Stampotique Challenge::Bright Colors

"Bright colors" that is all I need to hear and out come the Dylusion Spray Inks again.  Actually, I never put them away, the guest bathroom looks amazing right now, that is all I have to say about that.  I have my definition and my husband has his.
I thought this time I would mix it up a bit and use a blocking technique with Ranger's Distress Ink Pads.  I took a large sheet of water color paper and laid different bright colored ink pads directly on to the paper.  In this case I used Festive Berries, Worn Lipstick, Spiced Marmalade, Pine Needles, Evergreen Bough, Seedless Preserves, Ripe Persimmon, Peacock Feathers, Mustard Seed, etc.....you get the picture.  Just about every color that looked like it might go.  Then I took the sheet into my immaculate bathroom (cough), the one I spoke of earlier, and sprayed it with a water bottle.  I let the inks run and wick together and then did a little bit of blotting around the edges.  When it was dry I cut out the section I wanted to work on and ran it through my Big Shot machine with the Tim Holtz "Rays" texture fade.  I first stamped the Stampotique phrase in the center of the paper and  then I stamped a pile of Stampotiques large toadstools in Archival Gray and heat embossed it with a clear powder.  Then I stamped my Stampotique Angel and the little Hare in Ranger's Black Archival.  I also stamped a row of Daniel's Hearts on a string in white across the bottom, upside down so they look like flowers and heat embossed that too with clear powder.  I covered the edges with a strip of metal foil and distressed it.   I thought it would look nice as a hanging mini calendar so I tore the coiled wire off the almost finished book of water color paper and attached it to the top through two tiny punched holes.  I punched two holes at the bottom and attached the orange scrap of paper to the bottom with jump rings and glued a tiny calendar for July on it.  Voila!  It measures 10" in length (14" if you add the wire on the top) and 5" wide.  I hope you like it.  It is BRIGHT!

Hanging on the wall in my studio.

Ooops::A Second Post Today/Frilly and Funkie

I almost forgot to enter my project for the Frilly and Funkie Challenge.  They are looking for projects that have some masking and/or stenciling done on  them.  My project is a card containing both techniques.  It measures 5"x7".  First I cut a white piece of card stock to serve as the actual card.  Then I did Dyan Reaveley's spray ink technique on some water color paper.  I sprayed Dylusions in pink, green, blue and orange onto the paper.  I wanted to stencil this paper so I used some gears from Tim Holtz stencil/masks and sprayed water over the dried inks.  I allowed the water to sit for about 20 seconds and then mopped it off with a kitchen towel roll.  I randomly stamped a big leaf and some Jenny Doh Cresendoh stamps on the paper in Ranger's Archival Black ink.  I chose a portion that I liked and cut it to fit the card.  I adore the little Steam Punk stamps by Artistic Outpost so I stamped the motorcycle over one of the water stenciled gears.  I stamped the boy twice on white card stock and cut him out.  One of the images was colored in with Tim Holtz's new Distress Ink pens.  The other boy was used as a mask.  I temporarily taped the mask where I wanted the boy's image to finally be.  Then I stamped around the image in Black Archival using the Gasoline and Miles per Hour stamps, also from Artistic Outpost.  I carefully used post-its as additional masking so the signs wouldn't touch each other.  I glued the painted image of the boy in the middle of this.  The phrase is also Artistic Outpost.  The little strip of orange tickets were also cut from watercolor paper sprayed with Dyan's orange spray ink and stamped with tiny tickets by Lost Coast Designs/Travel Stuff.  I distressed the tickets with Ranger's Vintage Photo ink and used my new Tiny Attacher, which I don't know how I ever lived without, also by Idea-ology.  I little dab of Distress Rock Candy on his scarf and he is definitely "the cat's pajamas"!

Tim Holtz Class::"Journeys of the Past" book

This is what we made in my third class with Tim.  It is a small tag book made from manila tags and TONS of embellishments.  Just as before, everything had been pre-cut.  All we had to do was pick our colors, distress stains and inks, and the types of trinkets we wanted to include.  I love the faucet handle on the front cover and I was amazed at how easy it was to install.

I tried to stick to a muted blue palette using Broken China, Weathered Wood and Frayed Burlap.  We used a lot of tissue tapes to make little hinges as shown on the cut tag in the second photo.  It was a very fun class to take and produced a project that I'll be tweaking for quite a while I'm sure.

Patchwork Pandemonium with Tim Holtz

This class has this name for a reason!  Tim offered this class at "Ink About It" in 2009 and I took it at that time.  Insane class.  Even though all the pieces of grunge board are pre-cut, pre-glued with wonder tape and pre-textured, you just paint and assemble.....hahahahaha.  It still takes 5 hours to do the class.  The end result this time measures 12"x12" and is attached to a large, WONDERFUL coat hanger.  Lots of new techniques and products were used.  I am so happy I took the class again.  It is a great way to use of up all your scrap pieces of grunge board.  Also, a great way to use tissue tape, buttons, metal odds and ends.  Just measure out your surface, cut and prepare pieces of grunge like a puzzle, your surface can be grunge board, canvas, fabric, paper, whatever you chose.  Tim had chosen grunge board to glue our pieces to using that fabulous glue sheet called Wonder Tape.  Some objects are glued on at the end with a hot glue gun, glue dots, a new product called Glue n Seal which has a matte finish or Glossy Accents.  If this piece seems too large just try doing a smaller version.  It is really fun and satisfying.  It is amazing how every one in the class ended up with a project that looked different.  Different colors, different items, etc.  This project is a great expression of individuality. :-)

