Nuts About You

Hello!  I hope you have enjoyed a fun and restful weekend.  I'm happy you are visiting my blog.

Frilly and Funkie is challenging us to create a vintage project that has hearts as the focal image.  They will draw a random winner from the entries who will receive a wonderful $25 shopping spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

Use a flourish on your project which shows a strong Tim Holtz influence is the current challenge at A Vintage Journey. The Creative Guides will choose a winner, who will receive a shopping voucher from Country View Crafts on-line shop.

So here is the project I made to include the hearts as my focal image and flourishes on a Tim Holtz inspired project. I believe I have shown a strong Tim Holtz influence on this piece through using many of his different products and techniques. Because it is made for my husband, I wanted it to be more grungy and masculine despite the hearts and flourishes.

I started with a brown wood frame from my stash, sanded it down, leaving just a hint of the brown.  I distressed it with Distress Inks and added 2 metal sentiments from my stash. I wiped some Distress paint on then wiped it off after a few minutes so it would stay in the indentations only. I used Tim's Alterations On the Edge Brackets die and paper from his Crowded Attic paper stash to make the layers at the very top and very bottom.  These were distressed with Distress Ink and layered on over the background using cardboard to separate them and give them depth.

 I painted some nuts from my husband's stash (shhhh!) with alcohol inks, and put a few in Tim's Idea-ology bottle along with a grungeboard heart. (I love these bottles, and I have an old Mason jar full of them) I glued the cork in and wrapped with some scrap fibers. A scrap of mesh ribbon backs it. More nuts added to the background layers.

The hearts and flourish are from Grungeboard Elements, which I must have had for a zillion years. I ran some pink paper through my Big Kick with a Cuttlebug embossing folder, traced the hearts and cut them out. I glued them to the Grungeboard and distressed with Distress Inks and edged in gold  paint pen. (I used a nail file to sand off any excess paper on the edges.) I did this for all four hearts.  I stamped the flourish die cut with tiny script from Tim's Urban Grunge stamp set in Archival ink, distressed with Distress Ink and edged in the gold pen.  I backed the entire piece with a vintage dictionary page, which you can see peeking out in the next photo.

The letters are from Tim's Ransom Alpha Parts.  I painted them with Copper Paint Dabber using my finger to apply, dried and covered with a generous layer of Glossy Accents. "About" is a Chit Chat sticker edged in Walnut.

 The background is Tim's Kraft Core card stock run through with his Damask Texture Fade (I couldn't find my Flourish Texture Fade, but I know it's around here somewhere--just no time to look for it now).  Sanded off the high spots.  I used various thicknesses of foam adhesive squares to give different depths to the various embellishments and in some cases I used layers of cardboard to build up the layers.

close up to show detail of distressed frame and  card stock layers

 On the back, I attached a vintage dictionary page with the definition of love--the entry "circled" with the heart stamp from Tim's Heartfelt  set . I  stamped a flowery flourish image and sentiment from the same set and added a little Distress Ink for color.  All images stamped in Archival.  I finished with a coat of Matte Mod Podge.

I think I have a head start on my Valentine's "cards" this year!  I hope I can remember I already made this for my husband!

Thank you for stopping in!  I enjoy sharing my work with you and look forward to reading all your comments! They always make me smile and inspire my creativity.

I am entering this into the following challenges:  Frilly and Funkie From the Heart Challenge and A Vintage Journey Challenge #14 With a Flourish.

The Life of the Party

A week ago, my daughter asked if we could host a Halloween party this year.  We've had many Halloween parties over the years, when the kids were younger, and we really go all out and decorate the entire home and yard.  So much for just one day! But I love Halloween! The last few years, as the kids get into their teens and because we have two inquisitive cats, we've  gone to just decorating the yard...and I mean DECORATING!  It takes my daughter and me about a week to get everything set up, but when the neighbors and people from around town come to see it, it is all worthwhile.  Elvis is live on stage down the street, and when revelers are done getting a treat for their ears, they come to our home for a treat for the eyes.  Each year I dress in my witches costume with hat, gloves and cape.  This year I'm going as...

