A Vintage Journey Tim Holtz Style

I have a BIG announcement to make today which I am beyond thrilled and excited about!!

The very talented Brenda Brown of Bumblebees and Butterflies has set up an amazing new fortnightly challenge blog called A Vintage Journey, which you can see HERE.   Brenda asked me to be part of her Design Team which consists of some amazingly talented crafters.  Did I say how thrilled and excited I am??

The new Design Team have one thing in common and that is our love of Tim Holtz products, his style and techniques and also his ideas.  The products we all love to use are the Ranger distress inks, paints, stains, Idea-ology trinkets and embellishments and of course, Tim's stamps, Sizzix dies, embossing powders and folders. This truly is a match made in heaven and a dream come true for me!

Each fortnight the Design Team will set a new challenge to inspire you.  During that fortnight we will have a Design Team Focus where one of us will provide you with a technique tutorial and step by step process for your inspiration, all linked to Tim, his style and his ideas, which are an inspiration to us all.

We would love like minded crafters to join in our fortnightly challenges and express themselves in a shabby vintage style.  So, if you love vintage, shabby chic, mixed media and papercrafting, this is the challenge for you! Whether you love making cards, albums, 3D assemblage, scrapbook layouts and pages, tags, frames, shadow boxes or anything else, as long as it is in a shabby vintage style, then this challenge is definitely for YOU!

A winner will be chosen each fortnight, by the Design Team, and they will win a prize, sponsored by Country View Crafts (where p&p is always free!).

I do hope that this has whetted your appetite and that you will join us as often as possible either by joining in the challenges or by taking inspiration from the Design Team Focus.  The challenge goes live on 7 March 2014 but in the meantime I hope you will visit A Vintage Journey and follow us.

The Design Team as a whole are really looking forward to going on A Vintage Journey!  Thanks for looking and hopefully commenting on how you feel about our new adventure.  Big hugs,  Anne xx

Alice in Wonderland for Nicecrane

I have something a little different today, it is a gift for a friend.

I loved reading Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, when I was a child.  My favourite bit is where the White Rabbit, dressed in a lovely waistcoat, runs along at the side of Alice.  He pulls out a pocket watch, exclaims that he is late and then pops down a rabbit hole.......

I have had these images of Alice for a little while now, from Nicecrane and recently had the opportunity to get them out, colour one of them and make a journal page for a friend.  I have two friends called Mo and this is the friend who does not have a blog, she is better known as TwinkleToes.  Last year Mo did a year long challenge with the Craft Barn which used letters, words and definitions.  She put all the pages into a journal. Mo sent me her journal to have a look at, it was beautiful and I made her a journal page using the letter T for time for her to add to the journal if she wished.

I did not see the need to explain what the word time means, I think White Rabbit says it all.  I added a Prima pocket watch with the word time inside and added a Prima glass bead which magnifies the word nicely. The watch has been coloured gold with alcohol ink and finished off with Treasure Gold, White Fire. I did a little stenciling in the background and the pattered tea party paper is from the Alice collection by Graphic 45.

The image was black and white and you can find this and many, many more wonderful images, both black and white and fully coloured from Nicecrane HERE.

The image I used is from the Colouring Alice Volume 1 which you can find HERE.

I gave the White Rabbit a different colour of jacket, I really love this image and it was so easy to colour with Promarkers, Copics and Prismacolour pencils.  I coloured him twice and then layered up one of the images to give him some dimension.

If you are a fan of Alice in Wonderland, Ignacio at Nicecrane has lots of wonderful images in this series.

Thank you for looking.  Take care if you are being affected on either side of the world by the dreadful weather.  Hugs, Anne xx

Surprise Storage Card

Last week I was a bit low on inspiration so I watched a few YouTube videos and I saw one for a card that has a surprise inside.  I tried to find the video I had watched so that I could get the correct measurements and put a link, but could not find it again - story of my life!  So this card has been constructed from memory only .

The papers I have used are from the Maja Design range, they are so beautiful, I always hate to cut into them.  For this card I used one whole 12" x 12" double sided sheet to cover the outside, the inside and make two of the flowers.

The beautiful image is a stamp from the Stampsmith and she is called Ophelia.  I have been in love with this stamp since my lovely friend Rita made me a beautiful hanging for my birthday last year and which hangs in pride of place in my craft room.  Ophelia is stamped in Wendy Vecchi's Watering Can Archival ink.  The flowers were cut using a Spellbinder die, Rose Creations.  I shaped and layered the flowers and added a pearl to the centres.  The leaves are cut from the same papers and covered with Shabby Shutters DI.

