Burlap Bling

All of a sudden, I am loving glass!  These are used Yankee candle jars from the thrifty store.  I melted the used was out of the 2 larger ones, but the candle in the small one had not been lit, so I left it.

I used sheet music paper, glitter ribbon, broken jewelry, and burlap on this one.  The die cut is from Elizabeth Craft.  That's a large distressed key hanging from the right side.

For the middle one - mostly the same things.  But dictionary paper this time.

for this little one, the front flower, I stamped music on fabric and then die cut it.  The flowers are all from Sizzix - the Tim Holtz line.

I think they turned out great.  Here's my tip when working with burlap (the kind you get at Walmart).  It is so loosely woven that when you die cut it, the leaves fall off.  Simply adhere it to paper before you die cut it.  It will keep the burlap from fraying and keeps the fabric from flopping around.  These little jars are going to be part of a larger display in a few more days.  :o)

Diecuts under glass

I've been collecting dressforms for some time....and collecting dressform diecuts as well.  Then I picked up this 3" tall dome at a craft show and knew it was going to be the home of my diecuts.

I threaded some rayon ribbon around the bottom and some thin vines in the front.  

I think there's a total of 7 dress forms - each one a different size.  Only 1 is a wood diecut that I purchased, the rest are paper.

Isn't it fun to just play?  I'm teaching die cuts tonight at our BackRoom Babes group.....I just know we are going to have a blast!!!

All those empty cricut boxes

Now that Michaels sells this nifty little organizer to put your books and cartridges in - what did you do with all those empty boxes?

I set off to decorate a few of mine!  I loved the old dioramas that we made in grade school and these boxes are the perfect size for them!

Here's the front of the box.  diecuts, flowers, pearls, bling.  Love this paper!

a diecut dressform and then Jolee's stickers - really!  And prima velvet flowers. 

So my cricut box is now a perfect closet!

But then I found some old battery operated lights and decided I needed to do something to use them.  This was a bit more difficult as I literally built a faux back to the box to hide the battery and wires so I still had the full depth of the box to play with.  This one has to stay open, the first one can be closed.

The lights are on the top left side of the open box.

The deer are die cuts.  The 3D snowmen are ornaments from the thrift store.  Tim Holtz trees.  The snowflake border diecut across the top, ok lots of die cuts.  You'll have to look at these closeups...and I made the tissue paper tensile  on the bottom.

The deer are cut in glitter paper, and there's loads of crystal stickles glitter that just doesn't show up.  vintage blue rayon ribbons.  Even a tiny little bird in the tree.  It's so much fun to have to hunt to find all the little things buried in this former cricut box!

I do think I love doing dimensional paper art like this and diecuts just make it so much fun!  Most of these are from Memory Box.  Even the paper in the background is gorgeous.

So once again, what did you do with your empty cricut boxes???

Alcohol ink and beeswax on leather???

Tim will probably pass out!  LOL!!!  But I wanted to do some leather tooling and didn't want to spend $10 on a bottle of leather ink, so here we go.....

First, I took a blank knife sheath and traced the design into it, then cut it out (now if you haven't done this, take a class first!)

After that I used my craftools to pound and hammer to give the whole thing lots of dimension and texture.  Took about 3 hours to do this one. But then, it's been 20 years since I've done much leather work.

Using a paintbrush, I painted alcohol inks on the leaves and acorns to give it color.  Used 8 different colors of inks.  And then used caramel for the background and expresso to distress the edges.  I think it came out pretty cool.

I did not want a "new" look like they will show you on Tandy's website - I wanted it distressed.  You can click on these photos to get a closer look.

I think the distress look on the handle is exactly what I was going for - but notice the edges as well!

I normally use a Tandy product to seal my leather, but found online that you can use a mix of melted beeswax and olive oil to protect the leather.  I tell you what - I love it!  I painted the wax on to the leather and then set it with my Heat-it tool.  Totally cool!!!

This is a gift for my brother-in-law as I saw the one he made in high school is falling apart.  I like that it looks old, not new.....but that it's new, so it should last for years to come.

Who knew I'd be using Ranger products on leather?  What next?  LOL!!!

Too stinking cute!

