It's Valentine's Month

 This card was made for hubby as well as a new FaceBook challenge at Country View Crafts Challenges where the theme is - 'Love'.

The background was made using Aged Mahogany Distress Stain and Tim Holtz Hearts stencil and created by mono-printing the stencil three times onto the card. Although it looks uneven and very distressed I can live with it as I knew I was going to collage over the top and therefore cover a lot of it up.

This fits an 8x8 card blank.  

The ephemera papers are mostly either from Tim Holtz Ephemera packs or cut from his paper pads.

The 3D  heart is cut from Tim's Thinlits Faceted Hearts die and VALENTINE was printed from his Valentine Silhouettes stamp set, laid out on a piece of vellum.

Here you can see how I used the vellum to create that translucent look.

These are some of the embellishing bits collected together.

The Faceted Heart has a small heart punched from one of Tim's punches and stamped with a small text stamp. The stars are also from another small punch by Tim.

Hubbly loves feeding the birds and doing a bit of bird watching from time to time so this paper came in handy.

I'm pretty sure the text letters are from a Tim die. I keep extra die-cuts in a tub so I didn't have to get the Big Shot out. You can also another of the little white hearts placed strategically in a line of hearts where there was a gap.

I also used a Season's greeting die-cut and some small snippets (also all Tim Holtz).

Thanks for stopping by.

xxx

Be Inspired

Embossed panel collage - Be Inspired

A new collage for my 'Mixed Media Collages' art book. I love combining papers and other elements to create what I feel is an interesting and balanced work of art.

The layers on this collage include texture created with an embossing folder,

a heat embossed pattern mounted onto grey card,

 ephemera pieces, a printed royal mail frank from an envelope, royalty free images from the internet,

 

punched and diecut pieces, washi tape 

and stamped images.

If you have visited today,

thank you for stopping by.

xxx

Let's use more words

 So today's project is using words again for the challenge at Country View Crafts and Challenges FaceBook page which lasts the whole of January.

Hello Winter

I decided to use the same stamp as I did on my first project but use it in a completely different way, this time it was stamped onto vellum paper. 

I used a background that I had made for a frame that was my project for a workshop at CVC before Christmas, 

plus a photobooth vintage photo, 'Hello Winter' from a set by Creative Expressions and a small flower.

I die-cut foliage, some of which I wanted white and the other pieces were cut from an inked background, coloured randomly with watercolour pencils, washed over and when dry sponged lightly with white gesso to create a wintry effect.

I chose to use the card frame from an Ikea small box frame and later added embossed card to it.

Having cut the strips, I covered the frame and gave it a coat of gesso to fill in the cracks where the strips were glued down.

Once the background and frame were added to the box I adhered all the other elements to finish it off.

I put the foliage together ....

.....and I am really in love with the extra grungy Eucalyptus leaves .....

..... the flower gained an addition, a shabbied medallion inspired by Stacy Hutchinson .....

..... and don't forget the photobooth photograph by Tim Holtz.

Thank you for stopping by. 

xxx

In My Winter Garden

 Thank you for responses here and on FaceBook about my previous two tags, it's lovely to know people are still around on the blogs and stop here for a visit.

Having made those two tags with the new Scorched Timber (ST) distress colour I next wanted to try out my new ST watercolour pencil. 

I got my first pencils as a Christmas gift and have had a little time to play with them but this was the result today, which I am quite pleased with - I think I need more practice with colouring and pulling out the ink, but otherwise I'm happy with it.

 

I used Tim's 'Flower Garden' stamps and the echinacea one reminded me of how brown the heads are in the garden at the moment so I used just the Scorched Timber which seemed the most appropriate colour for me to use. I also used hickory smoke oxide for the watery background and for stamping the handwritten text from the 'Entomology' set. To pull it all together I added some Scorched Timber wash, dried it and knocked it all back by sponging some gesso over it. It created the perfect effect allowing the flower heads to take centre stage.

 

By inking the edge of the panel with the ST distress ink I could see how much darker it is than than the oxide which I had used for the flowers, so with a fine brush and water I added some of it to give more contrast to the light and dark areas in the petals. 

To finish off, a brown panel of coredinations paper acts as the ground and die-cuts from the Festive Gatherings and Funky Florals #2 sets of dies provide the winter garden peeking from the heart panel.

 

The hearts, from Tim's 'Watercolor' set were stamped with ST distress ink on a quick dip and dry wash of distress oxide and splatters with water droplets dropped on and dried.

 

The saying is from the Small Talk stickers and completed the card.

Thanks for stopping by.

xxx 

Using Scorched Timber Oxide on my background - Tag 2

If you've seen tag one on my last post, which was yesterday, this is the follow up. 

I added lots more splatters and drips to the original background and found that by mixing both the Scorched Timber and Broken China it gave me a gorgeous patina colour so I literally smooched both colours in the oxides on my mat and with a blending tool mixed them together to create the edge colour. 

I added some stamping, stencilling and splatters of white acrylic paint before creating the collage. 

When it was dry I roughened those edges and went round giving a careful deep dark fine edge with the Scorched Timber distress ink pad.

Thanks for stopping by.

xxx

Using Scorched Timber Oxide on my background - Tag 1

The amazing Tim Holtz has just released his final new colour for the distress range. Having received the new Scorched Timber distress ink, distress oxide, distress spray stain, distress oxide spray and watercolour pencil from Susan at Country View Crafts I had to have a play and first checked it's colour tones against some other browns in the range.

 I took a piece of A4 card, cut it down so I could die-cut two tags from it and created a background using both Scorched Timber and Broken China distress oxides.

I smooshed, dipped, dripped and dried several layers and added splatters etc as well. Once I'd cut the tags I chose two mini TH stencils and added some stamping to add more detail. This time I used the distress inks rather than the oxides and blended carefully.

I picked out two photobooth photos and chose these two lovely ladies for this tag.

And finished the collages.

I think the new and yes the last colour in the distress range Scorched Timber is going to be my most favourite brown from the whole set.

Stay tuned for tag 2 which should be along tomorrow.

If you have visited today thanks for stopping by.

xxx

ORIGINAL

 A tag collage in my Mixed Media Collage art book.

The background was created with a dip, drip and dry process using Walnut Stain distress ink. The Salvaged Patina through a stencil.

The collage was built with layers of torn book papers, printed and stamped elements, hessian, thread, word sticker and washi tape.

The tag is one of 4 that were laid side by side and stamped together with a range of Tim Holtz stamps.

xxx