                                         

There's a particularly fun challenge going on over  at Craft Hoarders Anonymous for all of us flower hoarders. They want us to break them out and use them on our projects. They are offering two prizes for the craftiest hoarders; one a wonderful package from Crafty Secrets and the other a very generous $25 gift certificate compliments of Heartfelt Creations. I encourage you to visit Craft Hoarders Anonymous and see the awesome flowery inspiration from the design team.

The Eclectic Paperie is challenging us to make a project for fall, and they are awarding a lucky winner a generous $25 gift voucher from the Eclectic Paperie store.Debbie has a great step-by-step on how to make some cool embellishments.

Eileen Hull wants to see how we interpret "Fall Back" on our creative pieces. There are some great inspiration pieces on this challenge blog Art With Heart. She has a Sizzix Candy Drawer Scoreboards die for the winner. I hope a Halloween project is acceptable, since Halloween is during the fall season.

Fall is in the air, and the design team at the Inspiration Emporium Challenge blog would like to see what we make that means fall to us.  It can be back to school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, leaves or anything that makes us think of fall.  The have a  very generous $50 gift certificate to  Inspiration Emporium for a lucky winner of this challenge. Be sure to stop in to see a fabulous tutorial on watercoloring vintage dictionary paper.

 Since it's so close to Halloween, and I've got to get my outfit together, I thought I would use a few flowers on my witch's hat. My flowers started out with a quite different life as sweet pink things made into Mother's Day Corsages.  I made over 400 corsages with the help of my wonderful family using Tim Holtz' Tattered Florals die and coffee filters.  That means something like 3000 individual flowers were hand painted using diluted acrylic paint, sprayed with Perfect Pearls mist, dried, rolled, folded, pinched and otherwise coaxed into looking like flowers.  I put "pearls' in the center and attached a pin, and each mother at our church received one on Mother's Day two years ago.  These are what I had left, and I've been hoarding them ever since, knowing one day they would come in handy.  This is their day!

I spritzed them with various ink sprays, scrunched, dried, and dragged them through more "leftover" spray, again pinched, folded, rolled and coaxed them into what I believe might look like moldy cabbage leaves to use on my hat. ( I added something special, which I'll tell you about near the end of my post.) Here's what a few of them look like. I had removed the white pearls and added black ones to the ones on the rim of my hat.

I had a few other very old hoarded flowers.  I wish I had taken their before pictures, because they were quite ugly.  I remember my daughter picking up loose flowers she would find on the floor at AC Moore when she was a toddler, and the clerk would let her take them home.  A few of these are from that time.  That makes some of my hoarded flowers at least 12 years old.  I save everything! Anyway 2 were sickly pink large daisies with the centers ripped out--I  think I used them on a much smaller project at one time.  I transformed them into these lovely deep purple ones here.

The black daisies started out like this.  I used alcohol ink to change the centers to purple and added mirrors. (Thank you for the mirrors, Krystal!)  The one deep pink center was a trial with Distress stain--didn't quite give me the shade I was going for. Even though this is Seedless Preserves, it looks pink.

I transformed these manufactured flowers using  ink sprays and a special "ingredient" I will discuss later. I added a cameo from my stash and gave her a hat from a half-used sticker pack. The flower with the cameo added is about 4 inches in diameter and started out a horrible teal color.

I gathered some black tulle along the base of the hat with sparkly purple ribbon.

I had several "strands" of shabby type flowers in black, and some in lavender.  I added the black ones alongside my Tattered Florals, and they swirl around from top to bottom. I made the banner "The Life of the Party" with wide vintage seam binding I stained with Distress Stains, stiffened with fabric stiffener and added Tim Holtz' Idea-ology  Alpha Parts Ransom letters.  I painted these a lovely vibrant shade of purple over gesso.  The paints are Silks by Lumin Arte. This is called Boysenberry.  I love these paints!

You can see the lavender-turned purple ones here. I used ink sprays to get the nice shade of purple. The strange thing at the top is supposed to be creepy tendrils, which is actually paper toweling stained and crinkled and twirled.  It actually looks pretty cool in person.  Why don't you come visit and see for yourself?  The purple thingy on the top is three glittered balls glued together to hopefully give the top a finished look and to balance the glittered ribbon at the base gathering the tulle. The Tattered Florals home made flowers were wound around the hat from the base to the top, and also glued around the rim of the hat after gluing on eyelash yarn. There are about 30 of these home made flowers on my hat.

