Four Seasons but remember the now!

Saturday saw the start of Linda Ledbetter's  Tim Holtz Compendium of Curiosities 3 challenge, based on Tim's latest book and sponsored on alternate weeks by Inspiration Emporium and The Funkie Junkie Boutique, Tim and Mario themselves have  added to the prizes too. To find out more, just click on the link! 

Now if that's not enough, Linda has put together the most amazing design team, her Curiosity Crew; I was totally delighted to find so many of my blogging buddies among them, and boy, what inspiration they have provided!! The first challenge is all about Paint Marbling. Details of this technique can be found on page 43 of the book.

I love this technique and funnily enough had guessed and hoped this might be the first one, and when I saw it I immediately thought I would do something related to the seasons to have a chance to play with the technique several times in different colour ways. So I started with 4 size 8 tags, moving from cool colours for winter and spring, through to warmer ones for summer and autumn.

Below you can see the 4 tags after marbling, inking, doing some Sprits and Flick and in the case of 1 and 2 I added some stenciling too straight away.

For tag 1 I used: Picket Fence, Antique Linen and Tumbled Glass, and then inked with Frayed Burlap, and Walnut Stain. For tag 2 I used: Antique Linen, Bundled Sage and Peeled Paint and inked with Crushed Olive and Frayed Burlap. Tag 3: paints: Antique Linen, Scattered Straw, Wild Honey and Crushed Olive. Funnily enough the green of the Crushed Olive totally disappeared when I dried it, so I brought some of it back in when inking and also added more Wild Honey. Finally tag 4: Paints: Wild Honey, Ripe Permission, Fired Brick and Festive Berries. I inked with Aged Mahogany, Chipped Sapphire and a tiny bit of Dusty Concord and Walnut Stain.

After the backgrounds were done I added stamps, more stenciling, some embossing with texture fades etc.

Here is a close up of tag 1, kept it in a wintery mood.After adhering the stamped and die cut trees I added a bit more colour and texture with shadows. They were stamped in Iced Spruce. The dry embossed snowflakes on the right were from a little folder that came as a freebee with a magazine some years back. I am keeping my fingers crossed Tim will bring out a Snowflake layering stencil with the next release....

This tag sees a mix of stamps from the Tim Holtz Nature Walk set and the Artistic Outpost Birds of a Feather set. The little feathers at the bottom are Spellbinder dies, the greenery is from the TH Spring Greenery strip die and the little flowers I had in my stash. They are rather plasticky , but when I blasted them with my heat tool they curled up which I rather like.

For tag 3 I added some stenciling also, to fit in with the other two tags. I then used my favourite butterflies from the Papillion set, stamped them first straight onto the tag and then again, fussy cut them and coloured them with Distress Markers. I also used a stamp from the Odds and Ends set and some remnant rubs.

Finally for tag 4 the stamping is from the Mercantile set (I am totally in love with that bottle). The feather is from Spellbinders again and the word Autumn was cut out from a piece of Core'dinations card embossed with a texture fade. To echo the first tag I also ran it through a seasonal strip embossing folder.

 All 4 tags were then first mounted on to pieces from Tim's latest 8 by 8" paper collection, I added some more stenciling and inking to these pieces first and then I mounted them all onto a piece of dark brown mount board and further embellished with some die cuts and the words Remember the Now made from the little chip board letters. The final touch was an altered Ornate Plate (using more Distress Paints), and then mounted onto a Weathered Clock die which was also painted and rusted up with various Distress Embossing powders and some Antiquities Verdigris etc.

The text in the opening is from the Mercantile set.

I had so much fun creating this piece and obviously will be adding it to Linda's Challenge. This first challenge is sponsored by the Inspiration Emporium

Well hope you like my piece and have a fantastic week!

Thank you for visiting and make sure to stay inky!!

Embark and Fly

Hello everyone, welcome and thank you for dropping by!
Just a sneak peek here today

To see the full project, please head over to the Artistic Stamper and it will be lovely to see you there!
Have a happy Inky day and look after yourselves

Over the top

Hi everyone and lovely to have you visiting. Many of you will have heard and seen the wonderful ATBs (artist trading blocks) designed by Eileen Hull. I have made several ones already which you can see here and here
This time I played with the 3" block die and came up with this:

To be honest, I think I went completely over the top with this one literally as well as figuratively speaking, but I have enjoyed seeing some of the box cards here and there in blog land and wanted to see whether I could do something similar with an ATB. The box was cut from mount board and before putting it together I lined it with papers from the madame Perauds collection:

I then made 2 inserts as you would do with a box card and then had great fun embellishing.

