Distress Watercoloring – Love at First Sight!

When Tim Holtz first introduced his Distress Markers I instantly fell in love with them. I have never been in love with markers before. I've met some I really liked, but not "Loved". I was happy to see the CC3 challenge #20 was for Tim's Distress Watercoloring – Part 2. Using not only his Distress Markers but also the Spritzer tool. Another tool I had to have because you can use it with the Distress Markers, which of course I love.

A quick note about the challenge. Linda Ledbetter is the host. The challenge runs two weeks and is to create something using a technique Linda selects from Tim Holtz's book "A Compendium of Curisosities Volume 3" (I can't explain how I did the technique because You need to work from your own copy to participate). Challenge #20's sponsor is The Funkie Junkie Boutique a fun online store with amazing products and fantastic prices. Some lucky participant will win a $25 gift certificate to her store and yes, she is accepting pre-orders for the new Cracked Pistachio. There will also be a special prize from Tim and Mario awarded to the Curiosity Crew's pick! YAY! You can get a ton of inspiration from Tim's books and also the Curiosity Crew Members each have a inspirational piece on Linda's blog with links to their own blog too. So much amazing talent.

Now back to my entry.

So with all this love, I guess you can see why I picked out the Love Conversation Hearts from  Tim's Mini Blueprint 2 CMS146 set. I stamped out th heart 6 times and started playing around with different colors just to get an idea of what color I might like to use for my card. Before I knew it I decided I liked the way it look with the 6 hearts and that it would be focal point of a card. I followed the instructions from Tim's Compendium of Curiosities Volume 3 to finish the panel (You'll have to check out page 40 in his book for the details).

I checked my stash and found I didn't have any paper I liked for the background so that led me to make my own pattern paper. Using the Love ticket stamp (Love Struck CMS0820) and Crimson Archival Ink I stamped the ticket repeatedly at an angle on a sheet of Idea-ology Kraft Glassine paper. I used Clear Fine Detail Embossing powder (Ranger) and heat embossed the ink. You can stamp with pigment ink on the glassine and use a heat tool to bake in the color but I love the look of the embossing powder. I used a 4.5 by 6.25 card base which is a little larger than standard size so more of this fun background would show.

GOOD FOREVER

Original - DATE SOLD ONLY

The stitching the red and white x's across the top was easy to space out using Tim's ruler. Pearl mixative gave the Idea-ology tassels a softer more romantic look. I love the sound the tassels make when I shake the card. I decided to finish off with the Love ticket stamped on water color paper again using the technique on page 40 and added another tassel. The only thing was that the ticket says Good Date Sold Only. Since this had quickly turned into a Valentine for my husband, I wanted a message that wasn't limited to one day, I used a Picket Fence Distress Marker to cover up the date sold only (scary) text and found the word forever in a pack of Botanical Remnant Rubs. Perfect! Now he will know I'll admit I Love Him forever.

Inspired by CC3

Inspired by Compendium of Curiosities 3, Tim, Mario, Linda and the Curiosity Crew!

create

spread your wings

take flight

Sometimes it takes me a while to get back into creating. I love to spend time with my inks, stamps, papers and just about everything in my stash. Getting started on a project is the hardest part. One reason why I love the bi-weekly challenges at Linda Ledbetter's blog is that they can get me started when I've been away too long.

Linda hosts the Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge. She picks a technique from Tim Holtz's Compendium of Curiosities Vol III, then she and her amazing Curiosity Crew members create amazing art that is wonderfully inspiring using the selected technique. The current challenge is sponsored by Inspiration Emporium who are generously donating a $50 gift certificate for Linda to give away. Tim and Mario have also donated amazing products for a special prize. (More reasons to create something.) So 2 lucky people will be very excited when the winners are announced! All the details can be found on Linda's blog here. Challenge # 19 is Frayed Fabric and detailed instructions can be found on page 66 of Tim's book. This challenge is open through tomorrow Friday January 16.

Frayed Fabric technique from CC3 pg 66

I have been wanting some of Tim's Eclectic Elements fabric and needed some for this challenge, so I picked Tim's 12x12 Traveler's pack. I am so glad I did. I love the feel of this fabric, enjoyed working with it, and I have plenty left for future projects. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do so I just jumped in following Tim Holtz's directions and made two tag bases. Once they were completed, I decided to work with the butterfly tag and save the postmark tag for a later project. I got out my stash and started playing. I laid a large oval fragment on top of the reverse side of another piece of the butterfly fabric. It was still easy to see the butterfly and use it as a guide to apply alcohol ink. Once I had the colors like I wanted I applied glossy accents to the fragment on the same side as the alcohol ink. I pressed it down firmly onto the front side of the fabric and slid it around gently to line up the inked areas with the butterfly and get a smooth even coat. After the glossy accents dried I trimmed off the excess fabric with scissors. You may have seen Tim use this technique in the past with paper when his fragments first came out. If not and you have his original Compendium of Curiosities (the first book) you can check out Tinted Vision Fragments pg 55 and Fragment Basics pg 62. The only difference is you are using fabric instead of paper, and I recommend working on your non-stick craft mat. Once the fragment was trimmed out I added some of Tim's rub-ons to the surface of the fragment. I melted some Platinum UTEE in Ranger's melting pot and dipped the edges of the fragment in the melted UTEE to get the faux soldered edge. I thought the color went well with the Idea-ology leaves so I left them the original color.


I diecut a ticket from the wildflower paper line, used the hearts embossing folder, mini distress inks and another butterfly rub-on. The word inspired is also from the same rub-on set but created by taking the d off of dream and adding it to the end of the word inspire. I layered another ticket diecut from foil and grungeboard using painted industrial technique and layered it underneath, stapled them together with the mini fastener and then added it to the top of the tag, tucking it behind the strip of fabric. You may remember the Painted Industrial Technique from July when I used it  for Challenge #7 to create a box to display my tags. If you want to see it again you can check it out here.

The details!

For the Volume 3 embellishment I used the # 3 paper clip an added an image of Tim's book. The 3 was a little lost with the fabric showing through so I colored a small piece of white paper using Distress Markers in Broken China and Tumbled Glass then used Faded Jeans Distress Stickles to glue it to the back of the clip behind the 3. I used Tim's Shattered Stains technique (Compendium of Curiosities Volume II, pg 48) on the Grungeboard heart. I added a butterfly rub-on to the sticker on the brad before adding the epoxy dome then applied the word fly on top of the epoxy.

With the holidays and a part time seasonal job, it had been way too long since I've been visiting my usual blogs and websites I follow, much less created anything. So I decided to see what the challenge was at Linda Ledbetter's. I was glad I did. I had fun, tried something new and now I have a new tag and I'm creating again. Linda is a wonderful source of inspiration and creativity. She is an amazing photographer, has some great tutorials on a variety of subjects and of course she is (like me) also a big fan of Tim Holtz. So if you haven't been by her blog yet be sure to check her out. Besides the wonderful inspiration, you'll also get to meet Violet. She's adorable!