Gift Tags and more

Howdy folks,
    It's time for the September challenge over at Eclectic Ellapu.  The pink team's theme is anything to do with a "Gift" and the purple team's theme is "New Beginnings"...celebrate a new chapter in your life-new spouse, new baby, adoption, new job, etc.  Of course no gift is complete without a stunning tag!  Since I'm back on Tim Holtz again what better way to jazz up a tag than to use some Tim Holtz products. Tim and Ranger have some amazing products out currently.  I got a few dies, stamps, inks, and tools to add to my collection. I've been playing with some Layering Stencils, as well as some of the new and vibrant distress ink colours like "Picked Raspberry".  When I first saw this ink pad, I thought...ok that one I will not be purchasing-ever!  Ooh-wee that is a bold bright colour!  Well, I truly had to eat crow on this one. I absolutely love this colour!!!  This is just a must have ink pad and re-inker.  I also got to work with some of the Distress Paints. The Distress Sprayer- I'd been looking at it for awhile but refused to buy it because, I felt like I had enough spray bottles in my craftroom.  I really do like the Distress Sprayer and highly recommend it.  I love the way the mist-dopplets come out.  The water droplets on my tags really look distressed, vintage, and aged instead of  blobs of water. The Splatter brush-one word...AWESOME!!!  I did a little tag using the Splatter Brush, I call it my Solar Tag; you'll see why in a few.   I also did a quick tag using the Distress Sprayer that I will show.  I was on such a roll, I decided to see what kind of tutorials Tim had on his site and let me just say...I found the coolest tag!!!  I am always trying to do masculine projects but they always end up looking more girly than manly.  The tag I did even though it has butterflies, still rings dudely!!  I am sooooo pleased at how it turned out...Thanks Tim!    Well, I hope you will pop over to Eclectic Ellapu and join in the challenge, good luck!

To make the faux metal tag I used: Ten Second Studios Metal Tape Sheets (8 1/2 x 11 in), #8 Manilla Tag, Spellbinders Butterflies Two die templates, Spellbinders Damask Motifs die template, a bamboo stick from Sally's hair supplies), the bottom of a pen (to make the rivets), a few pieces of an old dictionary page, Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks-Stonewash, Ginger, and Pitch Black, a sanding block (the white rectangular block from Sally's hair supplies), a whole punch, some seam binding (black and brown), Walnut stain distress ink, and Glossy Accents...whew! (I think that's it,,,lol).    I hope you enjoy the tags and feel inspired to break out some of those Tim Holtz and Ranger products you have in your stash.



Water Mark (with Picked Raspberry love this colour)



Layering Stencils, stamps, Distress Paint, and Distress Inks



My waaaaay-cool Solar Tag using Distress Inks, Distress Paint and the ever-wonderful Splatter Brush

 

Above you can see how the faux  metal shines in the light and a frontal picture so you can see the elements on the tags better. 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Spring Time Letters

Howdy folks!  Droppin' in to share some altered letters I did for one of my scrapping friends.
I used Graphic 45's Sweet Sentiments on the front and back (sorry I forgot to take picture of the back of the letters). I used the B-side of the print you see. The letters are stained with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Stain (wear gloves!!!). The edges are inked with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress inks.  Flowers are Prima frosted roses ( I just love the color), Pearls are Want-2-Scrap, the wooden embellishments are from Michael's, the little phrases were created using my Stampin' UP! label punch, chipboard, cardstock, and my computer.  I think they came out really well, I love the spring time feel.   I am going to enter my altered letters in the following challenges...

Eclectic Ellapu -(purple team) Flora and Fauna.  Note: EE is also having a DT call, be sure and pop over and check out the qualifications.  She will have the tryouts open until April 1st; good luck to everyone!
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends Challenge: Challenge #29 Anything Goes
Corrosive Challenge Blog- March Challenge #3- Anything Goes

 

 

 

Until next time...Hugz from me!





 



Mardi Gras French Country Initials

Bonjour mon amis!  It's one of my favorite times of the year.  Mardi Gras season and Easter!!!  Love oh love me some Easter.  It seems everything old is new again, the tulips and daffodils bloom, and the trees begin to bud, it's just wonderful.  You can't help but to smile knowing the reason for the changes...Jesus of course!  I am so inspired by these events and the fact that I need to get some projects done, that I did some initials. And what better paper to do them with but...Graphic 45's French Country!  Talk about needing Jesus, I'm really going to need a double helping of Jesus when my French Country paper stash is done.  Since it's no longer in print, I've been making everything I can think of with the paper; so whenever I look around my craft studio and my house I will always see it.

As stated above the letters are covered with Graphic 45's  French Country Collection,  I used #4500638 "Montage" and on the back; I kept it plain and covered the letters with Graphic 45's An ABC Primer Collection #4500384 "Calico Kids".  A couple of the wonderful qualities about Graphic 45 paper is that you can mix and match styles and colour.  The Letters were a very light coloured wood.  I purchased them from JoAnn Fabric.  I love these chunky letters because the bottoms are shaved flat, no need for adding a base (unless you want to). When you sand the paper edges on them, you don't destroy the letter trying to get your paper flush with the edges.  I use stain on my letters instead of acrylic paint, it gives a more natural and polished look. For these letters, I used Tim Holtz distress stain Vintage Photo.  I used his distress ink to do the edges of the paper after I sanded it flush on to the letters (I used Mod-Podge to adhere the paper to the letters).  I don't like to cover up too much of the patterned paper, so I used minimal embellishments.  Sometimes less is better.  I used some wooden flourishes that I picked up at Michael's, the pearls are from JoAnn's in the bead isle.  They come in a small pack with pearlized Autumn colours like chocolate, sienna, forrest green, light green, tan, and terra cotta.  The Mardi Gras mask charms I got from Hobby Lobby.  They were silver, so I applied some gold Rub-n-Buff to bring them in-line with the colour scheme I wanted.  The feathers are from JoAnn's and the flowers are from two different Prima collections, I  picked those up at Hobby Lobby. All of the supplies I had in my craft studio for quite a while, I took something old and made something new.  I made the wooden embellishments at the bottom of the letters by covered up some wood chips with some 6x6 French Country paper pad scraps. Since they were so tiny, I just used my Tombo Mono liquid glue to adhere the paper to the wood chips, sanded the edges,  and inked them with Vintage Photo and viola! instant matching wooden embellishments.

I love how the letters came out, they look great on my shelf.   I was looking around for a challenge to enter and I found one at Altered Eclectics, this is a challenge blog run by Ellapu.  It's really nice because it's only for altered art and mixed media, NO cards, ATCs or the like.  The challenge runs until the end of the month, so you have plenty of time to join the fun.  I love altering things so this was right up my alley.   Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the pictures, and I hope to see you in the challenge!  Til' next time, Your Grace the Duchess (Joyce).

Laissez le bon temps rouler!

Heureux de mardi gras!

 

 



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