Instead of the expected spiders you might find on a Halloween project, I chose to use butterflies, instead, especially since flowers so abundantly adorn my hat. The hat itself already was made of spider webs with spiders sewn in. Just a few days ago I met a new friend who gave me a ton of these  black and white butterflies, and I randomly placed quite a few on the flowers after making them a little more special. Thank you, Krystal, for the butterflies; they are perfect for my hat!

I tucked in a few Halloween tickets I made with Tim's Ticket Strip die, and stamped with his Odds and Ends stamps. I distressed them with Distress Inks and rubbed them with a baby wipe with a little diluted Seedless Preserves stain, since I don't own that color in ink.

I think that explains it all.  What a fun hat to make!  I'm so happy for the challenge to dig into my hoard and pull out those long forgotten flowers.  Here are some pictures of my daughter modeling my hat.  Please keep in mind, she ordinarily does not wear black lipstick and her hair's not stringy--she was just getting into the spirit!

And my two inquisitive kitties had to model, too!

I know we all moaned about how hard it was to photograph our Assemblage Clocks because of the glare on the glass, but I found this to be a very difficult piece to photograph, probably because of it's size and the tiniest details. I've told you I've added something special to the flowers and other embellishments...have you guessed what it is yet?  I bet you have!

This is the side with the cameo witch, but the picture didn't turn out too well. That glowing spot is the cameo.

This was taken from the top.  All the flowers, tendrils, butterflies and the cameo were painted with glow in the dark paint.

This was very hard to photograph in the dark, but I found a black light really helped!

It glows in the dark!  How fun!

I'm so happy you stopped in and persevered through another long post.  I am thrilled to finally get to use those Mother's Day flowers, as well as those few flowers that just didn't belong anywhere.  And if I don't get to wear it, I hope whomever wears my hat will be "The Life of the Party"! 

I'm entering this into the following challenges:  Inspiration Emporium Fall Is In the Air, Art With Heart Challenge September Fall Back, Eclectic Paperie September e-Play Challenge Fall, and Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge #15 All the Pretty Flowers.

Assemblage Clock

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you'll get comfortable and stay awhile, since this is bound to be a long post with lots of photos.  Linda and the Curiosity Crew at CC3C had a great time altering Tim's cool Assemblage Clock and bet that we will, too. A selected Curiosity Crew's Choice winner will receive a fabulous assortment of Tim's products, compliments of Tim and Mario.  And Linda, the owner of The Funkie Junkie Boutique is offering a generous $25 shopping spree to her shop to one lucky winner!  She treats her clients to fabulous customer service--it's always a pleasure to shop at the Boutique. Be sure to visit each crew members' blogs to see how their clocks rock!

You can see instructions for the clock on page 33 of Tim's inspirational book A Compendium of Curiosities, Vol. 3, but we can't give away the details.  You just have to pick up this awesome book for yourself to get instructions for many fabulous techniques and plenty of great inspiration.

While assembling  the insides of my clock was a bit of a challenge (my old Bakelite ornaments are extremely fragile), I think my biggest dilemma was deciding which way to go with this assemblage-Halloween or Christmas.  In the end,  I was inspired by Candy's vintage Christmas clock and a vintage Christmas scene was my choice. I used this  vintage card, mercury glass beads and ornaments, and vintage angels as my inspiration.

Yes, some of these (I have 5, but all wouldn't fit) had some damage, but it goes to that "life- lived" idea I love about vintage things--embrace imperfection.

First, I painted my clock inside and out with gesso, bronze fabric paint (that's all I had in this color!), gold Distress paint, and Christmas red acrylic paint, allowing all layers to dry thoroughly between applications.  When dry, I applied crackle glaze and allowed this to dry. Then I rubbed  various colored metallic rubs here and there, then topped it with Rock Candy Crackle Paint randomly to give some areas of more intense crackling.  The inside of my back plate became my test area to see how different paints and glazes would react with one another.