Tim Holtz. Sigh. Beyond brilliant! I absolutely love how he packages his product. Did you see this? His new diecut machine.....in a suitcase!

It's electronic. Has a 1 hp motor in it. The sides fold down and you just pass the dies through it. Will cut chipboard, grungeboard. Pretty cool. He demo'd it at CHA. I think it's coming out in July.

So, if you are looking for an electronic diecut machine that is so darn cute you're going to want to take it everywhere you go......this is the one!

I did really like the dies that he's come out with. The aperatures are positionable - so you can make the openings wherever you want them to be. Alterations by Sizzix. Look for them soon! They will work in your Wizard or Big Shot/Kick machines.

Even more Alcohol Ink on Friendly Plastic

Well, like I said...it's hard to quit! And just so much fun!!! For this one, I inked a flat piece of white Friendly Plastic, then put a rubon on top of it, covered it with a fragment and silver tape around the edges. I will be busy all week making pendants out of these!

This is a Tim Holtz stamp - with just a light impression into the Friendly Plastic. Drenched it with blending solution and dropped the ink on and just let it ooze over the impressions. I will have to do some more of these. His collage stamps are going to be perfect!

This was just a flat piece of Friendly Plastic and I used a fine tip #00 brush to drag the ink through 91% rubbing alcohol. I really do like this technique. So easy to do and you get a different design with every single stroke.

Same background technique here, a rubon on the top. But then I painted pearl AI down one side of each petal and painted Pitch Black AI in the center of each petal.

I really think we have only touched the surface of what you can do with Friendly Plastic and alcohol inks. I want to add metal flakes to this, use more Opals, try out different techniques. The ideas are just endless. But I have to wait for Peg to get back over here - this is going to be "our" thing - experimenting on these little 1 1/2" tiles. And in between experiments - I need to work on bezels so I can turn all of these into pendants!

Friendly Plastic cleans stazon ink off stamps!!!

Peg and I were playing with Friendly Plastic today. I have numerous red rubber stamps with tons of stazon ink on them.....and no matter how much cleaner or what kind of cleaner I use....the ink won't come off. But here's something for you to try.....

Cut a square of white Friendly Plastic, put is on a silpat sheet on the baking pan and heat at 180 degrees until it is soft. While still on the griddle, press your stamp deep into the plastic and let it set for 1 minute. Then take the entire pan and dip it down into cold water for 5 minutes.

Remove from the water and pull the stamp off the plastic. The stazon will transfer to the plastic and your stamp will come out exactly like it was brand new.....not a trace of ink!!! I did part of this stamp in plastic so you can see the difference:




So, with the ink in the plastic, you have a great opportunity to take alcohol inks and use them as paint. For this one, I simply put a dot of ink on my non-stick craft sheet, then using a tiny round #00 brush, I painted it directly on the plastic on the image. Let that dry. Then using 91% rubbing alcohol, paint the edges around the image and immediately add little drops of alcohol ink and watch them run. Use your paint brush to pull the ink through the alcohol and get some wonderful designs. I then covered this piece with one of Tim Holtz fragments and wrapped the edges with silver tape. It's ready now for me to turn into a pendant!



Did the very same techniques for this cute little princess stamp. Oh, I used the new "Brights" AIs.



And I LOVE how this one turned out. We are just doing little 1 1/2" squares of white Friendly Plastic for these. I used a Brush20 for my 91% rubbing alcohol and let it drizzle over the plastic. And I did press the stamp quite deep as I wanted depth for this piece....but you can get some equally great looks with a faint impression.



Check back tomorrow night for even more pieces. A whole day of just experimenting with Peg - I think it's going to be an addicition I have to keep!

Improving past art

I think it was the summer of 2006 and Tim Holtz was in Ft Collins and I took a bunch of classes from him. We made watch pendents. So I thought how cool it could be to add paper type silver to what I had already done.

I added the kitty cat, 2 flowers and dragon fly.



Now, you have to look at that for a minute.

Do you see "time" under the magnifying glass? I'm trying to expand my time!

Do you see the Indiana license plate? That's where I grew up.

The little girl is reading a book.

