Some more Christmas cards

Here are 2 more cards I made a few weeks back, that I haven't had a chance to post yet.

Lin's giveaway

Lin of LB Crafts is giving away a whole load of Tim goodies on her site. Pop over and leave a comment!

Christmas Cake

Today I iced this cake for my ex-ballroom teacher, Dick. They are meant to be Robins...

Tim Holtz Tags

Goodness, I really am having problems with Blogger today! Sorry if this appears more than once, or in a strange format!

I have been making some tags, Tim Holtz style. Of course I don't have all the wonderful goodies he has, but I think I have done quite well with what I have.

This means I can also enter the Simon Says Stamp and Show this week... which is Tim Holtz techniques!

Still THAT stamp...

Can you use one stamp too many times? Nah...
This is another card from the Craft Stamper Magazine. I have coloured the background with Distress Ink, and used some sequin waste to create the dots.
The reindeer and snowflakes (Tim Holtz) are stamped in white Stazon Opaque onto acetate. The Reindeer (word) is a rub-on.

I do love that stamp...

Yes, another swirly Tim holtz reindeer... I cant help it, it is such a lovely stamp!
This card can be used in the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week - Distresss inks.
The glossy card has been coloured with distress inks (dusty concord and worn lipstick), then stamped with stazon. All the stamps are Tim Holtz.

Christmas Card

This Christmas card is inspired by an article in the lastest Craft Stamper magazine. I do so love these Tim Holtz stamps!

10 weeks till Christmas Card 1

I finally started 10 weeks till Christmas challenge!
Card 1 is a sketch.

I turned the sketch on it's side. The papers are BasicGrey, the stamps are Katzelkraft and Inkadinkadoo.

Something Shabby (Chic)

This week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge is Something Shabby.
The stamps are: PaperArtsy (part of the goodie bag won in the raffel on the ArtsyCrafts weekend), Nature quoes (in French) by Norris and JMC, and finally the background stamp is by JudiKins.
The papers are MME.

ArtsyCrafts weekend October 2010

What an amazing weekend! As always the extremely talented, Lin of LB Crafts and Leandra of PaperArtsy created these stunning projects to teach and stimulate our creative juices. Of course their wonderful helpers Blingy Lynne "Cheryl" and the 2 Marks were also on hand to sort us out.
The weekend was packed with new techniques, great ideas, wonderful colour combinations, and lots of fun and laughter. My amatuer photography does not really do the beautiful pieces justice, but it gives you an idea of what I made.
We had 3 colour choices for our 3 projects. My first choice was plae pink/pale green/silver.
The green frame is actually silver metal, painted with green.
This is a book (outside) :

Inside : the owl is in a boxed framed recess we created

My second choice was Red/Brown/Gold with this lovely deep boxed frame

Finally, our big project on Sunday was this gorgeous piece. I chose pale blue, cream and gold as my colours. My photography really doesn't do the textures and details justice, you'll have to come and visit and see it in person!

Apart from the wonderful (messy) artwork we played with, I also met some really lovely ladies to share the weekend with, and loved making new friends.
I was also very lucky, and won a goodie bag in the raffel.

All together, one of the best crafting weekends ever!

Birthday card and SSSS

A birthday card for my friend's son, Ross. It has has plenty of metal on it, so it also qualifies for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.
The photo is of Ross, in fancy dress as Captain Jack Sparrow (thanks Win).

More Christmas Plaid

I liked the Tim Holtz Christmas Tag #3 technique so much, I made some more...

A Distressed Christmas

I thought this could work for the current Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, which is distressed/sanded. This card has both
It started along the lines of Tim Holtz Tag # 3 from last year (plaid backgound using glossy card and alcohol inks - great fun)
I then stamped over it, and when the ink was dry I sanded it in places. It made the ink fade, but left a mess of ink on my sanding block :(
The edges of the card have been distressed with the Tonic Edge Distressor. The frame is coloured with distress ink, then overstamped.

Golden Anniversary Card

This card is for our friends who are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary soon. They love gardening, so I went for a more floral theme (although they may not appreciate the dandelions...)

Music card

For this card I used Distress inks (Scattered Straw, Dried Marigold, Brushed Corduroy) and mostly Darkroom Door stamps. I also added some Tom Holtz tissue tape to the bottom of the card.