 For the background,I stamped my Christmas flourish paper with a Christmasy flourish from CTMH  in Brilliance Platinum Planet ink, then distressed with walnut Distress Ink.  This hardly shows in the end, but is one of those details that make a difference when you peek inside.  I never like to skimp on the details.  I cut my vintage glittered snowflake to fit and glued it on.

For the "walls" I used a couple of angels from a book and "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" from an antique "Church Hymns" book adhered to a snowflake print paper, distressed with Distress Ink and the spritz and flick technique, texture paste and stencils. I attached a tiny star from my stash using gold thread stuck through a tiny hole.

Looking from the back opening to the front once the glass was replaced and the walls installed.

I added rub-ons to the glass, and had to redo them when my assemblage didn't go in as planned.

After the glass was replaced and the "walls" glued up, I decorated the outside using pieces of some old Christmas picks, some antiqued Tim Idea-ology paper twine, bells from my stash, and an Idea-ology word disc, antiqued and crackled and attached using an antique glass ornament hardware piece.

Sorry for the blurries; I was trying to show the way I fastened this tag.

I had to really work at getting the layers right inside the clock.  I wanted the harpist to appear to be floating, so I made a wire cage to hold her, beads and a vintage gold mercury glass ornament. She was not glued to the backing, but this rather gave another layer to the scene.

I made and painted clay bases for my other two angels and glued them in first, then some of the larger white/silver ornaments.  The tiny multi-colored glass beads were then put in, the wire cage with the harpist next ,and then I replaced the backing.

You can peek in and see the angel on the wall holding the Christmas tree.  You can also see I broke one of the harp strings!

The words you see on this wall is the first verse of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing".

I hope you enjoyed my little clock as much as I did making it.  It will be a special homemade Christmas gift to my family.

I am entering this in The Compendium of Curiosities 3, Challenge #10.

A special thank you to my husband, Krystal and Marion in my hour of need!  Our computer died just after I finished, and I did not think I would be able to enter this challenge.  Krystal and Marion generously offered their computers to me and my husband got us up and running in just over 24 hours, even with his busy schedule.  Thank you so much!

ATC For the First Time

Hello, I'm glad you stopped by to see my ATC's I've made for A Vintage Journey's Challenge #13 A Little Touch of Tim ATC's Only.  This is my first time making ATC's although I have owned Tim's ATC Bigz die for years.  That's what I love about these challenges...they challenge me to try new things! If you think this post is long, just go to my post titled "Plan B" and you'll be thankful this is so short.

When I first laid out that tiny little surface on my craft mat, I just stared at it.  I really had no idea what I could do on such a small piece of cereal box with the rounded corners (yes, I cut up my husband's cheerios box he threw into the recycle bin this morning).  I knew it was going to have to be something for Halloween, because now is the time of year that my mind turns everything my eyes see into something for my favorite holiday.

 I started by cutting my cereal box into the ATC's with my die, but ended up using that for only one of the six that I made. I'll be honest with you here; this one is NOT an ATC.  I thought I had cut the scrap of cardstock out, only to realize when it was COMPLETELY made, that I didn't cut it down to the correct size, and it was too late at that point.  But I like how it turned out so I took a photo anyway.   I re-did it using an ATC sized piece of cardstock (all were cut from Tim's die). Just for fun, see if you can find at least five differences other than the size and the shading.

I don't think it came out as well, but I like what I did on this with the tombstones and the extra bat. No that is not guano, that is smoke from the chimney of the house stamp!  The tree wouldn't fit, nor would "Come if You Dare".  The house and the tombstones  stamps are ones I purchased at a yard sale, so I'm sorry I don't know who made them, but I love them.  Bats are Martha Stewart and Oct. 31st is from a  Hobby Lobby store brand set. The moon is a mask I made using a circle punch (used both the negative and the positive). All images stamped with Archival and all coloring done with Distress Ink.smoke 

The ATC above is cut from a piece of white cardstock.  I was anxious to work on these and didn't want to wait for gesso to dry on the cereal box ATC's I cut out.  I'll use them later...I'm already hooked on these little crafty things, and they won't go to waste! I used a TCW stencil (creepy tree) I spritzed with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist and did some reverse stenciling. When dry, I distressed with Faded Jeans and Black Soot Distress Inks and applied Seedless Preserves Distress stain with a baby wipe (I don't have any Seedless Preserves DI).  The images are from Martha Steward and Hobby Lobby, stamped in Archival.

