Made this tag for my nephew, Leif, who just graduated from high school (blue and gold are his school's colors), and is beginning a new journey.  I thought I would enter the challenge, too. I used Tim Holtz' July tag for inspiration, and tried to incorporate several of his techniques.

My photography does not do this justice.  I used 2 shades each of the yellows and blues Distress Stains for the background and stamped with various Tim Holtz stamps and one unknown stamp.  I used the Distresser to distress the edges and inked them with Vintage Photo Distress ink. I used generic tissue tape since these went with the theme better than any of Tim's tapes that I have.  I stamped Congratulations Graduate on the crinkle ribbon (Time Holtz) with Archival Ink, dried with a heat gun and applied the same color family of Distress Stains used on the background, rolled in a ball and dried again with the heat gun.  Tied this on the tag along with a Philosophy Tag which I dabbed with a paint dabber and wiped off excess to highlight the message.  I cut out grunge board with the mini clock Movers and Shapers and used the silver and Expresso  Paint Dabber to color it.

 I was in a rush to finish (leaving to bring this to him in D.C. soon), and I forgot to "crackle" first!  I had already glued it on before I remembered this step!  Embrace imperfection!  I hope he enjoys his tag!  Thanks for the inspiration, Tim, and everyone else who submitted tags to this challenge!

Vintage Spring Altered Handbag

I love vintage things, but I like a fresh contemporary feel to them.  I had this vintage handbag lying around, and I just knew I would alter it someday.  Tim Holtz's Tattered Florals Challenge seemed like just the right time.

I began by die cutting some coordinating fabrics, cheesecloth and lace I had on hand, using the Tattered Florals die.  I soaked them in Stiffen Stuff by Beacon, which would probably be easier to use if I could spray it on like the directions say, but the spray mechanism never worked. Then I dried them with a heat tool, while shaping them.   I sprayed some Dylusions ink and misted that with water on my craft sheet and dragged them through the mess. I took a piece of seam binding and dragged that through the remaining puddle and wadded that into a ball, then sprayed it with the water mister so the color would blend.  I allowed that all to dry.

In the meantime, I sprayed some coffee filters with Dylusions ink  in turquoise,  yellow and green and misted them with water.  I crumpled the green one.  All air dried.  Next I sent them through the die cut machine to make yet more flowers. (Those are my paper drawers in my craft room in the above photo--oops!)

When my fabric flowers were dry I assembled them and used fabric glue to glue them together and shaped them some more by pinching them at the base.

I glued the coffee filter flowers to the fabric flowers and added a piece or two of the inked seam binding, which was now flattened out somewhat. I sprayed all the flowers with Perfect Pearl mist. I hot glued a few pearl buttons as centers to the larger flowers. I inked some stamens I got  from the baking department at Hobby Lobby, and hot glued this all together to make 6 eye-popping flowers with a vintage flair.  I cut some leaves freehand from the remaining green coffee filter.

I needed a wide something to mount the flowers on, and much to my luck, ( it was St. Patrick's Day weekend, after all) I found this wide teal ribbon at a yard sale. I think it goes with the flowers perfectly.  To bring it all together, I added a strip of self adhesive drywall tape to the ribbon.  I used hot glue to add the assembled flowers, leaves and the tiny stringed pearls to the ribbon and notched the ends of the ribbon to make a banner.  I used adhesive backed Velcro to adhere this to the handbag.  I did this because I have plans to make other decorations for this handbag for the different seasons.  I can remove this and add something else later, appropriate to the season.

I thought the purse looked nice, but still not enough bling.  I looked through my stash of costume jewelry and found a dragonfly pin that went nicely and stuck that on.  Also a pair of dangle earrings without the hooks.  Since this looked so spring- like, I thought I'd take it up a notch, and I added some letters which spell out "spring".  It's hard to get those little letters to stay in order!  I used jump rings to attach them to the beaded strands. I had to use alcohol ink to make one of them match the set--can you tell which one?  Love those inks!  They save me every time! A final touch was to add Tim's "Life" key, since spring brings new life. I fastened this to the purse with my last piece of inked seam binding.  Waste not, want not. Here's a better picture of those letters.

I kinda like my first-ever altered purse,  and my 14 year old daughter thinks it's cool.  The highest compliment! Can't wait to get started on the other seasonal decorations for this handbag, but I wish spring would last forever.

More Closet Creations

Well, here I go again.  Thought I would make a card for the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals challenge.  While I was cutting some petals to use on another failed project, using lavender mulberry paper, I noticed how they resembled the purple coneflowers which have been taking over my perennial bed.  I just had to make them into something.

I started by die cutting the medium daisy-looking flower from the Tattered Florals die from lavendar mulberry paper.  I folded each flower in half, sprayed them with Perfect Pearl Mist, followed immediately by Dylusions crushed grape spray and allowed them to dry while I worked on the background. I guess it would have been easier to just ink the paper first, but I didn't know where I was going with this. And by cutting them first, then folding and then spraying, I think I got more of a shadowed effect as the flowers would appear in real life.

