Showing off, just a bit

Well, wouldn't you?  After all the discombobulating surprise of being contacted by Tim Holtz over my October tag, and being so chuffed with his comments, and not a little (actually a LOT) excited by the fantastic array of Halloween goodies that arrived in the post, I just had to find a way of keeping all that wonderful memory intact.  And yes, show off a bit. I don't get called 'brilliant' and 'amazing' very often. I like it.

So here is my memory box frame (IKEA Ribba frame), containing my tag and a scaled down version of the original email from tim and using many of the items that he sent to me.  This one is going on the wall, right in full view of my desk, so if I get a little stuck I can have a look and be encouraged to stick with it. 

Thanks again Tim and Mario, I've calmed down a little now, but still grinning quietly to myself. So lucky.

Oh, and a little decoration I did using the leaves die set I also was given.

 

These dies are gorgeous.  I cut out the leaves using a mix of papers, some of them Kraft core, some not, but all good autumn colours, or as near as I could find in my stash.  Once I had done that I distressed them by sanding edges, inking with a mix of frayed burlap and barn door distress inks, splattered them with black distress stain (from a tooth brush) to make a few black spots here and there and then covered with rock candy crackle paint.   The leaves curled all on their own as this dried.  A few of the smallest oak leaves are painted with bronze crackle paint for extra interest. 

I used a sizzix fancy chevrons card front die as a background, and distressed a piece of ribbon with mustard seed and vintage photo stains.  Not bad for a first attempt, I love the colours, very lifelike but in miniature.

 It looks like I've raided someone's bonsai garden.

Spooky Doings - Tim's Tag for October

*I love the Zombie die (and the others) that Tim used to make this months tag, but this being the UK, and therefore a month or two away from these being available, quite a lot of improvisation was required this month.

I love the dimensionality (is that even a word?) in Tim's tag, and wanted a similar 3D effect. Had no idea how to achieve it so slept on it. Amazing how your brain works, I woke up remembering I had a stash of Tim's Kraft resist Halloween themed papers, and that there was a skeleton in there somewhere.  But once I had a look I realised that the witch would be perfect for this tag, because I could colour her green to reflect Tim's tag.  And frankly she was a lot easier to layer than the skellie.

So, this is the paper, befor chopping it up

I cut out all the witch faces from one sheet, and coloured them lime green using an American Craft stamp pen as I didn't have that colour in distress pen, though I used other ones to add shading.  I then used 3 different layers to build up her face, including cheekbones, eyebrows and eyes.

Layers!

I had to cut out and layer up her hat to make it pointy, (otherwise she would be a witch from Wales) and used picket fence pen to whiten her teeth and pupils.

The background for the tag is from Tim's 8x8 Seasonal Stash, as are the 'spooky' letter squares.  I didn't have the splatter layering stencil or the black distress stain Tim used so I mixed up a bit of iced spruce and weathered wood stains and dribbled that on the background to get a similar effect, and used a random round er..thing I found in my drawer to get a 'coffee cup' stain.

I coloured some white rayon ribbon, added a spider charm and also a bit of orange rickrack to finish to tag.

 I like the wee ghostie peeking out from the back :-)

Here's a picture of everything I used, apart from a heat gun, which wouldn't fit in the picture. 

Okay, I forgot about it. :-/. Oh, and some fasteners and a loop pin.

And yes, that's a toffee hammer, used to bash a dent in the fasteners. Needs must.

I was so chuffed with this one I posted it in Facebook.  Couldn't wait for Halloween!

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Well it seems that I wasn't the only one to like this tag as, after posting my link to his 12 Tags blog, TIM HOLTZ (the MAN HIMSELF) emailed and said I was 'brilliant'! 

Woot, wooty woot woot!

I can't tell you all how overwhelmed I am with everyone's kind words, thank you to all who left a message, I really, really appreciate it.  You know how it is with crafting, it's like creating in a bubble with not much contact with the 'outside world' and to get this response is just gobsmacking.

Pressure's on for next time now!

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Summer's End

Okeydokey.  The last days of summer are gone, and the autumn equinox has just occurred, so we are properly into autumn now.  But we still have a few bees buzzing about the flowered in the garden, and it is sunny today, so that's a bonus.

The only items that he used, that I had, for Tim's September tag were the Manila and Black tags, a word band and the fasteners, and some of the inks; everything else I had to improvise.  However, I like how it turned out.  

For the background of the tag I used some iridescent glossy card that I found in my stash, and having decided to use a little bee stamp instead of butterflies, I used green, gold and yellow colours of Ranger alcohol inks to colour (sunshine yellow, ginger, sunset orange, butterscotch, meadow, and a tiny bit of stream) to represent honey.  As I didn't have the glossy texture paste I cut some acetate using Tim's honeycomb die to use instead, stuck over the background.. The Manila card is stained with fossilised amber and stormy sky spray stain. These are actually the only 2 colours of spray stain that I have so far acquired, but they work well with this colour scheme which was lucky!