Another Christmas Card

Another Christmas card, glossy card using the resist technique, embossed background, dymo words.

Simon says stamp and show - stamp-tember-hop

Another great giveaway from Simon says stamp and show this week.
The theme is Holiday Fun, and then there is a blog hop, with the chance of winning $100 from Simon says stamp (very generous - thank you!)
Here are 2 Christmas cards I made today, using the distress ink onto glossy card technique.
The images are stamped with Staz-on, as is the white stamping on the acetate.

Simon says stamp and show

Okay, I made another card inspired by Lord Tim of Holtz for Simon Says Stamp and Show this week.
Well, kind of. The materials used are very Lord Tim of Holtz, but the inspiration comes from the amazingly talented Lin Brown, and her first project on Tim's DT (see, it all comes back to him... Linda Elbourne will hopefully be impressed...)
I recreated Lin's background, using paint dabbers and Tim's alphabet masks (it was very messy and great fun). The tag is coloured with distress inks, I have used his wonderful tissue tape and (for the first time) used his tiny attacher on the picture.
I hope you like it, and I hope it is admissable for S4!

The start of Christmas cards

As Christmas is just around the corner (for card makers anyway)... I thought I'd better get started! Both of these cards take techniques and inspiration from the Tim Holtz 12 Tages of Christmas from last year. By the time he starts his 12 tags (December) I am finished my Christmas cards for the year, so I tend to do them the next year!

Sian's birthday card

Now that Sian has received her birthday card I can Blog it.
I had to go with cats (of course) and decided to use a more vintage look. The cats stamp is from Crafty Individuals.

Blog Candy

Hiya, just a quick note to say Linda Elbourne is offering Blog Candy ($50 at Simon Says Stamp), so pop on over to her blog and leave a comment.
Thanks Linda!

RSS challenge - week 26

My last card for a while... we are packing up my craft room this weekend for the move.
This is for the latest RSS challenge - 26.
The 5 ingredients I have used are : travel, film strip, brad, metal embellishment, distress.

21st sensory canvas and RSS 25 and Tuesday Taggers!

This is a different piece, and a long explanation.

The canvas is for Dave's nephew's 21st birthday - but Jamie is blind, so I tried to make a canvas as interesting as possible for someone feeling it. Hence why I call it a sensory canvas.

I am still not sure I got the layout right, but there is plenty of different textures.

It also fits in with the latest RSS challenge. As I explain the canvas I will point out the 5 RSS ingredients.

*** I have just been told by Zoechaos that this fits the Tuesday Taggers challenge - Canvas. There is also a sponsor ART FROM THE HEART, offering a full set of their new Altered Originals Sprays to one lucky winner drawn at random this week. WOW! Thanks for letting me know Zoe!

The canvas (RSS1) is painted with acrylic paints (RSS2) in cream, orange and mustard colours.

The 21 is made from grungeboard, dry embossed with cuttlebug and painted.

Jamie (the letters) are chipboard, first I used Viva Terra texture paint, then painted them mustard and highlighted the texture with red paint.

The key is grungeboard, embossed with vintage photo distress embossing powder and inked with Vintage photo Distress ink. The rusty key effect (which I got from Tim's book) is amazing, and feels like sandpaper. Very impressive.

The right corner has piece of netting glued on (from a cheese string bag)

The corners have metal corner pieces from Tim Holtz. (Well, not from him personally...)

Above the 21 is an eggshell collage (RSS3) set in Glossy accent to make it 3D (RSS4). This was fun - I used my eggshell set in very thick Glossy accent (I used very thick cardboard to stop it warping). I coloured the eggshell and glossy accent with alcohol inks (RSS5) in butterscotch, espresso and gold. I used krylon gold pen around the edges of the thick card.

I did some music stamping in the background (and clear embossed it to raise it), and stamped swirls around the edges.

There are 3 ribbons on the side, each made of different material (silky and velvet), these are stapled to the metal embelishments.

The charms are a small key, a music note and also from the Tim Holtz collection : clock hands/pointers which I have layered with small washers to allow them to move.

Phew, I think that's all! It was great fun to make, and I hope he enjoys it.

Isa Birthday card

I'm a bit behind in my blogging! This card was for Isabelle's birthday.
The paper is Basic Grey, the stamps are PaperArtsy and Crafty Individuals.

