Surprise Baby Shower for Anna-Karin

Anna-Karin Evaldsson is a very special member of the Eileen Hull Inspiration Team. Last year there were a lot of changes in her life, including a move from one continent to another and just a few months later, a new baby! Leo arrived weeks ahead of schedule (and just 20 minutes after reaching the hospital!) but thankfully he and Anna-Karin are both doing well. 

We want to show Anna-Karin how special she is to us, so we are giving her a virtual baby shower today to celebrate Leo's birth! Even though we can't be with her, we send our love and a special crafty surprise. We invite you to visit each team member/shower guest's blog to see what they created for this new little guy. 

If you have a message for Anna-Karin, please visit Eileen's blog to leave your well wishes in the comments- then she can read them all at once. Thanks for being part of our celebration!

For my gift, I wanted to use Eileen's dies and so I made baby Leo a money box/piggy bank using Eileen's fabulous Artist Trading Blocks.  These are winging their way to Anna-Karin now, I hope she likes them!

I used some blue stripe paper from my stash to cover some mat board and I die cut the largest block (658983) and also a medium sized block from die 658984.  I find it easier to glue the paper to the mat board first before die cutting, it gives much neater edges (a tip I picked up from Eileen).

The characters are die cut from Eileen's range of Thinlet's dies - Elephant & Giraffe and Lion & Monkey - aren't they just the cutest characters!  The A, B, C letters come from the large ATB die (658983).

I added some grasses which were cut from Tim Holtz's Tapered Fringe die and his Scribbles & Splat die set.  The letters for Leo's name and birth year are from Tim's Newsprint Alpha Parts and I used Distress Paint in Chipped Sapphire to colour them blue.

This view shows the slot in the top (another of Eileen's dies) and I left one side of the box un-glued so that money can be taken out as well as put in!  This view shows how I managed to make the elephant and lion stand on top.  Each one was created using about 16 layers of card to give them lots of depth.

As my other fantastic teamies have also created gifts for baby Leo, if you have the time, it would be wonderful if you could visit them to see their wonderful creations too:

Eileen Hull

Donna Braaten-Budzynski
Pam Bray

Tracy Evans
Diana Hetherington
Shelly Hickox

Lisa Hoel

Oxana Moupasirido
Anne Redfern (that's me!)
Nicole Wright

I am sure those of you who know the talented Anna-Karin and her incredible work will want to send her your congratulatory wishes too and as I said above, you can do so by visiting Eileen Hull and leaving your message there.

I am just in the nick of time to enter the fabulous Darnell's NBUS challenge - the animal dies are new and have never been used before.

Thanks so much for looking, I hope to see you again soon!  Hugs, Anne xx

Compendium of Curiosities #24

The challenge at CC3C #24 is to use Tim's Remnant Rub Resist Technique which can be found on Page 51 of A Compendium of Curiosities III.  You can find all the details of the challenge on Linda Ledbetter's blog HERE and you will also see lots of wonderful inspiration from the hugely talented Curiosity Crew.  If you have not got a copy of Tim's Compendium, you can get a signed copy direct from Tim here.

One lucky individual, chosen by the Curiosity Crew, will win a huge package of goodies donated by Tim Holtz and Mario Rossi,

The sponsor for Challenge 24 is the lovely Linda Coughlin from The Funkie Junkie who is generously providing one lucky randomly selected individual, with a $25 voucher to spend in her on-line shop - she always has lots of Tim products in stock.

I got the Bird Crazy set of stamps when they first came out and have really only used them for a couple of birthday cards (they were certainly well received).  They seem to have been one of the most popular sets of Tim's stamps and I have hesitated to make anything to blog with, because it is hard to do anything original, but they are so cute and bring a smile to everyone's face so I decided to make an 'alternative' wedding card......... well it is Spring and that time when birds pair up after all.... I hope you like it!

