The Dragonfly Project

Good morning Bloggies! I spent yesterday working on a project that has been on my mind. I really wanted to use this shadow box that I found at a thrift store last year and it's been sitting in my craft room untouched since I bought it. I finally got to it and made something with it. 

I didn't really do step by step instructions this time because it was taking up all of my brain function to just think of how this was going to go. I had a bunch of snags and re-dos on it. I used one of my favorite stamp sets for the Dragonfly from Tim Holtz, it's one of the Classic sets he brought back this year and I just love it!! 

You can see some of the new stamp sets here: Simon Says Stamp Store 

I am going to enter it into the new  

Simon Says Stamp and Show

Challenge this week. The new challenge is "For the Love of Sparkle." I used my sparkle on the purple portion of the flowers inside the box. I actually covered those with Tim Holtz Brushed Pewter distress stain and then wiped them a little bit so they weren't silver but just sparkly (that stuff really sparkles) I also used the gold shimmer goodness on the outside around the edges.  I also used brushed pewter on the underside of the wings (those were made out of Wendy Vecchi's Clearly For Art) so the shimmer would show on the outside of them.

The paper underneath the dragonfly was brushed onto with some of Tim's Tarnished Brass Distress stain to add a touch of shimmer. The shimmer on this project is hard to see in the pics but it really looks nice in person and it's not too much, just a little sparkle goes a long way.

 

Halloween ATC for All Things Tim Yahoo Group

For the All Things Tim yahoo group this month we are having the theme of Halloween. I just love this theme so I was really into this swap. 
I took some of the Tim Holtz Halloween decorative paper, cut it into ATC sizes and ran it through the Big Shot with the brick wall embossing folder. 

 When that was done I then took Gathered Twigs and Black Soot Distress Ink and Ran it over the embossing in order to enhance it and make it stand out some. 

 

After that I covered each one with Ranger Crackle Paint and it really made the details pop. I then sat those aside to dry completely.

Waiting for the backgrounds to dry I then took some cardstock and covered it again with the Tim Holtz decorative tape in the spider web design and then painted it, just like I did with the Rolodex cards. Only this time I stamped it with Tim Holtz ticket stamp "Happy Halloween" from the Odds and Ends stamp set. Then those were cut down to size.

I then stamped the frame from the Tim's new stamp set Mini Halloween and embossed it in black. I used an exacto knife to cut out the centers.

I used Tim's metal tape and stamped the skull from the same stamp set to make it look like a mirrored image and adhered that to the back of the mirrors.

I used Tim fragments and cut out some black number from Tim's strip alphabet die and adhered those to the back of the fragments to make the date 31.

Once all that was done and the backgrounds were dry I put everything together and added these straight pins with half black moons (don't remember where those came from)

Hope these are spooky enough for the Hallween swap :)

I am submitting this into this weeks Simon Says Stamp and Show

Challenge for this week. The theme is Tape It Up!!

FUN!!!

I am just loving how the background came out on these, it really looks like a brick wall and the paper gives it a really cool color. None of them came out exactly alike.

 

 

 

Halloween Project With Tim Holtz's Metallic Distress Stain

It has been way too long since I've been able to post and also work in my craft room. I'm having craft withdraws. I've actually been trying to get into my craft room since last week and FINALLY got in there today to do some much needed crafting and catching up on things. 
I am in several swaps and most are Halloween themed and since I just love Halloween I was really excited to do this. 
The first swap I'm in is the Rolodex and I decided to go a little more grungy this time. Brights have been my go-to lately and I thought I would go dark and grungy for this one. 
I just bought Tim Holtz new Metallic Distress stains in each color and I really wanted to use them so I decided to go with Tarnished Brass for the background on these and boy am I glad I did, this stuff is "to die for", I just love it!!! It's metallic shimmery goodness in a jar!
This is a picture of my background after I used the stain.

  It might be hard to see in the picture but it's beautiful. Once that was done I used a piece of cardstock and made a circle to use as a mask for the moon. I used Tim's Distress Inks in the colors Gathered Twigs, Aged Mahogany and Black soot around the circle so that the moon would just pop. 

I then used the spider web in the Trick Or Treat Tim Holtz stamp set and stamped on top of all of that with the Adorondak black stamp pad. 

Once that was done and pretty dry I used two stamps, the spider is from Tim's new set called Mini Halloween and the black bird is from Memory Box, I embossed those with black embossing powder. Then I added one small red gem to the spider to make her a black widow.

Here is a pic of that:

I love how the moon just pops off the page and the entire card is full of shimmery goodness from the metallic stain.

Once that was finished I took some plain colored cardstock and added the spider web tissue tape to it and colored over the tape with Adirondak paint dabbers in gold and espresso to give it more of a grungy feel. I then stamped the Happy Halloween from Tim's Mini Halloween stamp set and cut it down to make a banner ribbon, the banner was then stapled onto the top.

 I added some cotton ball for a cloud and wallah!! 

Happy Halloween!!!

