Perspective Butterfly for Inspiration Journal

The month is nearly over and this is my Project #4 for Inspiration Journal, where the challenge theme is Everything Goes - you only have a day left to enter but there is a great prize on offer of $50 to spend in Inspiration Emporium's on-line shop.

I have a question for you first, have you seen Jenny (Buttons) videos on the British Craft Network TV yet?  If not, you are missing some great tutorials, tips and techniques.  My piece today, was inspired by a couple of Jenny's shows where she used a layered paper technique, dribbles and splats!

The card base is 6" x 6", I cut up strips of Tim Holtz  paper (1" x 6"approx) from my stash, ripped the ends off and glued them down, overlapping in the left top corner as you can see below. 

I added some Tissue Tape  here and there and then painted over the whole piece with a light coat of Picket Fence Distress Paint.  A few dribbles of Chipped Sapphire Re-inker were added along with some builder's scrim for texture. 

Now for the fun bit!  Using several colours of Distress Spray Stain, these were spritzed and dried in turn, over the whole card.  Once dried fully I used a paint brush to add splats of paint all over - it is hard to know when to stop, it is such a fun thing to do - but make sure you cover the whole of your desk/work surface with paper and protect your clothing too!

The butterfly was one I had left over from another project, it was coloured with Distress Stains and then coated in Clear Rock Candy Distress Paint.  I added some gauze I raided from the medicine cabinet and some rusty wire to the background, attached with my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher.  I also added some random stamping to the background using a Wendy Vecchi Vintage Mesh stamp.

To finish off I added some of Tim's Remnant Rubs for some added interest.

So, there you have it, my completed Jenny inspired card.  Apologies for the long post but I wanted to do justice to Jenny's techniques and tips. 

If you do shop for supplies at Inspiration Emporium, don't forget to use my code - Redanne to get 10% discount off your whole order and shipping rates are very reasonable.

As always, thanks for looking, see you again on Friday!  Hugs, Anne xx

Inspiration Emporium Products Used:

Perspective Butterfly stamp set

Wendy Vecchi Vintage Mesh stamp

Tim Holtz Paper Pad

Distress Paints

Distress Stains

Remnant Rubs

Finnabair style and DecoArt

After taking a Finnabair class a while back I started to create a canvas but I was not sure how I wanted to 'finish' it off, so it has been sitting for months waiting for me to feel inspired.... it is my first real attempt at a proper mixed media piece!

I was given a huge box of DecoArt paints, sprays and mediums last year, as part of Eileen Hull's DT and I have dabbled a little with them.  It did not take me long to discover that my two favourite colours were Quinacridone Gold and Cobalt Teal Hue (Media Fluid).  Here is the canvas I created.

I also used Titanium White Media Fluid Acrylic to coat all the elements I added to the canvas (which is 8" x 8") and left this to dry.  I did not take step by step photos because I was not sure where I wanted this to end up but I do like the way it turned out but the items I used are below.

I used a paint brush to apply the two main colours, I misted them with water and allowed the colours to run a little, this mixed the two colours together quite nicely.  Once dried I mixed Titanium White with some of the White Shimmer Mist and water and gently sprayed over the whole of the finished canvas.  It was difficult to photograph because of the sheen that the Shimmer Mist leaves.

I built up the base by using flowers, lace, cogs, buttons and charms from my stash.

The sentiment is from Tim Holtz's Small Talk phrases and says 'it's always the small pieces that make the big picture' which I felt was quite appropriate!

My lovely and very talented friend Neet of  Hickydorums has a challenge blog which many of you will know - Artful Times.  Sadly, Neet will be closing Artful Times and I wanted to show my support for this latest challenge which is 'A Little Bit of Finnabair' by entering this canvas.

Thanks for looking, I hope to be back on Wednesday with another Inspiration Journal DT make and then again on Friday when we we see a brand new challenge at A Vintage Journey.