I used Tim's Remnant Rub Resist Technique, which I cannot describe to you (you need to use your own copy of the book) but I can tell you that I used Salty Ocean, Mowed Lawn, Cracked Pistachio, Wild Honey, Scattered Straw and Gathered Twigs Distress Stains and Inks to colour the background and also the wedding couple.  I used the flourish remnant rub to create a nest for the couple to stand on.

I made the 'Bride's' veil from some netting and enameled Spring flowers that I had in my stash - she looks a little shy, or perhaps a little nervous about filling that nest with eggs before Easter arrives - but she certainly makes me smile!  The expressions on these birds make them appropriate for lots of different occasions.

There is still some time to enter the 'Spring Blooms' challenge at Inspiration Journal, the challenge closes on 31st March.  We have had some wonderful entries so far and if you have not entered already, it would be lovely to see you there.  As always, there is a fabulous prize of $50 for one randomly selected person to spend in Inspiration Emporium's on-line shop.  As always, if you do shop at Inspiration Emporium and use my code Redanne, you will get a 10% discount off your whole order.

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

Products Used:

Tim Holtz Bird Crazy stamps

Tim Holtz Distress Stains

Tim Holtz Distress Inks

Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs

Tim Tag March 2015

I would like to welcome my latest followers, it is lovely to have you along on my crafty journey!  Apologies if I owe you a visit, friends old and new, we can't seem to shake off all these horrible germs that are laying us low.  Hopefully I will get round to see you soon.  This is a scheduled post.

I know I say this every time but this has to be my favourite of Tim's Tags ever.... you can see Tim's original HERE.   I adore the butterfly from the Tim Holtz Perspective set and I seem to use it at every opportunity these days.  I have kept pretty much to Tim's design for my tag:

The colours I used are Abandoned Coral, Crushed Pistachio and Broken China and Tumbled Glass Distress Paints for my background.  

As you can see, I did four tags, mainly because I forgot to add the tape to the tag before colouring with the paints - but I now have a couple of spare tags to use on some other project!

I used Tim's Flourish Stencil.  I did try using another stamp and stencil (the Blossom stencil was gifted to me by my lovely friend Rachel) and a lighter embossing powder but whilst I like the embossing, I don't like how the flower gets 'lost'.

 My embellishments are different to Tim's too, I added a flower to the body of the butterfly and coloured it with Abandoned Coral Distress Paint.  The Idea-ology tag was coloured with Broken China Distress Paint. The bow at the top is made from Tim's Crinkle Ribbon coloured with Abandoned Coral Distress Spray Stain.

The 'Spring Blooms' challenge is in full swing at Inspiration Journal, I do hope you will join in.  There is a $50 prize for one randomly selected individual to spend in Inspiration Emporium's on-line shop.  If you do shop there and you used my code Redanne, you will get a 10% discount off your whole order.  Shipping rates are very reasonable too.

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

Products Used:

Tim Holtz Perspective Stamp set

Distress Paints

Distress Spray Stains

Ranger Archival Ink

Ranger Clear Embossing Powder

Ranger Gold Embossing Powder

Crinkle Ribbon

Idea-ology = Foliage

Idea-ology Philosophy Tags

Compendium of Curiosities #23

CC3C #23 is all about the Tim Holtz Collection Folio and you can see what Linda Ledbetter and the Curiosity Crew created HERE.  There is certainly some wonderful inspiration over there!

My folio took nearly a week to make, off and on and it is not quite finished yet, but time is marching on I want to enter it into the challenge.  I wanted to make something useful so I made the folio to be used for storing travel documents and ephemera picked up along the way.  There are lots of photos so I am keeping the words to a minimum, all of the products I used to create the folio are Tim Holtz ones and include, three different paper pads, inks, paints, Remnant Rubs, Flash Cards, dies, chit chat stickers, Ephemera, stamps and lots of Idea-ology.

The whole of the folio is covered in papers from Tim's paper packs.

The first layer with lots of storage space on the left hand side for tickets or travel documents.