A closer look

Artistic Outpost Challenge::Travel

Artistic Outpost (www.artisticoutpost.com/) has a challenge for the month of May involving "Travel".  Ahhh, one of my favorite things to do!  I am only allowed to use their stamps for the challenge so I used their "Diesel Punk" stamp set, which is my favorite.  I started with some patterned card stock that has a kraft look to it.  I cut it to make a 5"x7" card and folded it so the plain kraft side makes the inside plain.  The outside has a map of the world.  I started with a piece of scrap paper and stamped the cute little boy in the center.  I masked him off and stamped speed limits, etc. all around him using black Archival ink.  I colored the boy in with my new Tim Holtz distress ink pens and decorated his scarf with Distress Rock Candy.  I distressed the edge of the panel with the new Peacock ink by Ranger and a little Seedless Preserves.  I wrapped some baker's twine with a grape look to it and attached a key with a jump ring.  I affixed this panel to a black piece of card stock that had a note book punched edge on the bottom and glued the whole panel to the card.  It still looked a little plain so I added the gears, etc. and 3 grey pearls.  I attached the pen nib with some waxed thread and the film strip with my Tiny Attacher.  I stamped Diesel Punk across the top of the film strip using Archival black ink.  The inside stamp says:  "Here's Looking at You Kid!".

12 Tags for 2012::May Tag

Tim Holtz is doing a tag for each month of the year.  I'm a little late but technically it is still May so here is my submission based on his inspirational tag.  If you get a chance go check out his new website, it is fabulous!

Stampotique Challenge::Family

The Stampotique current challenge is a creation representing "Family".  This is a mother/child sort of card.  The mother is sharing all her wisdom with her young son and he hears every word of it!  Maybe in a perfect world......that's all I have to say about that.  I used the Blah, Blah stamp, Moth Fab, and that darling little Heart Boy.  I stamped them with Ranger's Black Archival ink.  Cut Moth out and popped her up with some foam glue dots.  Both images are colored in with Copics.  They were stamped onto a white panel that is edged with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink by Ranger and a little Rock Candy Distress Stickles rubbed on to the edge.  I matted the white panel onto black card stock and then onto patterned paper.  The entire panel is then glued onto a 5" by 7" blank white card.

Mother and Son

Tim Holtz Weekend

Well, it finally arrived!  After months of waiting the Tim Holtz classes were taught this weekend in Topsfield, MA at the store "Absolutely Everything".  I only signed up for three of the four classes but I was very happy with the results.  I semi-finished everything but I will continue to "tweak" all three of my projects for a few days I'm sure.  I will share all three projects during the week.  Let's start with Saturday morning 9am to 12 noon.
The classes began on Saturday morning with "Heart and Soul".  This is a three hour class using supplies such as metal foil tape, alcohol inks, paint dabbers, a configurations box, pulley wheels and tons of other small things.  We learned a Faux Riveting technique using the metal foil tape and a paper mache heart.  My configurations box was painted with an Adirondak Gold Dabber and then distressed with Broken China and Wild Honey.  My metal covered heart was distressed with alcohol inks:  pitch black, ginger and stonewashed.  My distressed and inky fingers were scrubbed clean with one of Tim's scrubby pads and soap.  They look like they could use a little more scrubbing if truth be told!  I sat with one of my favorite crafting buddies, Marjie Kemper, who also made little ATT (All Things Tim) brooches, which I proudly pinned to my now dirty crafting apron.  I saw a few other crafting friends like Diane from Concord.  We all had the same packets of materials and the same products to work with but amazing as it seems every one's project was completely unique.  Here's mine.

The theme for Challenge #48 is Father's Day/Masculine with Ribbon or Trim.

I made this tag a while back....it definitely has a masculine feel to it and answers the challenge with the use of ribbons.  The tag is one I cut myself out of watercolor paper that has been inked with Ranger's China Blue Distress ink and then edged with Walnut Stain ink.  I ran it through my Vagabond machine using Tim Holtz's Checkerboard Texture fade.  The balloon stamp is from Stampers Anonymous.  I stamped it three times and cut out the balloon top portion, folded two in half and glued them together to give the balloon a 3D look.  After affixing the balloon to the tag, I tore a piece of dictionary paper and glued it to the bottom left corner .  I stamped the three gentlemen from another one of Tim's collections, cut them out and glued them over the dictionary paper.  I smeared some Antique Linen Distress Stickles over the bottom of the tag and then glued one of Tim's metal corners on to the left corner.  I used Glossy Accents to glue three gears randomly on the tag.  I stamped a few inspiration words on it and then tied ribbons, keys and buttons on to the tag top.  The final touch was three of the word tags, also Tim Holtz, that had been distressed and then stapled to the right hand corner.

Alter it ! Frilly and Funkie Challenge

The Frilly and Funkie website has a new challenge.  It is called "Alter It!"  I love any type of challenge that involves recycling.  Today I recycled a very cute little pink shiny gift bag that someone gave me a long time ago.  First I used an old paint chip that was a Limoncello color (ie: my kitchen), it was a large chip measuring 4" x 6".  I ran this through my Vagabond machine using the Alterations Patchwork Texture Fades.  Then I rubbed Ranger's Tattered Rose ink over the raised image and poured clear embossing powder over it and heat embossed it.  I matted the yellow paint chip to some polka dot paper, G45 circus paper.  I cut and glued a turquoise strip at the middle of the chip.  I cut a shaped a pinwheel out of G45 circus paper and glued a bottle cap in the middle.  I stamped a face using black Archival ink and clear, heat embossed it.  I colored it in with copic inks.  So in the end I altered a gift bag, a bottle cap and some paint chips (I did buy the paint just in case you were wondering).