Hugs, Anne xx

Make Art Challenge

Hello and a big welcome to friends and followers old and new, I always appreciate your support.

Having just received my DT package from Inspiration Emporium I decided to create another Wendy Vecchi inspired project to enter in her Make Art Challenge - Use Re-Inkers, you can find the challenge details HERE.

I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to do a background using Wendy's Alcohol and Re-Inker Technique for a while now and to create this one I used a lot of Rubbing Alcohol but I was determined to get a result!  You can see how Wendy does the technique HERE.  I omitted the metallic mixative on my background.

I kept the card quite CAS because I wanted the background to show up nicely.

After creating the background using Re-Inkers in Potting Soil and Cornflower Blue, I stamped out the beautiful Tulip three times from the Art From the Heart (LCS003) set of stamps and  coloured them with Archival Inks in Red Geranium and Fern Green and a Tim Holtz Blending Tool.  I decided against using the blue flower (coloured with Sky Blue Archival) and the ribbon (coloured with Forget-Me-Not Archival mixed with Rubbing Alcohol- it is great for colouring ribbon).  I fussy cut the flowers and layered them up to give dimension.

The wonderful sentiment is from the Blooming Art (SCS119) set of stamps, it suits my mood at the moment!  The stripes at the bottom were used to 'ground' the flower and were created with Wendy's Dots and Stripes Border stencil using Potting Soil Archival Ink.  To finish off I added one of Wendy's Blossom Bucket bees.

There is still time to enter Inspiration Journal's Anything Goes Challenge this month, there is a $50 gift voucher for one randomly selected individual to spent at Inspiration Emporium, our generous Sponsor.  If you use my code Redanne you will receive a 10% discount from your whole order.

I am entering my card into Wendy's Make Art Challenge - Use Re-Inkers.

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

Products used from Inspiration Emporium
Archival Ink
Archival Re-inkers
Wendy Vecchi Dots and Stripes Border Stencil
Wendy Vecchi Blooming Art stamps
Wendy Vecchi Art from the Heart stamps

Tim Tag April 2015

Before I start I would just like to say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who looked at and/or commented on my last post HERE, you really made my week with your lovely comments!

Today I am sharing my Tim Tag(s) for April and these are my DT pieces for Inspiration Emporium. I enjoyed making the first one so much, I made a second one, just as Tim did.  To see Tim's original tag(s) please see HERE.  I am not going to give you lots of detail this time as I pretty much followed Tim's tutorial.

I had just unpacked by lovely Tim Holtz Flip Frame and was delighted to see that I could display both tags in the frame.

I didn't have a couple of the dies that Tim used so I improvised by using the Alphanumeric die for the 'Friends' and a friend kindly die cut the 'forever' for me, as I wait for mine to arrive.

I think I may have been converted to watercolouring with Distress Markers, it is such a fun technique and I also like the look of stitching on the tags too.

At Inspiration Journal this month the Challenge is Everything Goes and there is a fabulous $50 voucher to spend in Inspiration Emporium's on-line shop and as always, there are great deals on postage both in the USA and Europe.  If you do shop at IE and you use my code Redanne you will receive a 10% discount off your whole order - how fabulous is that!

Thank you so much for looking, I hope to see you again soon.  Big hugs, Anne xxx

Inspiration Emporium Products Used:

Tim Holtz Flower Garden Stamps
Ranger Archival Ink - Black

Ranger Watercolour Paper

Tim Holtz Distress Markers

Tim Holtz Alphanumeric dies
Tim Holtz Handwritten Love dies
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Crinkle Ribbon

Guest Designer at Artist Trading Post

I am very excited and thrilled to tell you that I was asked to be Guest Designer for Artist Trading Post where the fabulous Wendy Vecchi is the Featured Artist all this month.  I adore Wendy's style and products, of which I have many, the hardest decision was - which ones do I use!

I created something that is very much in Wendy's style but I used a 'variation' on her faux 'splattered plaster' technique to create the background you can see below....

