April Tag a la Tim

I have my craft room up and running at last.  But it's sooo organised that I can't find anything, but never mind, once I start getting messy in it then I'm sure things will find their own place in the natural disorder. It is just FAR too tidy at the moment!

Some pictures ( before chaos reigns)

 

Very happy bunny.

Here my take on Tim's April tag.  Haven't got a Frameworks die, everyone in UK seems to be out of stock of the dies I want ( honeycomb and trellis) so I tried to make my own using a wee movers and shapers stamp die.  Bit of a faff, and a bit squint, but it'll do.

Toodle pip.

A Very Busy Day

I spent Saturday doing nothing but arty projects from the first thing in the morning to well into the evening.  I had an unexpected free day because I thought I had a friend coming for lunch but that isn't until next week, I found.  Crafty stuff was way better than watching both Scotland (where I live) and Wales (land of my birth) getting totally gubbed at the rugby.

Here's a round up of the day...

An ugly charity shop find was turned into a (relatively speaking) thing of beauty:

I used embossed metal tape, black acrylic paint and Ranger alcohol inks to get this effect.  The Embossing folders are from Tim Holtz Alterations Texture Fades by Sizzix (Diamond Plate & Rivited Metal Set and Blueprint and Gears Set).

Next was Tim Holtz February tag...

I didn't have most of the items he used, but that was okay as it makes for creativity. The 'chalked' area was made with American Crafts silver embossing powder.  This isn't very shiny, so was a pretty good substitute for chalk.  I used a random little red heart stamp and Tim's distress inks for the background, and embossed them with clear embossing powder from Papermania.  The red chipboard heart was coloured with clear distress stickles in clear rock candy coloured with a little alcohol ink.  I love that you can do that, and have any colour of glitter that you want!  I was happy with the overall result.

Next!

I had covered a box with embossed foil a couple of weeks ago (okay I'm obsessed with that at the mo) but I wasn't happy with it as it was looking far too shiny. So I gave it the rub on-rub off black paint treatment and then splodged it with alcohol ink to antique it.  Much better.

I also covered a little chest of drawers with the (Next) wallpaper we have just decorated the guest bedroom with. The handles are Tim Holtz curio knobs, just perfect for this.  This will hold some of the toiletries, soaps, shower caps and sewing kits I have hoarded from various hotel stays.  Who knows, they might all get used eventually. We just need some guests who forgot to pack there spongebags to come and stay for a month.

I love thie quote on the front (by Arrigo Boito apparently, not Shakespeare as often attributed).  It says 

'When I saw you I fell in love

and you smiled because you knew'

Sigh.

Better Late than Never

Okay, so it's 1 February, but I've only just managed to do the January tag from Tim's 12 tags of 2014. Better late than never, and delayed because I was waiting for the pocket watch die to arrive from Sizzix.   I bought a whole bunch of dies in the Sizzix sale  in January, and can't wait to use them all.

I've also been distracted by some lovely foil tape that I purchased from  a company called Tapes Direct.  This foil tape is a lot thicker than the regular stuff you can buy, and is fantastic for embossing with.  I used it to cover a little metal box to keep important receipts in, and a tiny little bird house.

Another project with the foil is a direct lift from YouTube, so thank you Linda Neff I love the look of this.  You can find the link to her video here http://youtu.be/B8hfwQmPGYI

I've been hoping to move all my craft stuff into the small spare bedroom but this involves moving the remaining son into the bedroom vacated by son 1 ( now left home) and buying 2 new beds, decorating the new guest bedroom vacated by son 2, getting rid of 3 old beds, and buying a new craft desk.  All this has fallen down because the beds that were due to arrive this week will not now be arriving until 5 March 'due to lack of stock'.  Thanks Homebase.

