A little sparkle on a dull day...

Hello friends, hope you are keeping well. The weather has been chilly and grey here the last couple of days, perfect weather for some crafting, - so I am in full Christmas Card making mode. I have made nearly 20 cards so far, but don't worry, I will not show them all, - today I will share just a couple made with some of my Tim Holtz stamps:

I'll keep this post quite short, as these are busy times for us all, just a few close ups and some product info:

This one uses the Holiday Greetings stamp set. The background was done with Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap Distress Oxides. I stamped some trees from a much older set in the background, using Iced Spruce Doxide.

The main stamp was stamped in Ground Espresso Doxide and then clear embossed, I also added some white pencil for snow,

The main card was mounted on a piece embossed with the Lumber 3D folder, coloured with Distress Inks in various brown tones and then I applied a layer of Crazing Medium with a palette knife, a cool trick I learn from my lovely blog friend Sara Emily from Saras Closet  After the crazing medium had dried I then rubbed in some Distress Crayon with a damp finger, to bring out the cracks. I also drew in some stars with a white gel pen and added a little sparkle with Diamond Stickles.

The second card was done in a very similar way, - the bird is from the Simon Says Stamp limited edition stamp set and was coloured with a mix of Distress Markers and coloured pencils

I then finished it with a die cut coloured with Doxides and then I added just a tiny bit of Distress Glitter in Vintage Platinum, it looks really sparkly in real life but it all gets lost in the photo.

Well that's it, hope you are all having a good week and are not too busy. I'll try and visit soon...

xxxxx

Sparkle and Shine...

Hello everyone, welcome to one and all and especially new followers. Thank you for wanting to be part of my crafty journey!

All week I have been wondering about what to do for the new Compendium of Curiosities 3 second challenge. The theme this fourtnight is Distress Glitter.

Tim describes this technique on page 56 of the book. Now like quite a few people, I am definitely not a glitter girl, well apart from at Christmas perhaps, and only have 4 colours of the Distress Glitter. The only one I really like (just being honest here) is the Rockcandy Clear one, which is not even a true Distress Glitter... But a challenge is a challenge, so I took a deep breath, made a card, and used all of my glitters on various bits and pieces.

I''m not going to do a full step by step for this one, I'll just show you a few close ups. Glitter is of course always hard to photograph, and I only used it sparingly, so this might not even qualify...

I used all 4 colours on the leaves cut with the Tim Holtz Garden Greenery die (Vintage Photo, Antique Linen, Broken China and Clear Rockcandy). The rose, made with the Tattered Florals die only has the Rockcandy glitter, and I have to say, I like how it turned out. The sparkle sadly does not at all show up on the photo.

The bottle is from the Mercantile set. The banner with the words Sparkle and Shine, is a Spellbinder die. I don't have the new Tim banners yet, which are much nicer I think.
Below is a close up of just the feather, also a Spellbinders die, it was glittered with Antique Linen and Clear Rockcandy glitter.

To be honest, it looked much nicer before I added the glitter.....

As you probably know there are fabulous prizes to be won, as the challenge is sponsored by Tim and Mario themselves, but this time also by the fabulous Linda from the Funkie Junkie Boutique.

Even though I am not overly excited with the result, I had great fun playing with the technique and making it my own.

Thanks so much for visiting and I hope you will have a creative week!!

Oh No, not another tag.....

Ehrm, well yes, yet another tag I'm afraid to say....
But before I carry on, please let me start by saying thank you for dropping by today!

So today's tag is my version of Tim's Tag for October. Now my big confession is that I have NEVER played in any of Tim's tag challenges before, but after having done the recent Creative Chemistry 102 classes I enjoyed myself so much that I finally decided to play along.....
Of course as most of you will know, all of the details can be found on Tim's blog HERE.
This months it is all about using the new Distress Glitters. Now I am not really a glitter girl and the only Distress Glitter I own is the Clear Rock Candy that came out last year already. But as Tim explained in his October tag of 2012 (yes, I do usually read all about them), you can colour Clear Rock Candy glitter with Alcohol Inks, so that's what I did.
The background to this tag was done with Distress Paints, spritzt and marbled as Tim explains on the first video of CC 102. I used Salty Ocean, Broken China and Frayed Burlap. Then I added various Distress Inks, edged with Black Soot, added a few squirts of home made gold mica spray. For the rest I am going to let the pictures do the talking as we are all busy people and you have probably better things to do than read my detailed descriptions. If you have any questions, just email me.

Here you can see some of my home made Distress Glitter (so hard to photograph decently). I coloured the little book-plate with Adirondack Espresso ink and then mixed my Rock Candy Glitter with some drops of Espresso Alcohol Ink. Have to say, love the result, NOTHING like any other kind of glitter. Also added a few touches to my die cut leaves.

Added another few touches of glitter to the top of the bottle which is of course a Blue Print one.

Here you can see a bit of the embossing and background stamping and stencilling I did and that is basically it.

Well, there you have it, my October tag complete. Quite a lot different from Tim's original, but I did use the techniques, so I hope it counts.
Thanks for visiting like always and hope you will have a creative inky time yourself.