Tim Tag August 2014 - follow your muse

Firstly, thank you to my latest followers, it is wonderful to have you along on my crafty journey!  This is a scheduled post so I hope it works!

This month Tim asks us to follow our muse..... I did follow Tim's design but I just went with the colours and stamps that I love rather than doing too much pondering, just following my muse......... You can see Tim's original tag HERE.  As usual, I made two tags, one for me and one for my lovely friend Ali of Ali-Craft.

I won't go into a lot of detail as I mainly followed Tim's instructions, just using different colours and stamps.  I used the seahorse blueprint stamp and also Picked Raspberry and Peacock Feathers Distress Stain for the base.  I used Texture Paste with the Cargo and Bubbles stencils.  I improvised and used a stamp from the Simple Sayings to create the little word tag border and added rub-ons.  The stitching was done with my little craft sewing machine.  I added an Idea-ology arrow to the top of the tag.

Instead of rust coloured embossing powder I chose to use Peacock Feathers Distress Glitter as it suited my image better.  The word band has been painted with Peacock Feathers Distress Paint, left for a moment and then wiped off.

I coloured some vintage ribbon with Distress Stain and made a triple bow for the top.

Below is the tag I created for Ali.  I had in mind the centenary of World War I when I created this tag, I think you can see the references in the tag.

Thanks for looking, I am still away but looking forward to seeing my bestie Jenny (Buttons) demonstrating at Indigo Blu headquarters on Sunday!  Take care and enjoy your crafting!  Hugs, Anne xx

Compendium of Curiosities #9 - Stamps & Framelits

I cannot believe that we are at Challenge #9 already!  The lovely Linda Ledbetter and the Curiosity Crew have challenged us this time to use Stamps & Framelits, as found on Page 63 of Tim's Compendium of Curiosities III.

There are prizes on offer, one from Tim himself and Mario who have a fabulous bundle of goodies for the person who is the Curiosity Crew's favourite.  In addition to that, as this is an odd numbered week, the sponsor is the Inspiration Emporium who are offering a very generous $50 voucher, to one randomly selected individual, to spend in their on-line shop.  You must work from your own personal copy of CCIII and you must not share the technique as that would be unfair to Tim.

This was, as ever, a bit of a challenge for me, only because I did not have any of the Stamps & Framelit sets, because I was not sure I would get a lot of use from them - well, let me tell you, I was so wrong!  As soon as I saw the Skull Blueprint, I just had to have it and I know now that I will get lots of use from it.  I love all things Halloween!  I created a holder for pencils and crafty bits.

I gathered all my items together first:

For my base I created a box with an Artist Trading Block die and cut the lid off to create a container.  I painted it black inside and out using Black Soot Distress Paint.

I used the Shatter stencil, mixing Texture Paste with some Black Soot Distress Paint and used it on white card, it makes a great cobweb.

Then I cut some picket fence pieces from the Halloween Shadows strip die and glued this all around the top of the holder.  I curled some black wire, secured this inside the holder and attached a stamped spider on the end, his body is covered with Spiced Marmalade Distress Glitter.  You can just see the spider, when I photographed him he kept bouncing so it is not as clear as it could be - sorry!

For the third side I mixed some Texture Paste with Ripe Persimmon Distress Paint and used the Halloween stencil (a gift from a friend) to add the words 'Spooky' and 'Ghoulish' and then attached a die cut bat which was covered with Black Soot Distress Glitter.  You can see here how I 'broke' some of the fence to make it look a little less uniform.

I took some feet (a gift from a friend), coated them with Black Soot Distress Paint and glued them in place.

And here is the fourth and final side of the holder without the crafty tools.  The eyes on the skulls are from my stash, I love how spooky they make the skull look....

Thanks as ever, for looking, I will be back later in the week with my Tim tag, which has been finished for ages but the post is scheduled as I am on holiday this week - cat sitting. I will try and keep up with all of your posts but if I miss any, it is because I am out and about enjoying the holiday!   Hugs, Anne xx

A Vintage Journey - ATCs - a little touch of Tim

It is the wonderfully talented Alison's turn to host A Vintage Journey and Alison has chosen 'ATCs - A little touch of Tim' as her challenge.

Should you decide to join in, it must be a normal sized ATC (3.5" x 2.5"), no chunkies and no ATBs (Artist Trading Blocks) are allowed.  You can create one or more ATCs and they must be in the style of, or be influenced by Tim Holtz.   You will find the rules of our challenges HERE.