The stamp is one I think I bought in Hobbycraft, and is by Knorr prandell creative.  I didn't have the frosted film so used some Wendy Vecchi modelling film, and was able to lift and shape the bee wings using a heat gun. I also put a tiny dab of DecoArt Media fluid acrylics in interference green on the bee wings and coloured the bee bodies using a Promarker in bright orange.  A bit of ribbon was stained with squeezed lemon and vintage photo stains to complete the tag.

The iridescence gives a lovely effect, hard to photograph though!  

Tim's August Tag

Oo, I liked doing this one.  Lots of lovely layers, and that's something that I ok usually struggle with.  And because of all the lovely layers it actually SITS FLAT as opposed to my usual efforts that end up a bit crumpled.  I used a black tag on the reverse as I've got quite a few of these that I never use.

I used pretty much all the same items and techniques that Tim used, except that my main figure was cut from his collage paper stash (8x8).  He looks so miserable that, along with the bronze spackled distress paint, it inspired the phrase I used (spread a little sparkle wherever you go).  My cut out words are from the Friends collection as I didn't have the dies used by Tim, but worked just as well.  The vial label at the top the tag I replaced with a 7 Gypsies label, which I aged a little by smudging with distress ink.

So here's the finished tag

Another Album and Another Album!

Jeez. Where is the summer?  It hasn't stopped raining for days, and I put the central heating on again today because it is SO COLD.  This is JULY for heavens sake,  it's been a horrible weekend, but that gave me the excuse to spend it crafting.  

I used to make quite a few mini albums, but then got sidetracked into altering things.  But I was recently asked to make a book by someone who commissioned me to make one about 3 years ago, and that has started me off making them again.  I have LOADS of paper collections in my stash, either left over from other books I made or bought and never used, so I have decided to bite the bullet and actually use them. As opposed to occasionally taking them out of the drawer and stroking them LOL...

So, the first album is a 6x6 made up using one sheet of 12x12 cardstock cut and folded to make each multi pocket (or multi flap) page.  I used the 7 Gypsies Postale papers and ephemera along with some Tim Holtz ideaology items.

I used Tim Holtz Bracket die to cut the flap shape and the Tiny Tabs and Tags die for the tab.  I also did some stamping, which is unusual for me as I'm never very confident with stamps. They are all Tim Holtz stamps from Stampers Anonymous, using Walnut Stain distress ink.

The other book I made uses DCWV papers, mostly Tattered Time collection but with some Timeless Type thrown in.  This is 9x7 and is based on the same pattern as the birthday book I posted about k last week, with a few changes.  I think this works really well. 

..

I have not decorated this one too much, to retain a masculine feel, using only some Tim Holtz metal pieces on the cover (foliage, gears and a watchface).

I'm going to put these up on eBay soon,  and hope to make a small profit to give me an excuse to buy more papers to fill my drawer again. I see G45 have reissued Steampunk Debutante in a special edition pack. Yum.

 

2 books

I I've been busy working on a commission, a book for a colleague's mum's 65th birthday, and was asked to make this because of another commissioned book for another colleague who's brother was leaving the army.  Must be doing alright, word is getting round,

This is the first commiision, an army themed book, which TBH I wasn't that enthused by.  Army paper is not the most inspiring, and I could decorate it as it had to stay masculine.  Client was happy though.

Cover

Spine with copper saucepans from eBay  (he was an army cook)

I stupidly forgot to take pictures of the finished inside pages, but only got some loose ones before fixing in the 'hidden hing' binding

And here the birthday book, agin forgot to photo the finishes pages. duh.

,,

I was lucky to find these papers in TXMaxx, for £7.99 for a book of 48 12x12 pages. what a bargain.  The colours are lovely and some pages are glittered.

I can't take credit for the design of this as I followed a YouTube tutorial which is here.  It's long but worth it. 😀

http://youtu.be/5pj3eyi1mGw

June Tag.

A quick post, as I'm busy with a book commission. Whoop.

A different take on Tim's tag as I didn't have most of the supplies.  

I liked the striped/plaid effect on the tag Tim made, but didn't have that stencil, or the ink pad to customise.  After spritzing the tag with a drop of vintage photo reinker and water using a mister bottle, I used distress pens and a ruler to get the stripes, using a variety of pressures to get the different width lines, and added Wobblieness.

Not having the coffee cup die, I decided to use one of the Artfull Dwellings houses as the centrepiece, and cut a cloud from old packaging using the movers and shapers die, backed with white distress paint.  I wasn't really sure where the tag was going, but searching through my stash for something shiny to replace the star Tim used, I found the little deer charm so that, with the 'live gently' small talk quote (on a Tattered Banner die cut) sort of gave it a theme.  I made the trees from jute threads pulled out of the fabric and a bit of dried moss. 

I gave my jute fabrics an extra long fringe at the top so it sort of looks like grass. 😄