I left the lid open and added a Tim Holtz pedestal die to it. I had cut it from Kraft card, then added some Clear Rockcandy crackle paint and darkened it with Walnut Stain Distress stain. I then decorated with various other bits and pieces, mostly bits that were flying around on my desk anyway, a good way to use up left overs.
Here are a few detailed views:

A Prima, wooden clock, a butterfly stuck onto a cocktail stick, a rosette made from some more of the same paper collection and a piece of Cored'inations card with a Spellbinders die, plus some flowers etc.
Here from  the other side:

The front and sides and also the back were all covered with more of the same papers and then embellished in a similar way.

The front with some embossing and stamping around the sides.

The right side with half a rosette and some stenciling.

The other side with part of the Trellis Frameworks die, the other half of the rosette and a bumble bee cut from one of the papers.

Well, that's it, an over the top box. No idea what I will do with it, but I had good fun making it lol.

Hope you are having a good week and thank you so much for visiting!

Springtime Playtime...

Hello everyone and welcome! Let me start by wishing everyone a very happy Easter!! Here in the Northern Hemisphere Easter is all about new life and today I am sharing a little mini book full of Springtime images.

The cover of this was actually created quite a while ago with the help of a Stampendous stamp. The background was created with the help of Distress paints and inks, the Papillion Text stamp by Tim was stamped in Walnut Stain and then I over stamped the Paris/Eiffeltower in Black Archival. I stamped it again and then fussy cut the flowers and coloured those with Distress Markers in Victorian Velvet and Spun Sugar.

I added a bit of Stickles to their centres. Oh an I had also added some texture through a Crafty Individuals stencil and coloured it with Treasure gold.

 The construction of the little book itself is easy, you will need 2 sheets of 12 x 12 " strong card, - score at 6" one way and at 4 and 8 the other way. After that it is constructed in exactly the same way as Tim's W book. If you want more detail, just email me.

Alright, now for the inside pages, after doing loads of DT work, I really just wanted to play with my own stamps and inks, using all my favourite techniques of ink blending, stenciling and stamping.

I used smooth stamping card through out, the vocal stamp is from Inkylicious, coloured with Distress Markers. The stencil in the background I think is from Creative Expressions. I wanted the colours through out to reflect the transition from winter into Spring, and as I want to add this to the current challenge at Frilly and Funkie which is Flights of Fancy I included loads of birds and butterflies throughout.

The stamps here are all from Kaisercraft, the stencils are Tim Holtz and Prima. The butterflies were stamped twice again, first in Plum Archival including the background collage that is part of the stamp, and then just the butterflies in Jet Black archival.

Another Inkylicious stamp, stamped with Faber Castell Big Brush pens and then coloured with them also, scribbling on craftmat and then using a water brush. Stencils are Tim and Prima again.

Here's a close up of the birds. I love how these stamps are so detailed even though they are polymer ones and really quite cheap.

More of the same, the colours slowly turning more Spring like. Stamps from Stampendous, stencils Tim and Prima. Not really sure where this particular butterfly was from, it may have been a Kaisercraft one.

Here is the last page I have done so far, this gorgeous bird is from The Birds of a Feather set from Artistic Outpost, I coloured it with Distress Markers. The swirly one around the outside is a very old Stempel Glede one.
Below you can see how the pages fit into the book

As I used two 12 by 12 sheets for my basic booklet, I have still got about 3 pages left to finish, but I leave those for another time.

Here is the back cover still, using the same background stamp I used on the front to tie it all together.

Hope you like my little playtime booklet, the individual pages of the book are 6 x 4. Thanks so much for visiting and if you celebrate it I wish you the most wonderful Easter and don't eat too much chocolate!!

I am entering this into the Flights of Fancy challenge at Frilly and Funkie and as the challenge this week at FSC is Flying Things I am also adding this there.