Patchwork Pandemonium

I recently blogged about the class that I took with Tim Holtz and showed you a picture of my patchwork piece from the class. However, my piece was unfinished, I had layed out all the pieces on it but nothing was attached yet. All the background grunge board was done I just needed to attach the findings and do all the finishing touches. I took today and used it to do all of this and worked on finishing it, I wanted to share my finished piece with you. I added the stitching, and I used my raffle ticket from the class inside the glass vial. I also put the name of the workshop on the large red square, along with 2012. This was so much fun to work on and finish. Now to find the perfect spot in my house for it. Plus, I will be hanging it from my antique hanger!!! YAY!!

Tim Holtz Classes At the Queen's Ink

I was lucky enough to be able to take some two of Tim's classes yesterday at The Queen's Ink in Maryland. I have to say, that I was in awe to actually get to meet Tim and spend the day learning from him. What a special treat!!
The first class was called Heart and Soul and it was great, we took this paper mache' heart and box and made them amazing, so many fun and wonderful techniques. Here is a picture of my finished product....

I love how grungy it came out and how it looks like metal and the stitches are super easy too!! Who knew??

I also was lucky enough to take Tim's Patchwork Pandemonium class as well. Oh my word, it's SO worth it, if you ever have a chance to take this class, DO IT!! There are so many techniques and ideas and it's just a fun fun class. It's a long class, but who doesn't love sitting in a room with Tim and just listening to him talk?? I enjoyed it immensely. Here is a picture of my finished piece. I still have to adhere some of this but this is what it will look like finished.

Of course the classes were full of  give-a-ways and Tim surprises. Tim is so generous, he gave us a pack of Grunge Blocks for our project and some Alpha Parts newsprint style. The biggest thing though was Tim actually brought us all our very own antique hanger for our patchwork pieces. We all felt like we were sitting on the Oprah 12 favorites show, it was amazing!! Thank you Tim!!

Last but not least, my AllThingsTim yahoo group made rolodex cards for Tim to enjoy and I gave the set and base to Tim after class. He really loved it and was so happy to have something from the group. 

 It was a super fun day and I really wish I could have taken the classes today as well but alas I could not. This was my very first classes with Tim and I loved it!! I had a blast and will not forget this wonderful experience. What a treat it was to be able to take classes with Tim and meet him. 

 

Christmas!! Really??!!

Ok, so seriously, I am actually in a swap on AllThingsTim yahoo group and it's a Christmas patchwork pandemonium type of swap. I'm actually really excited about this swap and it's always good to get these themes done really early so that we can have these items back before Christmas. At any rate, my piece was supposed to be 3x4 in size and the theme was Christmas of course. Since it's the Tim Holtz group, I had to go a little grungy! Right!? I actually went through some of my tags from last years 12 Tags of Christmas and found my favorite elements from all twelve and sort of comprised them into one for this piece. 
I used distress inks in the seasonal Christmas colors and my white picket fence paint dauber for the background. I did use a Stampin' Up flourish stamp for some of this part because I really love the large flourishes that it had. I also spritzed it with silver perfect pearls. Here is a close up picture of my background.

After that I used Claudine Hellmuth's sticky back canvas and adhered it to grunge paper and cut out the reindeer with Tim's Reindeer Flight Die,  inked the edges with "vintage photo" distress ink. I used one of Tim's stamps to stamp the music sheet onto it and spritzed it with silver perfect pearls.

Once that was done I used brown packing paper (the kind that comes in a roll) and cut out a tag with Tim's Ticket Strip Die and stamped onto it with the Christmas stamp using red and green distress ink. I used glossy accents to go over the "25" and added a little red smooch for the berries. Distressed the edges a bit and went over them with Vintage Photo distress ink as well. 

I cut out the greenery with Tim's Festive Greenery and grunge paper (love that stuff).... and sanded it a bit to give it a weathered look. I used Tim's tissue wrap to make the flower, just like Tim does in the tag on day 12. I just made a smaller version. I inked up the edges with Smooch red and spritzed with perfect pearls. I added the berries, gems and also the pearls last. Hope you like it and I hope all the swappers love it too. Now to make 26 more of them!!! haha!!! Again,

 my picture taking skills are terrible so the cards looks crooked but I promise it's totally straight. lol

I am entering this in this weeks Simon Says Stamp & Show

Challenge - the theme is "NO RULES" YAY!!

 

Steampunk Journal Page

Finished this page today for a challenge on one of my Yahoo groups. This one gave me some fits and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to finish it but I sat in my craft room today until it was done. I love steampunk so I'm surprised that it was so tough for me. 
I am really loving the bright colors so this time instead of grunge I went with brights. Maybe that's why it was so tough. 
First thing I did with this page was used some wall spackle from Home Depot and a template to create the dimension on the left hand side of the page. That needs to dry for quite some time and at the time I had no idea what I was going to do with the page, I just wanted to try the spackle. haha! So it's been sitting around for quite some time. When I got the journal challenge and saw that it was Steampunk, I knew that I wanted to use this page for it. The page was completely white so I sprayed it with a combo of Dyan Reaveley sprays and the Tim Holtz color wash sprays. It made for some bright goodness! I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Black Soot to go over the spackle and make it stand out much better.
After that I worked on stamping the background a little with misc stamps and  also used black paint and a gear stencil. 
Everything else just kind of came here and there for the page, I wrote the words out on cardstock and cut them out all crooked and made "tickets" out of the words on the left side.
There is a mixture of Tim Holtz Die cute and Wendy Vecchi stamps for the page to come together.