The tree stenciling shows up better in this shot.

My third one is similar in that  I used the reverse stenciling that I did in the one above, but I cut my ATC first from watercolor paper. I used the same color DIs and the purple stain wiped on with the wipe.  I dragged my edges through the leftover spray from spritzing my stencil.  I got the faded areas along the top and bottom by accident (well, the bottom was by accident and then I TRIED to reproduce the effect on the top edge-Ha! I spritzed it with a little TOO much water) when I lifted my paper and it started to run. I think it looks like soot-pretty cool!

I blasted this dry with my heat tool and stamped the images (Martha Stewart (crow), Hobby Lobby (sentiment) and unknown yard sale stamp--love that skeleton) with Archival ink.  I had some corners from an upcoming ATC cut which had Texture Paste and  Crackle Paint on them.  I stained them with coordinating Distress Stains and added them to two of the corners.

Next up is one of my favorites.  This has the most wonderful leather-like soft texture to it, so not only is it nice to look at, it has a lovely hand as well.

This is the one from which the corners came from on the previous card. I started with plain white card stock, smeared texture paste all over it, like spreading peanut butter on bread, and allowed that to dry, while I worked on others.  (I'm not showing these in the order I made them--I think each one got better as I got on a roll.  By the way, I accomplished a lot while making these--I did 5 loads of laundry, and tonight while uploading the photos, I folded and put away those 5 loads.) Next  I dabbed and swiped on various Distress stains and again, allowed it to dry.  Then I stamped Tim's Stamper's Anonymous images from Trick or Treat with Archival ink. This is one happy skeleton!

Next up is my very different ATC--I just wanted to try everything on these.  I really just happened to have this scrap of vintage dictionary page on my work table.  So I built my card around that.  The dictionary entries are carrion and carrion crow. The definition is gross--look it up if you can't see it and are interested--it's quite Halloweeny.

There is a background to this, but  just does not show up in the photos.  It is the same TCW tree stencil spritzed with Glimmer mist and reverse stenciled onto white card stock, then dried.  I Mod Podged the dictionary scrap on my background.  I layered it with an acetate transparency I had in my stash and attached it with Tim's Tiny Attacher. I love this tool!

The feather was attached with the Tiny Attacher.

I added a feather across the bottom.  This is a real feather; it is very old and very creepy.  I found it and others, which I regretfully threw away, in a box of  vintage dolls I picked up an estate sale about a year ago. I save everything! (Sorry for the blurry photo.)

I stamped Tim's Regal Flourish in purple Staz-On, painted Tim's Idea-ology numerals with silver Distress paint and topped off my card with them.

Last, but not MY last forever, is this cute little ATC--I had to do a cute one as a counterpoint to the one previously noted.  This one I did make with the cereal box, as originally planned. 

After I die cut my cereal box, I ran it through with Tim's Regal Flourishes Texture Fade, then distressed it with Distress Ink.  I rubbed on a variety of metallic rubs--the upper left corner is sparkly antique gold but does not show up in the photo.  I can't add another photo at this time to show you, since my daughter has to do some trick to get my photos to upload  from my phone to hers to the computer. And she's in bed now.  One of these days I'll get that straight with the people over at the phone store. I digress...This is one of those cards you have to move around in the light to catch it's real beauty.  Lastly, I stamped the background with Tim's Regal Flourish.

The owl and jack-o-lantern are fussy cut from a card a friend gave me.  I toned them down a notch with Walnut DI and added  yellow and orange Stickles-don't you love those owl's eyes???

I cut out a computer generated phrase and inked it with Distress.  I added the trim from my stash and popped up the embellishments with foam tape.

Well, this has been so much fun!  I really appreciate the opportunity to play along at A Vintage Journey in their Challenge #13 A Little Touch of Tim ATC's Only.  And I appreciate you stopping in to have a look; I hope you'll take a minute to comment on my lovelies.