Freebie at last

Hello everyone, welcome and lovely to have you visiting!
It has been an age since I last posted a freebie, and as I know that many of you started to follow me because of my freebies, I thought it was about time I shared another one with you, so here goes, my Springtime/Easter gift to you:

I used part of the background I created for my Tim tag as the background for this paper, not something I have done before. If you want to see the original just click the link.

This time round I am just posting the jpegs here, if by any chance you would like the tags separately, just email and I will be happy to send them to you.
As always, you are welcome to use these in your own creations in whatever way you like. You can sell what you make and don't need to give me credit. All I ask is that you don't distribute them in digital form or claim them as your own.

Thanks for visiting and happy Spring time to everyone in the Northern Hemisphere!

Mixed Media Triptych

Hello everyone, thanks for dropping in.

Today is just a sneak peek post here I'm afraid to say.... The full project can be seen on the Calico Crafts blog. Here are a couple of photos to try and tempt you to have a look at the full project....

Of course I would love it if you went to have a look and tell me what you think. All you need to do is click HERE. You may have to refresh your page to see this project.

Anyway, thanks for visiting  and have a wonderful Easter weekend when it comes!!

Tim's April Tag

Hello everyone and lovely to have you drop in.
I am sharing my April Tag for Tim Holtz's challenge.
The original can of course be seen here

Well, like with most  of us, mine has turned out quite differently, though I used the same sort of techniques, substituting those products I don't have for other ones. But like with my last 3 tags, I am mounting all of my size 8 tags onto a size 10, so I started by creating the background for my big tag.

I created a background with Antique Linen, Salty Ocean and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks, using some spritz and flick and the new lattice stencil. I then overstamped with some stamps from the Mercantile set and stamped in Pottingsoil Archival and a bit of Jet Black. I also used the large number stencil for the number two but in the end that was covered over with the smaller tag.
So for that one I started just like Tim described, I just used slightly different colours.
Here you can see the Frameworks Trellis which in my case I cut from grey board and then painted with various colours of Distress Paint.

As I have neither the mirror stuff nor cork, I cut my inserts from greyboard covered with paper, then hessian and then I painted some of the little grey board panels first with Brushed Pewter DP and when that was dry covered it with Rock Candy Crackle Paint and when the cracks appeared rubbed Walnut Stain Distress Stain over it, I love how it turned out. The hessian was stuck to card before cutting and I look forward to using the actual framework of that in a future project.

Next I covered the tag with some tissue tape and then did the embellishing pretty much like Tim described. I made 4 flowers with the Tattered Pinecone die, but used the leaves from the Spring Greenery.
Here are some details:

Here you can see the flowers, cut from the French Industrial paper stash.

I died some matching seam binding but made a separate bow which I glued on the length of ribbon that I had put around the tag. As I don't have a Philiosophy tag, I used one of the little heart charms.

Because my tag is so much larger I had space for an extra flower. I also added the month again at the top.

Here you can see a bit of tissue tape sticking out behind the frameworks, I love how it balances out the little text panel on the other side. You can also see that I shaped and distressed the greenery a bit. I added some shading with a Walnut Stain Distress Marker to make the frameworks stick out a bit more and add some depth.

Well, there you are. I have loved doing my April tag, I so love those Frameworks dies and I still have a ton of the little tiles to use in other projects.

Thanks for visiting, have a great weekend and if you celebrate it HAPPY EASTER!!!

Enjoy the Journey

Hello all and welcome to friends, followers and visitors, thanks for dropping by.
Now it has to be said, I am not a card maker, and yet here is a second card less than a week since the last one.... I blame the beautiful Wallflower papers by Tim Holtz.

Making cards with these papers is so easy. I took two of the papers, you will know most likely that the Tim Holtz collections include different sized papers, 12 x 12", 6 x 6", ATC sized and this collection also has 3 x 3" papers. All I did was take two of them, mounted on white card and then of course I added some stamps and a bit of inking and distressing.

Here is the ATC sized one. The background to the lovely birds and eggs, picks up the same subtle motif on the larger piece, making the two a perfect match. The stamp you see here is from the Haberdashery set. I also added some remnant rubs to the bird paper.

A couple of quills/feathers from die cut from the mini inkwell set, attached together with a bit of twine and one of the new little heart charms.

The hand is from the Mercantile set and the saying from the simple sayings set.

Well, there you have it, quick, easy and fun to do.

Thanks for visiting and make sure to stay inky!!