Please do pop over to Artist Trading Post, if you have the time, to see how I created it and what I did with this background and also to see what Wendy created HERE and HERE already this month.

I do hope you like what I created for Artist Trading Post.  Thank you again to ATP for having me as Guest Designer and to Wendy Vecchi for bringing us such wonderful products! 

Hugs, Anne xx

Vintage Travel at Art With Heart

This month at Art With Heart the Inspiration Team are celebrating the release of Eileen Hull's Vintage Travel Collection which will be available in the shops from May 2015.  All month long there will be lots of inspiration there and of course, the Art With Heart Challenge is also running, with the theme of 'Spring Break.  One lucky participant will win a die from the new Vintage Travel range, which you can see HERE.

When I first saw this train case, below, for sale on a website in America, I wanted to re-create it using Eileen's fantastic new Train Case die from the Vintage Travel collection.

To create my version below, I used DecoArt's new Media Range of products and a Prima stencil.

The inside of the die cuts was painted with Cobalt Teal Hue, a real favourite of mine.  The matboard die cuts take the paints well.  Mountboard or Grey Board would work equally well.

The outside was first painted in a mixture of Medium Grey Value 6, with a touch of Paynes Grey.

The stencilling was done with a Prima Stencil and DecoArt Media Crackle Paste in White. I mixed a small amount of Titanium White into the Paste to brighten the white further and give it a good contrast against the grey background.

A close up of the DecoArt crackle texture paste and the Tim Holtz Heart Charm and Ball Chain embellishment.

A view of the back.  Cord from my stash was added to the top and bottom to finish the edges off.  There is plenty of room inside the case to tuck a nice gift in, the finished case measures 4.1/2" wide, 2.1/2" deep and 3.3/4" tall.

I hope you like what I created and I also hope you will join in the challenge at Art With Heart - Eileen's prizes are always worth winning!

As always, thanks for looking and I hope to see you soon.  Hugs, Anne xx

Compendium of Curiosities #25

Cutting it a bit fine (again!) but I have only missed one so far, so I just had to make time!  For full details on the latest challenge check out the lovely Linda Ledbetter to see what Linda and the Curiosity Crew have given us for inspiration.  Challenge #25 is about using Frameworks and Tim Holtz demonstrates this on Page 64 of his Compendium of Curiosities III book. If you need a copy you can purchase one directly from Tim here.

As this is an odd numbered challenge it is sponsored by Inspiration Emporium who are generously donating a $50 prize, for one randomly selected individual, to spend in their on-line shop.  One very lucky individual, chosen by the Curiosity Crew will win a fabulous prize from Tim and Mario!

For my Compendium of Curiosities #25 entry I made a card.

As well as the Frameworks die, I also used some new goodies that Tim recently released.

I used the fabulous Butterfly Duo Die and Embossing Folder, Tim's new Pocket Cards and I used the burlap from the new Textured Surfaces Pack.

I did not take step by step photos of all the stages but you can see from the above that I stencilled some Kraft card with the Doily stencil and crackle embossing paste that I lightly coloured with 

Vintage Photo re-inker.  The Framework was cut from thick black card.

  I also used one of the Pocket Cards on top of the embossed surface.

The butterflies were cut from white card which I embossed with the Duo embossing folder.  I inked the top of the butterflies with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and then painted the de-bossed areas with Peacock Feathers Distress Paint.  The Trinket Pins were coated with Peacock Feathers DP.

To finish off I added some corners from my stash which were painted with Peacock Feathers and Gathered Twigs Distress Paint, and one of Tim's Simple Sayings.

This is also my Design Team piece for Inspiration Journal and just as a reminder, if you buy anything from Inspiration Emporium and used my code Redanne, you will get 10% discount off your entire order.  Postage rates are extremely reasonable at $5 for the USA and $10 for international orders!

  Thanks for looking and I hope to see you again soon.  