And this is how the inside of the card looks.

The inside of the card is constructed using four strips of card, folded in an accordian shape and glued together.  This creates dimension inside the card.  The dimensions of the surprise storage space is 4.1/2" x 3.1/2" by approx 1/2" deep.  It will hold a small piece of jewellery or a gift tag.  I have left mine empty as it does not yet have a home to go to as yet!

This is a closer view of the inside, where you can see the accordian folds a little better.  I added a small flower with a pearl brad centre.

A piece of vintage pink ribbon holds the card together and will keep anything inside safe for mailing.  It was great fun to make, I will make more once I track down that video!

I would like to enter my card into two challenges:

Frilly and Funkie  - the challenge is 'Bloomin Marvelous', where the flowers must be handmade.  All four flowers are handmade.

Fashionable Stamping Challenge - the challenge No. 66 is 'build it up'.  My card itself is built up to create the storage in the centre and the flowers are layered up.

Thanks for looking, I will be posting again in a few days with my Nicecrane DT piece.  Hugs, Anne xx

Tim Tag February 2014

A big welcome to my latest followers on Bloglovin, thank you for joining me, lovely to have you along.

Thank you too, to everyone who commented on my ATB with the springy hearts, I was quite overwhelmed by the response!  I was thrilled when Amy Bowerman featured it on The Artists on the Block blog. Thank you Amy!   Then I won a prize from Amy and also one from Anita Houston, I have been so lucky!

This month's Tim tag is all about romance and you can see his original HERE.  As is the case most months, I did not have everything required to make it so mine is an' adapt and overcome' tag!

I used the exact techniques that Tim used on the base tag and also to create the chalkboard technique.  Most of the other elements are adapted.  Apologies, this has been sitting around for a few days now waiting for the weather to improve, the light is so bad at the moment, roll on Spring!

For the base tag I used Pumice Stone, Picket Fence and Brushed Pewter Distress Stains.  I used the new Hearts Stencil to stencil the hearts in Worn Lipstick and Festive Berries Distress ink and then covered these with clear embossing powder.

As I don't have any of Tim's new stamps yet I used one of my favourite sentiments and used Tim's chalkboard technique on black card.  I cut out the heart on a separate piece of card and added Rock Candy Distress Glitter (love that stuff!) to create a sparkly heart.

To finish off  I cut a heart from Tim's Movers and Shapers die, in red card and coated this with Glossy Accents and then Festive Berries Distress Glitter.

As I do not have the industrious stickers I cut an arrow freehand using sticky back foil on card and added this.  The flower ribbon has been lightly coloured with Festive Berries Distress ink.

To finish off the top of the tag I used Tim's linen ribbon which I dyed with Festive Berries Distress stain.  It really is lovely linen and dyes very well

A few people have commented recently on my posts and I have not been able to do a return visit because I have not been able to find you.   If you are visiting again I hope you will leave a link so that I can return the compliment.    Thanks for looking, hope to see you soon.  Hugs, Anne xx

Artist Trading Block - All About Hearts

Since I saw Amy Bowerman take this concept by Eileen Hull to the CHA I have wanted to make one of these Artist Trading Blocks (ATB's) so when my lovely friend Astrid blogged hers and gave us a link to the instructions , I just had to have a go.  Thank you for the inspiration Astrid!

I love making things for my DH and since Valentine's Day is just around the corner, I made him an ATB.

The ATB was made up using heavyweight cardstock (I used an extra heavy 480 gsm card from Rymans in the UK) in black, using the instructions that Astrid mentioned.

I started off by making a Master Board on an A4 piece of card, a technique Hels taught us last weekend, a technique also frequently used by my lovely friends Mo and Angela.  I covered the card with Peacock Feathers Distress Stain, adding a layer of Distress Ink over the top.  I spritzed this with water, dried it with my heat tool and then put pieces of torn book pages (German book pages, a gift from my friend Suzanne) on top.  The book page pieces were also coloured with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink.  To add lots more interest I added Wendy Vecchi Black Embossing Paste through a Crafters Workshop Mini Squircle stencil.

I cut the Master Board into suitable sized squares, finishing the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink and added these to the block.  Click on any of the photos for a better view.

The hearts are cut with Tim Holtz dies, cut in Tim Holtz red Coredinations card stock, overstamped with a PaperArtsy script stamp and edged with Black Soot Distress Ink.

