Postcard Project

I have decided that I want to start making more postcards instead of so many tags. I want a good way to store my projects that I don't plan on giving away or using in some other way. I have this 7 Gypsies recipe card tray that I'm using to hold all my 4x6 cards. I put feet on it too, using Tim Holtz Idea-ology foundations feet. I've decorated all the tabs and have added a few Journal prompts from a swap I was in on my AllThingsTim yahoo group. That front card was made with some awesome Graphic 45 paper.

For this project I had to join a few challenges (of course) here is a list of the challenges I'm joining with this one...

Hobby Cutz - This week they are challenging us to add some flowers and or roses to our projects.

Octopode Factory - Their challenge this week is "Lovely Ladies", I really like this theme. 

613 Avenue Create - This week is Anything Goes! Woot!

This is going to be a bit of a rushed post, so here we go....

To start I used Coordination's Craft Core dark brown paper and ran it through the Big Shot inside a Tim Holtz gear embossing folder, then used my handy dandy sander and sanded it up.

I then used Gathered Twigs Distress Ink and went over the raised parts in order to highlight them more

I then did something I haven't done in awhile and got out my perfect pearls, I dusted the background with Heirloom Gold and spritzed and heated to set

Tore printed paper, edged with gathered twigs

Cut flowers with tattered flowers strip die, went around edges with marker and then stamped with Archival and Wendy Vecchi numbers. Made more and layered them.

(got this technique from Clare Lloyd over at Unruly PaperArts)

Ran ribbon through antiqued bronze distress paint, dried to set

made a bow

Colored my Octopode Factory Audrey Gal with a combo of distress markers, gel pen, colored pencils and copic markers

Here is alink to Lilly's shop if you want to check out her digi stamps 

Lilly Chivers

Added some Tim Holtz Film strip with the mini stapler

Put everything together and here is how it turned out....

These flowers are so cool, I added buttons to the center

I also edged the entire card with my metallic marker

I also added some of Tim's Metal ide-ology gears

Thanks again for stopping by, I hope you are a designer of your own dream!! 

Happy Day to you!!!

12 Tags of 2013 March

I am usually better about getting my 12 tags done before mid month but this month I'm a little bit behind. At any rate, I sat down today and finished it. YAY!
Here is the link to Tim's creation 12 Tags of 2013

Tim did this wonderful bunny tag using tinsel, alcohol inks, distress paint and all sort of goodness. 
I followed along pretty closely but since I'm doing the smaller ATC sized for my graphic 45 display I had to "tweak" a few things. 
So short story here...... I went to one of my favorite craft stores yesterday called "The Queen's Ink", I know a lot of you have heard of it. It's an amazing store in Savage Maryland. While I was there I was looking for the Bunny (Easter Elements) movers and shapers die and also the grass (tapered fringe) Die. She (The Queen Herself) was out of stock of both of them so she offered (how sweet she is) to give me one that was already cut. She is too kind and I accepted her offer, I really wanted to finish my creation for the month. If your ever near her store, make sure to stop by, it's amazing!!
Since I had my bunny and grass I decided to cut the frame out of a cool piece of vintage looking pink paper. I really liked this paper and then I simply took the die cut that I got at The Queen's Ink and drew it out and excato knifed it in order to make my bunny window. 

(Sorry I didn't take many pics this time, totally forgot)

For the grass I had to cut mine down a bit because I didn't have enough room for the full length of the grass. I also edged it with Walnut Stain distress ink. 

I also used alcohol inks in Juniper and Ginger to color my tinsel. 

For the paint part, I combined the colors Antique Linen,  picked raspberry and Vintage Photo in order to make the exact color that I needed to match my paper.

It worked out great, the color matched to the T. I used that color to paint a petal of my flower.

These are the other paint colors that I used on this project. I painted another small petal and also a piece of plastic packaging for the egg.

I also added a sentiment "Happy Easter" inside of a Idea-ology charm and hung it on the side of my Bunny.

Here is my finished piece and pics of it inside my tray.

The egg was made with Tim's Facet charm packaging. I just painted (with distress paint) the inside of one of the bubbles that looked like an egg and then cut it out.

I had painted the outside of it with crackle paint but I didn't like it so I took it off and just went with the distress paint. Much better!

Thanks for stopping by.

Blue Print Butterfly Shadow Box

I have to admit I have been in sort of a slump for a short bit and haven't been partaking in my usual challenges last week or the week prior so I decided I better get into my craft room and just do what I love.
WARNING: Lots of Pictures and long post. :) Grab some coffee!!

When I saw that Tim Holtz challenged us over at his blog Here to use our Sizzix tattered floral die, I knew I had to do this. I also wanted to join in on Simon Says Stamp and Show this week. Their challenge is to use a stamp that we love but never use. 
I have had this Easter Blueprints Tim Holtz stamp set for a bit and I bought it because I just love the butterfly (you know me and butterflies, I have a soft spot for them) so I decided that this was the stamp I was going to use for this challenge. I haven't used it yet and I always eye it when I go into my stash.
I wanted to make another shadow box (I had made a smaller one here ) for this project and I got this really ugly 8x10 one that someone had painted orangish/red at the thrift store. Since I'm covering it anyway I didn't need to re-paint it. I used Tim Holtz tissue tape in several different designs to cover the outside. 

I then used the gold distress stain to add a bit of gold shimmer to it. (please excuse my messy craft area)

I then went through my paper stash and I have this wonderful Graphic 45 paper so I used that for my background. I grunged some of the edges on the smaller pieces and added Distress Ink in Gathered Twigs. I also used some tissue tape and gold distress stain on the smaller papers. I also stamped my butterfly onto the the brown colored sheet for my background. (didn't picture that sorry)

Once that was done, I set them aside to dry. I then stamped my butterfly on a sheet of blank white paper and embossed it with Ranger black embossing powder. I then colored and highlighted with distress markers in various colors.

I then created my set of wings with Wendy Vecchi's Clearly for Art. If you haven't use this stuff, it's fantastic. I can't say enough about it. I colored my clearly for art wings with Alcohol inks in various colors. 

I used the same technique with the clearly for art with my flowers. Layering the colors as I went, once that was done you can heat it up and shape it however you want to. If you don't like it, heat it up again and re-shape. The stuff is soooo cool.!!

I also used a background stamp to stamp an image onto one of the larger flowers (clearly for art piece) so that it would match the paper I used. I used Archival Ink in Sepia for this so it would be permanent.

Once that was done I heated these up and shaped them the way I wanted them to look. I'm sorry I forgot to take a picture of that process.

I also created some flowers with the same paper that I used for the background and inked up the edges with Gathered Twigs distress ink.

For one of my other large flowers I used perfect medium to go around the petals edges and then used this really cool Stampendous embossing tinsel. It's shimmery and has a glitter tinge.

I went over this petal with gathered twigs as well. 

This is what the flowers looked like once they were put together. I added a brad to each one.

I love the way they came out, so rusty and grungy looking. The Clearly For Art really gave me the effect that I wanted. So cool!!

Here is my project once I put it all together.

Before I put it in the shadow box. I also added some flourishes from one of Tim's movers and shapers dies. 

I made the little bead pins here as well. I just put together some beads that matched onto a head pin.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed the  shadow box I made. :)

I need to find some more of shadow boxes at the thrift store, I enjoy making these.