Thursday, March 31, 2016

March Guest Post for AJVD

Howdy! Today I have a guest post over at the AJVD blog. Check out the spring themed birthday card and learn a helpful tip for stretching your supplies! ;-)


Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2016 - March as ATCs


Hello! Wow, where did March go? I'm cutting it close with my March Tim tag project. ;-) I decided to make ATCs using the techniques from his tag (see the tutorials on his blog). I can always use more ATCs, my trading group is an insatiable lot lol.


The butterfly card adheres more closely to Tim's adaptation, but I diverged from it more with the seahorse card. I'm very happy with both though and I'm also having fun playing with the Distress Crayons!

I'm also going to submit this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge - Ranger focus.

Thanks for stopping by! The supplies I used for this project can be found at Sizzix or Simon Says Stamp. Follow the links below and a shopping you may go. ;-)


Friday, March 25, 2016

Graniteware Easter Egg

Happy Easter! It feels so early this year; I can't believe it's Sunday. I may not have gotten any candy for the kids yet but I did get a little decorative Easter egg made. Priorities! I have a stash of paper mache eggs and I figured I should get at least one decorated this year.


I made a faux graniteware egg by following this tutorial by Wendy Vecchi. This is such a great technique and I've used it several times on various projects (like these ATCs). To make the "enameled" flowers I tapped the metal flowers with the Emboss It Dabber and sprinkled on various colors of embossing powder. Be careful because that metal gets super hot as you are embossing!

I'm going to enter my egg into the Easter Egg Decorating Challenge on the Ranger blog.

Thanks for stopping by! Most of the supplies I used for this project can be found at Simon Says Stamp. Follow the links below and a shopping you may go. ;-)




Monday, March 21, 2016

Felt Needle Book with Eileen Hull's Stitchlits Flowers

Happy Monday! I think I'm getting used to the daylight savings time change now so this Monday is certainly happier than last Monday. It's happy spring now too! To celebrate I'm sharing a colorful and flowery project with you – a needle book decorated with the Flower & Leaf Stitchlits die set.


The body is cut out of thick felt using the Needle Book die. This is the first time I've actually used it to make a true needle book. It's very useful for all sorts of projects! (see HERE and HERE) All the flowers were cut from wool felt I found at my local quilt store. Some of the flower dies in the set cut stitch holes as the flower is cut:





It's easy to use these as a guide as you are stitching with the embroidery floss. I also added vintage buttons from my stash and a snap for a closure. Inside I stitched a lining of pink wool and added a page for the needles:



I also created ATCs similar to this project which you can see HERE.

Thanks for stopping by! The supplies I used for this project can be found at Sizzix or Simon Says Stamp. Follow the links below and a shopping you may go. ;-)


Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Sizzix Inksheet Resist - Mixed Media Monthly

Welcome to your mid-month reminder for our March Photo Inspiration Challenge over at Mixed Media Monthly! You have until the end of the month to link up your projects inspired by our challenge photo:



You can see my first project, an Easter decoration, on this blog post. This time I've created a spring themed birthday card:


I've been playing around with Sizzix's new product, Inksheets, and I've discovered that you can use stencils as well as dies to make impressions with them! For this card, I've used a metal Dreamweaver's stencil.



The Inksheets Starter Kit comes with an adapter pad that you use in your Big Shot when using the Inksheets with thin dies. I found that I didn't need it for the stencils because they are thinner than the dies.

Use the following sandwich: base plate, regular cutting pad (instead of adapter pad), substrate (I used Distress Watercolor Cardstock), Inksheet matte side down, stencil, and second cutting pad (not shown).



Run it through the Big Shot, open up the sandwhich, peel off the Inksheet and see the magic:


The Inksheet transfer acts as a resist. I used Distress Spray Stains to mist the background and it wipes right off the transfer area. I also tried this technique with a plastic stencil and it works great too!


Check out this post for another project I just completed for more Inksheet info. I used dies and embossing folders as well on that one.

The butterfly on this card is diecut out of Yupo paper and colored with alcohol inks. Check out this video by Tim Holtz to find out about this wonderful paper! I'm looking forward to experimenting more with it.

Thanks for stopping by! The supplies I used for this project can be found at Sizzix or Simon Says Stamp. Follow the links below and a shopping you may go. ;-)