Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Hello everyone and happy first of December!!
I know, I know, it's scary with Christmas coming ever closer, but I for one am hugely looking forward to it!
Here is a Christmas project I created for the latest challenge at Our Creative Corner.

The lovely Alison chose the theme "Have Yourself  a Merry LITTLE Christmas". She would like us to make ATCs, chunky ATCs or ATBs. Well as you can see, I chose to make an ATB (Artist Trading Block) and turned it into a little lantern.

I started by cutting the largest of the Eileen Hull ATBs out of thick (480 grms) white card and cut circular openings with the Sizzix circle die.

Next I added texture to the sides with the help of some memory box stencils and texture paste, and  when that had dried,coloured with a mix of sprays, inks and some treasure gold over the raised bits. I cut 4 squares of parchment paper, and stamped some snowflakes and script on to them and then embossed with copper embossing powder. I glued those on the inside behind the circular openings. I also found a vintage snow angel online, re-sized it and then printed two of them, one reversed so I could glue them together and it would look alright from both sides.

Hope you can see from the photo how I folded the bottom of the angel, so that she would be able to stand on the top.
Next I made a little stand from a scrap bit of card to rest the rest of my embellishments against and give the box some backing.

I cut a decorative circle with a Spellbinders die, inked it with a mix of Vintage photo and Victorian Velvet, to pick up some of the colours in the snow angel and then embellished my box as you can see from the photos below with some greenery cut with the new Tim Holtz greenery die and a Johanna Sheen die.

I also made a little book with the Spellbinders labels 9 die and some coffee stained book pages and added a bit of cheese cloth to soften it all a bit.

I used a Stampendous Christmas Greeting on the background circle, one of the stamps I also used on the vellum.

Some little bits of Diamond Stickles here and there finished it all off.

Hope you are all well ahead with your Christmas preparations! Have a creative week and thanks for visiting!

Autumnal ATB

Hi everyone, hope you are doing alright.
Today is a sneak peek day here on my blog, as I have a project over at the Artistic Stamper.

Hope you'll take the time to see the whole project! Thanks for visiting anyway and have a great week!

Flaming June for our Creative Corner

Hello everyone and Happy June, the month when summer is supposed to start.... can't wait for a little bit of warm sunshine! The first of the month is always busy here on my little blog, as it's the day of several challenges starting, so if you are here for the second time, thank you!!This is my contribution for Our Creative Corner where the theme is Flaming June, chosen by the lovely Julia.

Now I have to be honest, I was seriously challenged when I saw the theme and the inspiration picture that Julia provided. These were colours that I don't do. I mean yellows and oranges.... me? No way. But, a challenge is a challenge right, and I guess to compensate I have possibly even gone too bright, and red has rather taken over from the yellows and oranges, but hey ho, too late now.

Anyway, on to my project. As you can see, I decided to make an ATB (Artist Trading Block), this is the large 3" one. I cut my basic block from mount board and then prepared a piece of card with the flaming colours to cover the different sides. I used Dylusions sprays and the salt technique for this:

Next I cut some yellow card  with the same die to line the inside, inked around the edges and stamped a couple of impressions with a stamp from the Tim Holtz Distress Damask set.

I glued it to my mount-board pieces and then glued my box together. Then I cut up my pre-made card into six 2.75 x 2.75" pieces ready to cover the sides. Before doing that I edged all the sides of the cube with black distress paint.

I decided to use the Indigoblue Blazing Poppies stamp to stamp over the pieces for the sides of my box. Below is the first side:

I stamped straight onto the piece, then stamped again onto smooth white card, fussy cut just the large flowers, shaped them a bit and then glued them on top for more dimension. I added a tiny bit of Walnut Stain Distress embossing powder to the centres of each flower, highlighted the little flowers with a white pen and added some butterflies cut with the Tim Holtz decorative strip die Butterfly Frenzy for further embellishments. These were a gift from my lovely friend Anne Redfern, as I don't actually own that die.

Each of the sides was pretty much done in the same way, just using different parts of the poppies stamp.

Here you can see the lid, decorated with some leaves from the Tim Holtz Garden Greenery die, a Ticket from the Odds and Ends set of stamps and a large flower, another gift, this time from my lovely friend Rita and another butterfly.

And below finally you can see the inside of the box with the lid open:

I just  had to add some chit chat stickers that say "be different" for this certainly is very different for me. Hope you like it even so and make sure you go over to Our Creative Corner to see all the other incredible projects, trust me, you won't be disappointed!

Thank you for visiting and have a lovely month of June!!

Tim Holtz odds and ends	Distress Damask	Blazing poppies	ATB large
Distress Paint	Dylusions	Dylusions Squeezed Orange	Dylusions
Archival Ink	Distress Ink	Distress Ink	Distress Ink
Distress Ink	Distress Ink	Frayed Burlap	Stripdie
Bigzd Die

InLinkz.com

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!

Tim Tower ATB

Hello everyone and thank you for dropping by here.
Today I want to share a set of Artist Trading Blocks (ATBs) which I made with the help of the wonderful die designed by Eileen Hull for Sizzix.

These are so easy and quick to put together once you have the die, and of course with each cube having 6 sides, there is lots of fun in creating the different sides. I cut mine from grey chipboard, though I have since found the die even cuts mount board really easily. I put them together with strong score tape and then painted the edges black with a black paint dabber. After some trial and error, I found out these dies are designed to cut thick material like chip board. I tried it first with Kraft card, but you don't get the fold lines then, as it is too thin. I know some of you have been wondering about whether you need a crease pad, and no, you don't for this die.

4 main sides of the largest cube

I mainly used Tim Holtz papers, stamps, paints and inks etc to decorate my different cubes. But I also used a few bits from the Papermania Madame Payraud's paper line. I think they combine perfectly with the Tim papers, as in many ways they are similar in style.

Second largest cube, as you can see I also used chit chat stickers and tissue tape.

And the smallest cube. The Tim Holtz mini stamps are the perfect size for these.

These dies are so versatile and of course you can make them in any style you like of course. If you leave one side open, they also could make super little boxes.

I left the top and bottom of each cube pretty plain, just covering them with some paper and inking around the edges, but I made this little heart with the help of a mold for the very top. I made the actual heart out of a mix of Uteeh and various colours of Frantage and then coloured it with Distress Paints (Broken China and Frayed Burlap) and highlighted with a bit of Treasure Gold in Renaissance gold.

Sorry about this blurry picture, but here you get a bit more of an idea about the size of the different cubes in relation to one another.The largest of the cubes is 3" by 3". 

I have some more cut out and am definitely going to make more, they are so much fun.

Thank you for visiting and I really, really appreciate all the lovely comments you always leave me!