Our wonderful sponsor is Country View Crafts who are offering a £10 voucher to spend in their store.  They have a huge selection of Tim Holtz (and many other) goodies for sale, their service is first class and there is free P&P on all UK purchases.

I have been wanting to use the Phrenology head from my new Classics #11 set of stamps.  I recently had an eye test (a very expensive visit too) and I was reminded that I had not inked up the optometrist glasses from the Countdown set of stamps for ages and so my two ATCs came together.

I placed the blank ATCs side by side and stamped the Phrenology head across both ATCs in black archival ink.  I stamped the head again onto a post-it note, cut round it and used this to mask off the head so I could stamp my backgrounds.

For the first ATC I stamped the background, again using a stamp from the Classics #11 set and black archival ink.  Once dry I lightly coloured the letters with a Tumbled Glass Distress Marker.  The eye and lips were coloured with DMs too and the face had a hint of Antique Linen Distress Ink applied with a water brush.  I used a black watercolour pencil to outline the head and a Black Soot DM to go around the edge of the ATC.  The whole of the ATC was covered with clear embossing ink, then clear embossing powder and heat set.

To finish off I added the Idea-ology arrow so that I could hang the monocle from it and I added the words using Tim's chit chat words.

The background stamp for this ATC is from one of Tim's Visual Artistry clear sets and is just the perfect size for an ATC.  I used Tea Dye Distress Ink and a blending tool to add colour to the background.  The glasses are from The Countdown set of stamps (one of my first purchases).  I stamped them onto white card and painstakingly cut them out with a craft knife, inked around the edges with a Black Soot DM and attached them with silicone glue to 'lift' them from the face.  I completed my sentiment with chit chat stickers.

I hope you will join us over at A Vintage Journey, I for one cannot wait to see your pocket sized pieces of art!  See you again next week with my CC3C entry and my August Tim Tag.  Hugs, Anne xx

The Artists on the Block - Seahorse ATB

The Artists on the Block have teamed up with the wonderfully talented designers at Frilly and Funkie for a blog hop called Hip to be Square.  If you have not been over yet to see the amazing and fabulous blocks created by the Design Team, then please do have a look, they are a set of incredibly talented ladies!

If you would like to create an Artist Trading Block (ATB) or cube (not necessarily with the ATB die) and you follow the challenge rules you will be able to enter the Hip to be Square Challenge (there are still a few days left) at Frilly and Funkie and also the Artists on the Block companion challenge, Eileen Hull's Art with Heart Challenge where the theme is Anything Goes (you have until the end of the month).  Eileen is the talented designer of the ATB die.

There are great prizes on offer - at Frilly and Funkie, the lovely Linda Coughlin is offering a £25 voucher to spend in her amazing and very reasonably priced Boutique and over at Art with Heart, Eileen Hull is offering one of her brand new Vintage Kitchen dies (which are to be released later this year).  I am linking my block to the F&F challenge, which is to create something Vintage or Shabby Chic.

For my Design Team piece for the Artists on the Block, I have made what I call a shabby chic seaside Artist Trading Block.  This is a different style for me but I loved every moment of creating this one!

And a view from the top:

I started by gathering all the items I wanted to use including my die cut Artist Trading Block. I lined the inside of the block some wonderful papers by Craftwork Cards.  The edges of the block have been coloured with Broken China Distress Paint.

I cut some mats from the Craftwork paper, some Core-dinations card and the top layer is Ranger Watercolour card.  I distressed each layer to within an inch of it's life (!) to try to give it a shabby chic look and feel.  You should have seen my desk when I had finished.....!

Each of these images was stamped with embossing ink and then white embossing powder added and heated. I took inspiration for this technique from a fabulous creation made by the amazing Anna-Karin, which you can see HERE.  I watercoloured the backgrounds in the same way Anna-Karin did, just lightly washing the colour on (using Distress Ink and a water brush) and not being too worried about uniformity.

I very lightly edged each layer with Broken China Distress Ink before layering them onto the block.

Here is a view of the top again.  I added some sea shells, a stamped and coloured star fish, a stamped and coloured seahorse some die cut and hand cut grasses and lots of sand 'a la Tim Holtz', I love the way it looks.

Thanks so much for looking, hope to see you all again bright and early tomorrow when there is a new challenge starting over at A Vintage Journey.  Hugs, Anne xx

Sunday Stamper - Moon Shadow - Backgrounds

It is ages since I joined in Hels' Sunday Stamper Challenge, or since I have made something just for fun, not for a DT or a particular birthday etc.