For the top I curled some black jewellery wire, attached the hearts, pushed these through a large bead and attached these to the top of the block.  The hearts wobble -I love that!

The words on the hearts are Tim Holtz chit chat stickers, also edged with Black Soot Distress Ink.

The feet are made from wooden beads which I have painted in black

So there you have it, my first ATB, I think I could become quite addicted to these and I am really looking forward to getting the die now.

I would like to enter this ATB into Simon Says Monday Challenge where the challenge is 'Love Notes'.  My ATB has love words on all sides and lots of romantic hearts.

Edited:  I am also sharing this over at Inspiration Emporium where the challenge is to show it with words - mine are all loving words, so I hope it qualifies.

Thanks for looking, I hope you like it.  See you soon.  Hugs, Anne xx

A Hels Sheridan Weekend

This is my second time writing this post, the first was written, saved, scheduled and then it just disappeared.  Hopefully this one will work.

This last weekend, my best friend Mo and I attended a Hels Sheridan weekend of crafting.  The venue was organised by Sue Tucker and it was fantastic, with great facilities - thank you Sue!  We met up with a couple of long time lovely blog friends, Rachel and Claire.  Also attending was crafting royalty, Jean Hardy of Crafty Individuals and we had a brief visit from the talented Michelle Webb.  Katy Leitch, the editor of Craft Stamper Magazine was also in the classes.

Over the weekend we paste embossed, stenciled, stamped, spritzed, splatted, waxed, inked and misted to our hearts content and we had such great fun in the process.

The first piece we made was a canvas, paper blocked and decorated.

On Day 2 we made a master board which was divided into ATC sized pieces, decorated and mounted onto mount board.

We used lots of embellishments on both pieces including those of Wendy Vecchi (the lovely little bee and the hearts) and Tim Holtz's Jumbo Tattered Florals and Greenery.  The jumbo flower is HUGE compared to the normal sized Bigz die.

For those interested I am including a class photo, sadly minus Hels and Sue.  There I am on the back row, second from the right and Mo and Rachel are the first two from the right on the first row.

If you ever lose your mojo, like I have recently, then I can highly recommend attending a craft workshop with some lovely friends, it certainly gave me a much needed boost!

Thanks for looking, sorry if I have not been around to visit you all yet, I am working hard to catch up and will get there.  Take care and hope to see you soon.

Just Three Colours for Our Creative Corner

This month the Challenge over at Our Creative Corner is hosted by the very talented Jenny (Buttons) and Jenny has challenged us to use just three colours, as you can see here in Jenny's own words:

This time the challenge is to use only shades of BLUE, BROWN and PURPLE/PLUM - NO BLACK LINES even on your stamped or digital images!!!

You can definitely use stamped or digital images if you want to, but you must change the colour of the lines in your image to a shade of brown, blue or purple. White is acceptable as a base, for example a white card blank, but shouldn't be a main colour. Anyone submitting projects containing anything other than blues, browns and purples/plums will immediately be disqualified to make it fair to the other entrants.

This month we are delighted to confirm that one randomly drawn winner will receive a prize from our generous sponsor Nicecrane Designs.

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The rules are pretty clear!  Well, I did a bit of head scratching on this one but once I got out my inks, tea dyed paper, stencils and Maja Design papers I was well away and I really enjoyed creating this card.

The base card is Kraft with some beautiful Maja Design paper matted on top (I know, how could I cover it up!), then another layer of Kraft and finally the tea dyed top layer.  Each of the mats has been roughed up around the edges and coloured with Distress inks.  The top layer card is tea dyed and I used Tim Holtz's Burlap stencil together with  Gathered Twigs Distress ink to create a darker pattern.

The leaves are die cut from some brown striped paper I had in my stash.  The flowers have been cut with a Spellbinders blossom die from some gorgeous blue Maja Design paper.  I added plum coloured pearl brads to the centre.  The sentiment is one of my favourites from my collection of Tim Holtz stamps.

I really hope you will join us at Our Creative Corner this month, it is such a great challenge and really gets the little grey cells working!  Please have a look at what my talented team mates have created and if you have time please leave a comment over there too.

I am away at the moment on a weekend retreat with my lovely friend Mo, so I will not be visiting or commenting until after Monday.  I don't have a posh phone or iPad that I can blog or do Facebook with and I have left my laptop at home, so please forgive me if I don't visit for a few days, I will catch up next week.

Thanks for looking!  Big hugs,  Anne xx