60th Birthday Boxes Book for Bill

It was my husband Bill's 60th birthday this month, so I made him this assembly in lieu of a birthday card.  It is made out of 2 Tando Creative mini printers trays with covers, stuck together to make a book.  The frames have been covered in silver embossing powder for a metallic finish, and each window is backed with Tim Holtz seasonal stash papers, though there may be an odd one with different paper. Many of the pieces are Tim's Ideaology pieces.

Each window represents some part of his life - hobbies, interests, work, play, family etc. and a private joke or two best left that way!

It took a long time to collect all the little bits to put in this.  I suppose his birthday has been at the back of my mind all year as quite a few of the pieces are from car boot trawls over the year.  I altered most of the pieces in some way, and made some up from Fimo.  I was particularly pleased with the altered plaster head Borg (he's a Star Trek fan) with fimo headdress and resistor.  Because resistance is futile...

Some of the references were a bit too subtle for him, so took some guesswork on his part and explanation from me.  Like the L, T ans S.  He couldn't place that, so had to explain that was the initials of me and our 2 boys! Jeez.

Anyway, he loved it, so that was good.

 

Birthday boxes

I bought a new cupboard from ikea to store some of my crafting items.  This resulted in a major tidy up of my craft area, and now I can't find stuff.  Pfft.

I have a couple of friends who have recently reached their 60th birthday milestone, so I made them each a little assemblage in lieu of a birthday card.  They use Tando Creative mini printer trays with covers. I LOVE working with these.  Half the fun is finding meaningful pieces to place in the windows.m

This one was for Cheryl.  This is using one mini tray with cover.

The one I made for Ron is actually two mini trays side by side, with the covers cut and pasted together to form a 'book'.

Most of the items have been altered in some way.  The fish charm was altered using alcohol ink pens, and the little plywood items coloured with acrylic paint and pens, then covered with Glossy Accents.  This is what things looked like in the planning stage :

I made a few additions to the plan, but this was a very helpful exercise.

On My Metal

I was given a lovely wooden wine box by a work colleague (much more highly paid than me obviously, as my wine tends to come in boxes made of cardboard and with a plastic tap) and it sat on my shelf for a while awaiting inspiration.  This came in the form of a Tim Holtz embossing folder, that produces a rivited metal effect.  I would also like to thank RachO113 for her YouTube video Metal Tape Art as I saw this and couldn't wait to get started on the the box.

The first thing I did was sand down and then paint the edges of the box with a couple of layers of silver acrylic paint.  I then cut panels of greyboard to fit each side of the box including the top and sides of the lid.  I could have worked directly on to the box surface, but found it easier to work on the smaller panels, and they also gave more 3d depth to the box once stuck on.

I used cheap silver plumber's tape from the DIY store over the panels that had various shapes, buttons, mesh, paper shapes, letters, screw-type brads (basically any item I could find in my stash that looked vaguely techno!) stuck on.  Some places needed a few layers as the tape sometimes split at the edge of raised parts.  Once the silver tape had been burnished on with an embossing tool I placed pieces of Ranger foil tape and used a ballpoint pen the mark the dot rivets.   I added some Tim Holtz box corners, gears, pull handle, clock face and game spinner to the top.  The small round studs alongside the base at the front and next to the gears on the lid are from 7gypsies.

Panels were stuck on with hot glue.

Husband commandeered it for his dressing table, so that was nice...

Cupboard love.

It's absolutely ages since I blogged anything.  But I was quite pleased with this little project so thought I'd share.

A friend gave am a little key cupboard that she didn't like or want.  So I fixed it up and gave it back to her for her her birthday!  Cheapskate.  I THINK she was pleased :-o

The papers I used for this are from Maja Design of Sweden.  Lovely quality, double sided and so pretty.  I got them from my friends Janine's shop The Mad Scrapper - a mile down the road from me, but she also has an online shop.  Also used Claudine Hellmuth Studio gesso, DecoArt acrylic paints, Mod Podge, and Tim Holtz distress inks and stain, and also his embellishments - curio knob, heart charm, rubons, crinkle ribbon and enamel tags.  Love Tim's stuff...