Torn, But Not Forgotten!

This weeks theme on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is to use a recipe of elements to feature in your project, which is consists of torn edges, distress inks, a button and wings.  As it had been quite some time since I had last made one, I decided to create an art doll for this week's challenge.

She is based around a cylinder of cardstock covered with Graphic 45 paper.  The skirt is the part that includes the torn edges and distress ink (I'm assuming you have already figured out where I used the buttons and wings! lol).

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Not-so-heavy Metal!

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "some metal".  I've always been a lover of the faux batik technique, and having rediscovered it lately, I used it again on this card.

I stamped the main images and embossed them with clear powder and then applied distress inks to the card, adding further grunginess with water splatters.  Finally I ironed off the embossing powder and added the metal accent.

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

ETA - For Gabby (and any others who are interested) Tim Holtz demos this technique here.

Grungy Monday 11!

I am very pleased to let you know that I am one of the guest designers for this week's Grungy Monday Challenge! Hosted by Linda Ledbetter, this awesome weekly creative challenge celebrates the techniques of Tim Holtz and this week's technique is taken from January 2008, and can be found on Tim's blog here.

After you've read the technique on Tim's blog, I'm sure you'll have no trouble working out how I made this card.  The only thing that might not be so clear is how I made the dark brown lines that run through the panels.  Quite simply, I just folded a panel where I wanted a line, and rubbed the edge of the fold with an ink blending tool loaded with Walnut Stain distress ink, finally flattening the panel again. 

Please bear in mind that although I have listed the products I've used, there is absolutely no reason why you can't try this with the things you already have in your craft stash!

List of products used:

• Distress Ink Pads in Wild Honey, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Barn Door, Fired Brick and Walnut Stain.
• Top Boss tinted embossing ink pad
• Clear Detail Embossing Powder
• Heat Tool
• Ink Blending tool with foam pads. 
• Tim Holts stamp sets: Going Somewhere, World Traveler and Creative Muse.

The other guest designer today is Deborah, please be sure to check out her always inspirational blog, her work is amazing! :)

By the way, if you love Tim's grungy style, you'll definitely love the All Things Tim yahoo group!  They even have a Grungy Monday file area where you can upload your work for the group to admire, and in turn, you can gain ideas and inspiration from the other group members.  Why not give it a look, it's free! (and awesome!)  :)

A bit of messing about...

I met up with a couple of crafty chums yesterday, for lunch and a little "play" time. They both had rather large projects to continue with, while I found myself messing around with a few tags.

This is the first one I made. The bottom-left corner uses the faux batik technique (stamp/clear emboss, ink over the top, iron off the embossing powder with brown paper) and the rest of the tag is a LOT of layered stamping and inking. The 3 main figures were stamped and promarkered separately and then adhered to the tag.

Snake Book Pages 1 & 2

I thought, dear reader, that we'd take a break from Halloween today, so here are two pages from a snake book I'm making, which will be bound with the Bind-it-All. They're not actually the first two pages of the book, but I've grouped them together here because the techniques used on both pages are the same. I only wanted 4 holes down each side of the page, so I didn't punch them on the BIA, I cut them on the Cricut instead, using the Sure Cuts a Lot software.

I used the faux batik technique on both pages. The large damask-type designs on the right-hand side of each page were stamped first onto the blank page using a Versamark ink pad and then embossed with clear embossing powder. Colour was then applied to each page using an ink blending tool, with the embossed areas acting as a resist so that colour didn't apply to those parts.

I then placed brown (kraft) paper over each page and ironed with a hot iron which melted the embossing powder until it soaked into the kraft paper and was removed from the page. Other parts of the page were then stamped and finally the main figures were stamped separately, coloured with Promarkers and cut out, then adhered to the page. I ran a pale grey marker around the edge of each figure to make it pop a little more.

2 down, 10 more pages to go! Click on the image for a larger view.