For my background I chose a watercolor card.  I used the ink applicator with Broken China and Shabby Shutters Distress Ink applied to top and bottom of card respectively and misted with water to blend.  I then used my stencil I accidentally made from Shrink plastic using the negative space of a die cut daisy-like Tattered Floral flower and swished in a little Milled Lavender Distress Ink with the applicator to create a shadow.  You can barely see it in the photo above. When the entire thing dried, I applied a little Faded Jeans and Peeled Paint for shadowing.

Next I determined where my coneflowers would go (but didn't glue them down yet) and stamped the sentiment and butterflies using Archival Ink.  I had to stamp a second large butterfly due to operator error in  stamping on the background.  This I cut out and used pop dots to apply it over the original stamped butterfly.  Butterflies were painted using a water brush filled with Dylusions ink.  Using a water brush with just water and the Peeled Paint Ink pad, I brushed strokes for the flower stems.  I stamped a few leaves with the Distress Ink and colored them in with the same Peeled Paint.

To finish the card off, I glued on my coneflowers and stamped in flower centers using Archival Ink and a yardsale stamp.  I thought it needed just a touch more, so I cut another flower using Tattered Florals medium daisy-like flower from a piece of wrap the pears from Harry and David come in.  From this I cut off a couple of petals and used them as leaves. They were glued on the card.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it. Sorry for the poor photography; I'm learning. It evokes thoughts of summer flowers not far off here in the south.

Tattered Florals

 This is my first time making a blog, with LOTS of help from my son.  It is also the first time anyone other than my family has seen any of my "art".  When I saw Tim Holtz' Tattered Florals challenge, I just had to give it a try.  I'm a gardener, so it didn't take too much to "imagine" what I wanted this to look like, but it took alot of "courage" to take my idea to paper. I'm not a mixed media artist--just make cards.

For the background, I used water color paper (birthday gift from hubby) sprayed with Dylusions Ink Sprays (birthday gift from son), then "ghosted" some flowers using the negative spaces from the Tattered Florals I cut from Shrink Plastic (first attempt at an entry, but didn't like how it turned out, and everyone else was doing that).  Then I took that same negative "stencil" I made, and dabbed the negative space with Picket Fence  paint dabber (several coats), allowed it to dry and painted it with Dylusions using ink filled water brushes (birthday gift from daughter).  Outlined some background flowers with Sharpie pen and one with Liquid Pearls. I stamped leaves with Archival Ink, allowed it to dry and removed color in leaves with a water filled water brush.  I used Dylusions inks to add  back color using the ink filled water brushes. Added butterflies using paint dabber with a stencil I made from a butterfly punch, allowed them to dry and painted with Dylusions ink in a water brush. Stamped sentiment with Archival Ink which is drying up fast, so I had to clean this up with Sharpie pen. Punched 3 butterflies from glossy cardstock which I had painted with alcohol inks, gold mixative and blending solution and "painted" the black part with Sharpie pen to make them look like real butterflies (I hope).  Applied punched butterflies over those on background with glue at the body only and folded back wings so they would appear 3 dimensional (didn't show up well in photos).

Next came the mat.  I sprayed it with Dylusions Ink Spray (can't wait to get my hands on some of the new Distress Paints-sure to be my new love) and "ghosted" a few butterflies using a metal template stencil on the right side (don't know if they show up in the photos).  I extended a few of the flowers I had painted using the dabber on the background and outlined and painted them as I had on the background.  I also did the same with the leaves, same technique as the background.

I used the  flowers I cut using the Tattered Florals die in every way I could imagine.  Spray inked white cardstock with Dylusions Ink Sprays, Distress Inks on sanded Tim Holtz Color Core cardstock,  and alcohol inks, gold mixative and blending solution on glossy cardstock. I die cut several sets of flowers with the die from these papers and outlined some of the petals in Sharpie pen. I must give credit to my husband for the outlining idea.  Stuck them together with some additional white paper flowers from the craft store that I inked with Dylusions (love that stuff) and a spray from the water bottle.  I added a  few tiny flowers punched from inked cardstock.  I applied all these flowers last--you'll see at the end.

I did my best to line up the mat with the background paper, so the flowers and leaves would match up, using red line super tacky tape to secure the mat.  Once that stuff goes down there's no going back, so don't look for a perfect match from this beginner!

Picked out  an estate sale frame with the help of my son and daughter, framed my "artwork" (almost done) and glued on my flowers.  TaDa!  I feel like an artist for the first time in my life!  I hope you like it and hope I didn't miss any steps.  I didn't realize we needed to write it all out and take pics along the way (I didn't--would have really cut into my creativity) until I checked out some of the other blogs when trying to figure out how to upload my picture.