I guess many of you know how much I love butterflies so when Tim brought out a new Butterfly and Texture Fade Embossing set, it was the first thing on my ever lengthening list of must-haves!  I grew up in Canada where butterflies are abundant in the summer and my favourite was the Monarch butterfly with it's dramatic rusty orange, black and white wings.  Now, Tim's new butterfly is a Swallowtail so I had to do a little bit of 'surgery' to make it look more like a Monarch.  All I had to do was snip a bit off each of the tails......

I am also trying to create pieces in collage, a technique that I am still learning, this it is not as random as I think it should be but we all have to start somewhere I guess!  I started with a black card base and topped it with some Kraft card, after roughing up the edges.  On top of this I added a piece of burlap paper (a gift from a lovely friend).  I then took a piece of Kraft card and using Tim's new Gothic stencil and some embossing paste (Wendy Vecchi's crackle version) I covered the whole piece of card - it shows up quite well in the photo below.  I set this to one side to dry, it took about an hour.

I added a piece of black card left over from a torn notebook die and matted this onto the base - at the right in the above photo.  I then die cut a film strip in black card and added a piece of vellum from Tim's new Thrift Shop Ephemera Vellum pack.  A piece of lace from my stash was also added.  On top of this I matted a piece of card from Tim's Wallflower pack of papers onto Kraft card and again roughed up the edges.

The butterfly itself was a labour of love.  I die cut it in black card and used the Texture Fade to emboss it. I took some Spiced Marmalade Distress Paint and used a small paintbrush to carefully paint in all of the debossed sections of the butterfly wings.  Around the outside I used Picket Fence DP to fill in the smaller 'dot' sections and left this to dry.  As you know Distress Paint dries very quickly which is great because I am not the most patient crafter.

I then added quite a thick coat of Clear Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint to the whole of the butterfly and put this to one side to dry whilst I made some curly antennae from some jewellery wire.

The sentiment was stamped onto Kraft card using Tim's Simple Sayings stamp set (sorry Hels this is the only stamping on the piece so I hope it qualifies).  Thank you for looking and hopefully leaving a comment.

I will be back a couple more times this week, on Thursday with my DT piece for the Artists on the Block and on Friday with our new challenge over at A Vintage Journey.

As well as Sunday Stampers I am entering this piece into the following challenges:

Eclectic Paperie ePlay challenge - Embossing (butterfly and backing card)
and
Mixed Media Monday Challenge #3 - Stencils with embossing paste (dry embossed butterfly and texture paste background with the Gothic stencil)

Simon Says Monday Challenge - Anything Goes

Tag Friday at A Vintage Journey

It is Tag Friday, as well as announcing our Winner and Pinworthies over at A Vintage Journey today and some of  the Creative Guides (DT) have some tag  inspiration for you.  Please do pop over and have a look, they have some wonderful tags to inspire you! 

The current challenge at A Vintage Journey was chosen by the very talented Chris who chose 'Time Flies' as her theme and it still has a week to run.  For my tag I have decided to stick with the theme that Chris chose and I have made a 'time traveler' tag.  I keep seeing advertisements for Dr Who, who is returning to our television screens this month and I may have had that in the back of my mind.......  here is my finished tag:

As a rule I do not plan my tags, I just start and see what I end up with but on this one I had a good idea of how I wanted it to look and so I gathered my bits and pieces together.  I took some of Tim's latest release of Eclectic Elements fabric and cut a tag with Tim's tag die, stitched this to a No. 8 Manila tag and tied some of the waste fabric at the top.

I did change my mind and left the butterfly off and added some cogs instead  I added the Weathered Clock in black card and the man is a sticker which comes from the French Industrial Salvage Stickers collection.  I inked around the edges of the tag with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. 

I added a pediment, another of Tim's dies to the bottom and attached a ticket from one of the Ephemera sets for my time traveller to 'stand on.

Thanks for looking, I do hope you will go over HERE and see what my lovely teamies have made.  Hope to see you soon.  Hugs, Anne xx

A Vintage Kitchen by Eileen Hull

I was thrilled to have been asked by the wonderful Designer, Eileen Hull, who is the talented lady behind the amazing Artist Trading Blocks that keep popping up around the globe, to create some samples using her new Vintage Kitchen release, which will be available from December this year.  When Eileen and Amy (who is our Design Team Leader on the Artists on the Block blog) contacted me I was not sure what to expect........ but I was not disappointed when the die cuts arrived.