RSS challenge - week 23

The challenge this time includes the ingredients :

House(s)
Purple, Turquoise and Lime
Handwritten Script
Rectangles
Acetate

My card is a rectangle, and the background colours are Adirondak Eggplant, Stream and Citrus (Purple, Turquoise and Lime). The houses are PaperArtsy, stamped onto metal with Stazon, then I made a tape sandwich, cut them out and use my Dabbers (Stream and Purple Twilight) to add some colour.
The acetate is stamped with Stazon Cotton White, using the event stamps from last years ArtSpecially. Sorrt they dont show that well in the picture, they are much clearer in real life.
Lazy summer is handwritten, and framed with a retanglular metal frame, that has been coloured with Alcohol inks (stream and raisin).
I think that covers it all.

Dave's Birthday

This is the card and "D" I made Dave for his 50th birthday.

For the card I used a Tim Holtz mask and a mix of Bundled Sage and Stormy Sky Distress Inks . I then stamped using the same colours with various PaperArtsy and Art Journey stamps.

The 50 is made from Grungepaper (I printed a 50 on paper, then used it as a template), which is painted with Kaiser Colour Paints - Olive.

The D is a Paper Mache letter from The Craft Barn. I primed it with Gesso, then painted it with Dabbers - Butterscotch and Stream.

The stamps are again a mix of PaperArtsy and Art Journey. The "Dave" is chipboard letters, painted with Stream. The quotes down the side of the "D" are from a quote sheet of stamps (I cant remember the shop name - sorry)

Houses card

I decided to do a card with (mostly) PaperArtsy and (for the butterflies) Crafty Individuals stamps.
The distress inks are Tumbled Glass, Stormy Sky, Brushed Corduroy. The paper for the house (body) is Basic Gray and the roof is TenSecond Studio Dijon.

A wooden Box

When I was in Canada visiting Isabelle she took me to a craft store (I forget the name of the store), where I got this lovely little wooden box. I only remembered to photograph it after I had started priming it, but I am sure you get the idea of what it looked like when I started.

After priming I painted it with Adirondak Sandal paint (about 3 coats), and added streaks of Viva Copper metal paint.

The stamping is done with Adirondak Rust and using Artifacts Butterfly Kisses stamps.

The "T" on the top is a grungebaord letter under copper metal, using Ten Second Studio tools to embellish the metal. It has been painted with Adirondak Espresso and Sandal to create a more distressed look.

To create the butterflies I painted some card with Sandal and Copper paint, then punched with a Martha Stewart punch.

I dont really think the photos do it justice, but they are the only way I can share the work!

Tim Holtz inspired card

For my birthday my sister bought me the new Tim Holtz book (A Compendium of Curiosities). It is an amazing book, with loads of inspiration. So I decided to make a card using some of his ideas (as I see them).
The stamps are all from Art Journey, the masks are Tim Holtz, distress inks are Barn Door, Pine Needles and Stormy Sky.

RSS challenge - week 20

Another RSS challenge :

The ingredients are :

Angel

Turquiose, White, Silver and Black

1 Ribbon and lace

Heart

Wood

My angel is a stamp by Art Journey (as are the backgound leafy stamps), the background is plain card smeared with Viva Turquoise metal paint (so although you can't see it in the photo, it shimmers). The heart is made of wood, painted silver (it is from Embelliscrap).
Yep, I think I have all 5 ingredients in here. I hope you like it.

Tango...

This card was made with the wonderful stamps from Louise's Art Journey stamps.
I decided to go with Black and White (and a touch of Tango Red) to add to the drama. I hope you like it.

RSS challenge - week 19

This was a great Ready Steady Stamp challenge, with some unusual ingrediants (as always):

Letter M

Purple, Pink, Green, Black

Stamped flowers

Gesso on your background

Rubber

I have managed them all (phew)...the letter M is obvious; pink card, with purple and green edging, Maralyn is matted onto black. I have stamped flowers (some stamped in gesso), and the purple stripe under Maralyn's name is a piece of painted rubber band.

Kim's birthday card

I made this card for the lovely Kim's birthday.
I used my new distress inks - Rusty Hinge and Wild Honey. The stamps are Darkroom Door, and the gorgeous butterfly is Prima Marketing, bought from Crafts U Love.