Hugs, Anne xxx

Inspiration Emporium Products Used:

Tim Holtz Frameworks Die

Butterfly Duo Die and Embossing Folder

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Textured Surfaces

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Pocket Cards

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Trinket Pins

Tim Holtz Simple Sayings

A Vintage Journey - Destination Inspiration

I hope you are all having, or have had a wonderful Easter Weekend!

Today, I have the pleasure of kicking off the first of our four Destination Inspiration posts for April over at A Vintage Journey.

I am just giving you a hint of my creation and I hope you will visit A Vintage Journey to see how I finished off this canvas..... using the following four ingredients:

Product - Distress Paint

Substrate - Canvas

Technique - Grungepaper flowers (Vol 1 of Tim's CC3C Book, page 65)

Colour  -  Picket Fence

 I also hope you will join in this month's challenge, 'Through the Looking Glass' set by our lovely Creative Guide, Julia, which you can find HERE.

And here is a little something I made just to say Happy Easter to you all!  I used Tim Holtz's faux chocolate bunny technique which you can find here.

As always, thanks so much for looking!  Hugs, Anne xx

A Vintage Journey - Through the Looking Glass

Firstly, thank you to everyone who joined in our first birthday celebrations at A Vintage Journey, both with entries and your very kind comments, we all appreciated it very much!

Our lovely Creative Guide, Julia has chosen the theme for this month's challenge at A Vintage Journey - Through the Looking Glass.  In Julia's own words:

'Let's make a project involving glass (acetate) or mirrors (metal sheet) perhaps a window or clock face, a hand held mirror or glass bottle.  Tim has lots of Idea-ology products and dies that would be just the thing for this challenge'.

For my project I have used acetate to create a pair of eye test glasses that Opticians use and also a glass monocle for an embellishment.  This was prompted by a very expensive trip recently to the Opticians...

To create the background I used similar techniques to those used by Tim Holtz for his March tag but instead of using paint I used Distress Stain and Distress Spray Stains.  First, I smooshed some Victorian Velvet Distress Stain onto my mat and dragged my piece of Ranger Speciality Stamping card through it.  I knew approximately where I wanted the Phrenology Head to sit and I stamped this with Black Archival Ink.  I stamped again onto a piece of masking paper, cut it out and placed it over the stamped image.  

I sprayed Cracked Pistachio and Tea Dye onto the card and let this dry.  Once the mask was removed the head stood out against the mottled background.  I placed the mask back on and used Tim's Eye Chart stencil and Ranger white Embossing Paste to create the eye chart background.  I added black Embossing Powder to the wet paste and allowed this to dry.  Once dry I heated the powder with my heat gun to give a lovely finish.  I added a few random Remnant Rubs and some stamping in Potting Soil Archival Ink using an eye chart stamp from one of Tim's Visual Artistry clear stamp sets.

The 'it's all perspective' is stamped in Black Archival Ink using a stamp from Tim's Good Thoughts set.

To finish off, the eye glasses were stamped onto white card and fussy cut (yes, not an easy task!) and I added some thick packaging acetate to give the appearance of real glass.  I added a couple of Remnant Rubs to the monocle.  The whole piece was then mounted onto corrugated card.

We would love to have you join in Julia's 'Through the Looking Glass' challenge over at A Vintage Journey.  Our generous sponsor, Susan of Country View Crafts is providing a £20 gift voucher, for one randomly selected entrant, to spend in Country View Crafts on line shop, where you will find an extensive stock of Tim Holtz products and many other brands are available too.  The Creative Guides will also choose three favourites to receive a Pinworthy badge.

There is a wonderful challenge over at Artful Times which is 'In the Style of Tim Holtz', I would like to enter this piece in the challenge.  It is definitely worth a look to see what the Design Team have created and also have a look at the fabulous entries so far!

Thanks for looking and I will be back on Monday with a Destination Inspiration post - hope to see you then.  In the meantime I hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend.

Hugs, Anne xx