Every die that Eileen designs is perfect, they cut beautifully, they can be used with Mat Board (Mount Board) to create sturdy and multi-functional pieces.  I cannot wait to get my hands on a couple of these dies!

Here is Eileen showing off her wonderful new Vintage Kitchen collection and you can see the whole range HERE in the catalogue.  The recipe card box and canister are must haves!!

Here are a few peeks at what I made:

This is a wonderful cookie box which I painted and coloured.  This would be ideal in any lunch box or picnic box.  But I wanted to show how versatile these dies can be and so I made this:

A fantastic little sewing box to hold all your bits and bobs and I added a pincushion on top, using Tim Holtz fabric, to hold all those stray pins.  I can't take you through the step by steps just yet but will do later in the year.

Next up is a mini oven:

This is adorable - wait until you see all the designs my DT buddies have come up with for this!  I made it look like 50's style, when fabulous coloured appliances hit the shops on both sides of the Atlantic.

Last but not least:

I went all traditional with the cream and sugar containers, they have plenty of room inside the 3D construction to use as containers for sweets/candy or even a little bouquet of flowers - so many uses for parties, weddings, home decor etc., and they are such fun to make too!

My lovely friend Tracy Evans did a sneak peek of the new canister and cookie jar, you can see them HERE, Tracy has decorated hers so beautifully!

I hope you like my sneak peeks and that you will follow the links above to see what else Eileen has in store for us.

This month over at Art with Heart Challenge, the theme is 'Anything Goes' and the lucky winner this month will win a die of their choice from this new Vintage Kitchen collection - but you have to be in it to win it!  You can find all the details HERE - just scroll down to the bottom of the post and add your link.

Thanks for looking, hope to see you soon!  Hugs, Anne xx

Compendium of Curiosities 8 - Faded Layers

It is time for Challenge #8 over at Linda Ledbetter's CC3C Challenge.  This fortnight is sponsored by the wonderful Linda Coughlin of The Funkie Junkie Boutique who is offering a $25 voucher to spend in her on-line shop.  Another lucky person will be chosen by the Curiosity Crew and that person will win a bumper bundle of Tim products, kindly given by Tim and Mario.

The challenge is to use Tim's Faded Layers Technique as found on Page 58 of the Compendium of Curiosities III.  I cannot explain the technique to you (you need to work from your own copy of Tim's Compendium) but I can say that Challenge 8 was certainly a challenge for me!  I had five or six failures before I got a result I was happy with.  There is one thing for certain, you really do need to use the card stock that Tim mentions on Page 58!

My lovely friend Mo cut some of the large bees for me and I have made a few projects with them but had one bee left over so I decided I could use it along with this amazing technique to create a wall hanging.

The wall hanging measures 7" x 5.1/2".  I used the correct card stock to do the technique and used Tim's Honeycomb and Cargo stencils.  I matted and layered onto black card, corrugated card and again onto black card.  The words 'be you' have been stamped in Black Archival ink using Tim's Text stamp set.

I added some curly wire to the hanging along with a piece of vintage ribbon stained with Broken China and Peeled Paint Distress Stains.  To finish off I added a little bee charm.

The bee was painted with Scattered Straw Distress Ink and then I used an embossing pen to cover the areas I wanted to be black and I added black embossing powder and heat set this.  The wings are cut separately from thick acetate, one plain layer and one embossed layer.  The layers were lightly coloured with Pool Alcohol Ink using a blending tool.  I added some antennae with some curled wire.

********

It was a very busy week last week, hubby's birthday and meeting up with lots of crafty friends.  My lovely friend Astrid was travelling on holiday and we agreed to meet up.  I contacted my bestie friends Mo and Jenny (Buttons) so that we could surprise Astrid.  She was indeed very surprised and delighted to meet Jenny again and to meet Mo for the first time.  Along with our husbands, we had a wonderful time.  I won't show you a photograph, it is not a great one of any of us.

I thought I would show another creation I used the bee for, Astrid loves bees and I made her a little accordion storage folder:

I used Jenny (Buttons) fabulous faux wood technique which you can find HERE at Frilly and Funkie.

I made another for myself using the dragonfly this time, this was my first attempt at the wood technique.

The inside has been done in an accordion style so that lots of things can be stored inside.  I am using mine for spare die cuts.

Thanks for looking, I will be back on Tuesday with some sneak peeks of something coming our way just in time for Christmas!  I hope to see you then.  Hugs, Anne xx