On the handle of the magnifying glass it says "play" and to the right below that it says "artist". Most days I think I just play at being an artist!

There's a compass and tiny little watch parts that float around inside the watch.

Tim said that the difference is in the details. I have to agree....I love making art that has meaning to me. Obviously this piece is not going to be for sale. Oh, did I mention that? Almost everything I've been showing here is up for sale at the Metal Clay World Conference. What I bring home...I think I'll have to open an Etsy store!

Queen of Flakes

Some days, I just sit here and crack up! "Queen of Flakes" - ok, that's SNOW flakes - not me! LOLOL!



I started doing Tim's tag today....but I think I got totally side swiped! I don't do Christmas, and I didn't have any grungeboard that I liked, so I decided to use acrylic crowns to start with. From Accent Scrapbooking - great local Colorado Company! (If nothing else, I LOVE Colorado companies!!!)

I think the crackle distress paint turned out fine on acrylic. For the top one, I used a very light coat of antique linen crackle paint and put cranberry alcohol ink over it. For the bottom one, I used Aged Mahogany Crackle Paint with copper alcohol ink over it. I decided I liked the bottom one best.



This is one of my fav things to do....put a bunch of stamps on the same block. Using After Midnight snowflakes here, really small because remember, this is just an ATC sized card.



Keep in mind that they will stamp in "reverse"



I actually ended up covering the entire card with snowflakes.



I didn't have a sentiment stamp that I liked, so I used a versamark pen and wrote my title, then used Queen's Gold embossing poswer on it. It just didn't pop enough, so I outlined it with a black sharpie pen. All of the snowflakes are from Creative Impressions in Colorado Springs.

I used a water brush and painted Stickles on the stamped snowflakes (be sure to stick the brush in water right after you finish this one!) and I used Stickles to embellish the crown. Oh, and I did get a rubon in the background - but it's almost completely covered up.

So I think I did all the steps Tim did....but it sure looks different! I have so much stuff I just can't see going out and buying what he uses....so I'll just keep on making modifications and play with what I have! Learning how to alter someone elses instructions just makes it all the more fun to play!!!

Brrrr......

So, the older I get, the less I like Colorado weather. It is just too cold. Yesterday, bitter wet winds that just blew right through you. Today, I was out working on the jacuzzi. Tomorrow - bitter cold and more snow. I WANT FLORIDA!!! Or Phoenix! Or San Diego.....Brazil....you know, anywhere where I can get warm and stay that way.

OK, without hot summers! LOLOL!

In the meantime, I played along with Tim again today and here's my version.




BUT....here's what I did differently:

Instead of using white crackle paint for the snowman (which I made from 3 circle dies - so easy!) - I painted my chipboard white, then spread crackle accents on it with my finger, then heated that When you heat crackle, it bubbles up and really makes such a cool texture! Then I painted white acrylic paint over that. A completely different look!

I used stickles for the arms and hats. For the eyes, I just used a sharpie pen and then put dots of glossy accents on top of that.

And finally, I made my snow mixing Franklin & Abalone Opals with Diamond Dust and Glossy Accents. Put that all down and then drizzled glossy accents over it.I wanted the look of melting snow...since you just never know what the weather is going to be like around here!

And the snowflakes stamped on the background are from After Midnight Stamps.

Sorry, I didn't have grungeboard, or white UTEE or....or....or....so I just reinvented the wheel using what I had. And since I'm doing mine all on ATCs....I have to downsize as well! Have to admit...I LOVE the snow!

Are you playing along with Tim?

If not, why not? He is doing some fantistic tags in his Twelve Days of Christmas series. And no....you don't have to make them holiday themed - just use all of the techniques in the same project.

Today is day 6 and here's my interpretation of what he did:



And no, I didn't have anything that he had....I just used what was in my studio. Well, I do have daubers and alcohol ink and distress ink....but the rest of it I just picked from what I had. But I did each step that he did - all 44 of them! Mine is on an ATC so I can add it to my samples to look at when my brain goes dead! LOL!

Let's face it, Tim is a genius! And I had the honor of being on Ranger's Design team, learning from him, watching him at "work". Well, I really don't think I can say Tim works at all.....I think he just plays!!!