The next layer with three envelope pockets for storing small items.

Another top opening envelope with a 'rusted' frame (Gathered Twigs and Abandoned Coral Distress Paint)

This layer has pocket pages to store small tickets.

A final pocket for storing passports and other valuables.  This large expandable envelope pocket is removable. The butterfly is coloured with Spiced Marmalade and Picket Fence DP and Clear Rock Candy Distress Paint.

The back of the folio, covered in a collage of tickets.

At CC3C, since it is an odd number week, the challenge is sponsored by Inspiration Emporium who have a $50 voucher to spend in their on-line shop, for one randomly chosen individual.  One very lucky individual, chosen by the Curiosity Crew will win a fabulous prize from Tim and Mario!

Inspiration Emporium are also sponsoring a challenge at Inspiration Journal (Spring Blooms) where one lucky randomly chosen winner will receive 50 Emporium Dollars to spend in their on-line store.  In addition, if you use my code Redanne, you will receive 10% off your whole order.

Apologies for the long post but thanks so much for looking and I hope to see you again soon.

Hugs, Anne xx

Inspiration Emporium Products Used: 

Tim Holtz Papers

Collection Folio

Distress Paint

Distress Ink

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Fasteners

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Findings

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Ephemera Pack - Expedition

Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs

Tim Holtz Thinlet dies

Go Green for Art With Heart

Thank you to all the lovely people who have become new Followers (and those who continue to follow me), I really appreciate having you along on this amazing journey!

Eileen Hull has a new challenge on her blog HERE at Art With Heart and the theme is 'Go Green'.  You can create a project for St Patrick's Day, or up-cycle something or create something with an outdoor Vintage Travel theme.  Eileen always has fantastic prizes and this month is no exception, I hope you will check it out!

I decided to go on the up-cycle route and transformed some drinks mats for my project.  I also made a holder using one of Eileen's fabulous Scoreboard XL dies - The Caddy - an extremely versatile die.

One side of the holder, complete with the finished drinks mats.

To create the holder I die cut two caddies from Mat Board (Mount Board) and painted all of the pieces with DecoArt Chalkboard Paint in black.  This fantastic paint coats in one and gives a wonderful semi matt finish.  If you do want to use it as a chalk board, I would recommend two coats but one was sufficient for my needs.  I painted the top of four well used drink mats in the same way (sorry I forgot to take a 'before' picture).

I applied a fairly thick coat of Weathered Wood Crackle Medium (by DecoArt) to the caddies and also the drink mats and let this dry.  To make the top coat I mixed some Cobalt Teal Hue DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic with some Titanium White (a mix of approx 30/70%) which gave me the lovely blue that you see on the caddy and the mats.

I stamped my favourite flower from the Tim Holtz Flower Garden stamp set - I know, I keep using it but I am ever so slightly obsessed with it...  it was stamped onto tissue paper, painted from the back with more DecoArt paints and attached with Ranger Matt Medium.  Another coat of Matt Medium was applied over the whole of the mats to seal and protect them.

As I had cut two caddies, I put them back to back so that I could pop a block of memo note paper into the other side and also attached a butterfly to both sides of the caddy, using a Stampendous stamp from the 'Butterflies SSC028' set.

A view from the side to show the whole piece.  The ribbon is Tim Holtz Crinkle ribbon coloured with Tumbled Glass Distress Stain.

 So, you don't have to use green if it is not your thing, just up-cycle something, or create something with an outdoor Vintage Travel theme and come over and join us HERE in our Go Green Challenge.

Thanks so much for looking and I hope to see you again soon!  Hugs, Anne xx

A Vintage Journey Celebrates One Year !

We are celebrating OUR FIRST BIRTHDAY at A Vintage Journey - I can hardly believe it is a whole year and what a wonderful year it has been too !  It really is a fabulous team to be part of and it is huge thanks to Brenda and Chris and the whole fabulous team.  Before I show you my creation I have some news!  Good news!

