to a different whole state I thought that I would create these little artist trading coins as something to do so I didn't go crazy having all my stuff packed away. I ended up that things were so crazy and chaotic that I didn't get any of them done so I still had all these pieces punched out. I thought this was a good opportunity to use them up. Now it also happened that I got some fabulous happy mail at the same time I was doing these coins and I believe her first name is Carolyn Shanks. She is a Etsy customer and she sent me this really wonderful little piece of happy mail and to be honest I didn't see the note on the back of it to laugh that piece of paper until after I'd already punched something out of it so oops my bad but thank you so much for the sweet note and the fabulous pieces of happy mail because I've already used most of them on coins and paper clips. Anyway I when I'm making the coins I just chose bits and pieces literally at random whatever was on my desk or in my ephemera bank whatever was inspiring me and I assembled them for the most part with a glue stick and tacky glue. Now there were a few times when I made the coins where I attached something fairly heavy and that meant I had to use E6000 or staples or brads or I even have a few things that I had to stitch on or attach some other way that were really heavy on both the coins and the paper clips that I did this month and there will be a paper clip tutorial coming at some point. Anyway to make an artist trading coin it needs to be a two and a half inch circle. For an artist trading card it's two and a half inches by three and a half inches. I have an EK success punch that is a two and a half inch circle it makes the process very easy. The backer artwork that has where you put your name and the name of that coin and the date and all of that is actually one of a number of artist training coin downloads that is in my Etsy shop and most of the words that I used on the coins this month for the month of June are also from downloads from my Etsy shop. Now the link for the Etsy shop is in the description below. I do have on this one of course I have these bits and pieces that I got in the happy mail but we're about to break here the video footage and you will see me creating a coin here earlier in the month. Here's a side view of the table again the centers are mixed media paper and they were punched with that EK success success punch I just mentioned. The backs were also punched with that punch and they're from my Etsy shop. The front that I use here the owl painting is a copy of one of my original pieces of artwork and it along with many others is part of an artist trading coin download that's also in the Etsy shop so anyway I use a lot of digital prints of my own artwork as Tracy Bautista would say leveraging my own work in other works and I really enjoy that process and figuring out new ways to change them up and make them new and different. I do layer the pieces with a glue stick and here you see me doing a couple ahead of time I was going to be out of town one weekend and I knew that so I did a coin ahead of time but I do just pick pieces at random. I have a pile of stuff usually on my desk and if one is on the desk is not inspiring me I do have a bank of ephemera bits and paper that's across the room that I can use that to now that one design that I'm trying to figure out a backing piece paper for to stick that on the card is a different digital download that's in the Etsy shop I have a lots of digital downloads of things that you can copy and uses ephemera uses collage material uses backgrounds in the shop and I have to print them to for the shop so I have something to photograph and so I have that means I have tons of them laying around so I thought you know it's about time I use my own stuff to be honest this isn't a commercial for my store but I just have all this stuff laying around it's about time I use it and that brown paper I think is brown deli paper I use I found old postage stamps in my collection I forgot I had vintage bookpapers as part of this process those little plastic bread tabs all kinds of things that I forgot I had in my stash of ephemera that I was able to use and combine with different digital prints from my own collection I had some from other artists that I used including Peg Robinson and a couple of other people and I enjoyed very much finally using up those things I've been collecting for years and using them in a creative way so that was a lot of fun I did occasionally rough up the edges of the coins with a distressing tool I think the one I have in my hand is a Tim Holtz distressing tool I sometimes inked the edges I sometimes doodled on the coin no two were the same they were all different and I used found bits and pieces from my stash on all of them I didn't realize how much stuff I had until I started making these to be honest and I've purged and I still have a lot but anyway they were a lot of fun to make and I had more fun with it than I thought I was going to to be honest when I found out about the challenge I moaned and groaned and went oh my god but I did have a lot of fun with the challenge it was a quick and easy way to add an additional daily art practice to my day and use up stuff and find stuff when I would run out of inspiration on the table I went to the bank of pieces of ephemera and I went over there and just dug through a few bins and baskets and pulled out a few more pieces I do find that if you're gonna do this every maybe week or two you need to go through your desk and you need to clean and put everything away because after a month of doing ATC's and I did paperclips to which again is coming up in another video oh my gosh was my desk a disaster it was really messy and crazy and at some point it was for me too messy to be very creative so I had to clean it up so I could keep going here on this particular coin you see I have put a piece of wood and that's because I think I decided on that particular one what I was going to do is make it a paperclip which I did do I was doing paperclips and coins at the same time for the whole month of June so going back to the owl I have all kinds of strangeness in my collection this is a piece of a broken zipper and a metal can tab from a can of soda and I have pieces of elastic and I have smashed pennies if you've ever been to an arcade or a tourist site and you've smashed pennies I I love to smash pennies and I bring them upstairs and use them on my art if that's if I don't keep them for just a souvenir so all kinds of stuff are appropriate for these artists trading coins do some experiment get out some of those small weird strange bits we've all been collecting or we've been gifted in Happy Mail and create some little daily small art projects put words on almost all my work so for me the words were really important but they don't have to be it could just be a random collage think about it and see if you can incorporate some of it in your day and in your collection this and if you have any questions comments or concerns please leave them below I do answer my comments and DMs every day if you want to follow me on social media or support the free content here on YouTube by shopping in the Etsy shop or getting some merch on Teespring or joining patreon and supporting me over there whatever it is or maybe you just want to follow me on Instagram go to the description of the video and click on the link tree list of links the link tree link and it will bring up a whole list of places you can find me on the internet don't forget to like share and subscribe and above all go out and have a great day and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it like make a coin and that's it for today I'll see you all in the next video bye guys