We are changing things up a bit a A Vintage Journey in that we are moving to a monthly challenge to give everyone more time to get their creations together and enter.  There will be a prize of £20 per month from our wonderful Sponsor - Country View Crafts and our overall winner will now be chosen by Random Org.  Since it is our first birthday there are even more prizes on offer for this month's challenge, which incidentally is 'Anything Tim'.  Three Pinworthies will be chosen by the Creative Guides and each one will win a fabulous 'Tim' prize (Tim and Mario have generously donated some prizes) and we will choose one random person from all who comment to win a fabulous prize too!  Please pop over to AVJ for more information!

Those of you who know me will know that I do not normally do the grungier side of Tim, I generally stick to the prettier side - but I thought, in honour of our birthday I would do a grungy piece (or at least it is grungy to me....)... I hope you like it.

I am not going to go into great detail on this as there is a lot to see and read over at A Vintage Journey and I would love for you to see what my talented teamies have created for this special birthday post.  

I used Tim's new paper pack - Correspondence for my base.  

 I also used Tim's Chevron Stencil, the new thinlets Scribbles and Splats and Mixed Media dies, lots of paint and inks, Idea-ology, Remnant Rubs, a Big Chat sticker and Crinkle Ribbon.

Please do join in our latest challenge 'Anything Tim' and help us celebrate our first birthday over at A Vintage Journey, it is going to be a great challenge with lots of wonderful prizes on offer.

The items I have used in my project can be purchased from Susan at Country View Crafts.  Susan stocks oodles of Tim's products and her postage is free here in the UK too.

Thanks so much for looking, I hope to see you again soon.  Hugs, Anne xx

Spring Blooms for Inspiration Journal

Well, you would never know that Spring is just around the corner in this part of the world, we had heavy snowfall yesterday!  But that does not stop us wishing for Spring..... and at Inspiration Journal this month the theme is 'Spring Blooms'.

Your projects will need to include flowers in some way.  They can be stamped, floral paper, floral embellishments or die cuts - your choice entirely.  We are hoping that Flower Power may just speed up Spring!  You have until March 31st to enter.

Firstly, I must thank Inspiration Emporium for asking me to stay on the Inspiration Team for another 6 month term, I am so thrilled to have been asked and of course I said yes!

At the moment, I am besotted by Tim's new Flower Garden set of stamps (CMS215) and I am particularly drawn to the gorgeous Cone Flower (or Echinacea as we call it in the UK) so I have used that again for my card (as well as artistic licence in the colour!).

The flower is stamped onto Ranger Watercolour paper and coloured with Distress Markers in Scattered Straw, Antique Linen, Rusty Hinge, Peeled Paint and Shabby Shutters.

The background has been stenciled with Tim Holtz's Flourish Stencil in Gathered Twigs Distress ink.  and once dry I replaced the stencil over the pattern and covered the design with Wendy Vecchi Translucent Embossing Paste, it really did make the flourish pop.  Once dry I spritzed the background with Peacock Feathers Distress Spray Stain, adding some water with a spritzer to blend the colour.

To finish off I added some rusty wire from my stash to 'ground the flower' and Tim's Crinkle Ribbon which has been coloured with a mix of Gathered Twigs and Rusty Hinge Distress Stain.

We look forward to you joining us at Inspiration Journal with your 'Spring Blooms' creations.  As always there is a fantastic prize of $50 to spend in Inspiration Emporium's on-line shop, for one randomly selected individual.  If you are shopping at Inspiration Emporium and you use my code of Redanne, you will get 10% off your whole order.  Shipping rates are excellent at $5 for the USA and $10 for European customers.

Thanks for looking and hopefully commenting, I hope to see you again soon!  Hugs, Anne xx

Products Used:

Tim Holtz Flower Garden stamps

Tim Holtz Flourish Stencil

Distress Spray Stains

Distress Markers

Distress Ink

Distress Crinkle Ribbon

Ranger/Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste - Translucent