An Ode to Tim Holtz

As promised my homage to all things Tim Holtz.

To those of you who follow me just because you like my work (rather than being a crafty person), Tim Holtz is massive in the craft world.  He works with Ranger showing us amazing ways with new products and inspires people all other the world.

Click on any of the pictures for a larger image

The class he bought to us was called Configuration of the Imagination.  I love altered art, but mostly because I get to play with rubber stamps, inks and paints in a big way.  I was a little worried about this class when I saw what we were doing as there wasn't a lot of painting or inking ... was I going to enjoy it?

Those Tim Holtz stalkers out there are probably balking at the fact that I have even dared to think I wasn't going to enjoy a Tim Holtz class.

But that's where I showed my ignorance.  What Tim did was give us 4 hours of inspiration.  Two hours to do the boring stuff and further 2 hours to fill the box with the goodies we were given and anything we had bought along.  With music in the background (he's got great taste in music btw) he allowed my imagination to get carried away, playing around with placement of items and changing what I had into something a little different.

It's hard to see from the finished product but it starts off as a fairly plain box with all these litle boxes you can move around before covering with paper, in our case, inking and painting.

The large glass vial we were given was fantastic but it would have been way too easy to use it as a glass vial, so I didn't. Instead I used Ranger matte medium to stick pearls to the bottom, added some seed beads at home and then wrapped the film stip and ticket inside it. The matte medium is taking forever to dry but when it does the pearls should look suspended. If you look carefully the lower ones already do.



None of the flowers I was given went into the box without being cut up and changed into smaller or wilder looking flowers.  The corks in my bottles had a habit of being grouped with something else (one is supporting the soda cap at the top, and one I stuck in to look as if it's support the cotton reel with flowers).

As I was filling my box I realised I had so many wonderful things at home I could add so when I got home I filled one of the bottles with mico beeds, added some shells, a metal crown, a stamped peice and a couple of badges I've had for years.

Anyway, morale of this story never judge a book by its cover (or class instructions, in this case).  I REALLY enjoyed this class and can't wait to do another.  I'd love to do some of Tim's inkier classes so maybe a trip to the States is in order.  I don't want to become a stalker (that position is already taken, anyway), but maybe a Holtz cruise is in order.

Hope you like it

Debz

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Wow, wow and more wow

Had a fab day yesterday at the Artsy Craft event featuring the fantastic Lin of LB Crafts, the wonderful Mrs PaperArtsy Leandra and the fandabadozy Mr Tim Holtz .... and the winner was .....

ME!

First off was a bit of shopping, well quite a lot actually (but I was £3.96 under budget, so well done me).  Then it was on to Lin and Leandra's class and finally Tim's class in the afternoon.  I was equally excited about both classes as Lin and Leandra never fail to come up with an amazing project and the classes are always such fun.

This is Treehouse we made, which some of my table threatened to steal.  I'll take that as a complement!

The next pictures show some close ups.  The first one of the metal tree which was debossed, painted with Paper Artsy's new paint range (which is fab) and then sprayed with Ranger Adirondack Color Wash (their spelling not mine!) . 

The background is the Paper Artsy Thorden Hall papers which are equally fantastic.  This was painted with a mixture of the color wash and paint so as to give a misty background effect. The stamp is one of the Paper Artsy Hot Picks.

It's hard to believe that frame also started off a deep maroon colour.  I inked and splodged it so that it has a lovely mint green colour.  It's a shame the picture doesn't show the texture.

And finally a close up of the doors.  The paper underneath is a deep maroon colour so it shows what good coverage the paint and color wash mix gives.  Forgot to mention that the paints have a matte finish which is ideal for stamping on and they are even suitable for outside painting.  Although they only come in small bottles so probably not for painting walls!

I'm going to post my homage to Tim Holtz tomorrow as I'm waiting for something to dry clear.  At the moment it looks super cack, but hopefully it will look slightly more interesting once dry!  Glad I waited until I got home to finish it off as the items I've added from my own stash make it personal and more special (if that's possible as it is signed by Mr Holtz himself).

Hope you like it

Debz

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Messy inker

Grrrr, started to make a tag blending but back is too painful tonight.  Instead I got out my glimmer mists and crafty notion sprays.  I'm now successfully covered in black, white, green and blue spray and I've almost melted two of my Tim masks, oops!

I started off by lightly spraying the tag with black matte Crafty Notions spray before adhering Tim's swirl mask. I then spritzed it with more black, dried it and spritz it with white matte Crafty Notions spray.  Once dry I used jazz blue and meadow green and dabbed it with a tissue before dripping more white spray on the tag.

Having left overnight to properly dry I stamped images from PaperArtsy's Ding Dong 2 & 8 plates in Black Soot Distress Ink.  I'm going to use it for a scrapbook page I'm working on, so watch this space for its final destination.

Hope you like

Debz
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Tagalicious

The challenge over at Simon Says Stamp and Show this week is to design a tag ... so design a tag I did.  It started off life as a full Tim sized tag but by the time I had finished it turned into a topper and a tag. No there's frugle crafting for you - bit of a shocker for me.

I coloured the tag using Distress Inks (Mustard Seed, Faded Jeans & Bundled Sage) then covered this with a couple of Tim's border masks.  After applying Crushed olive and sprizting with Crafty Notions white matte I stamped the PaperArsty text stamp over the mask before using a Tim swirl mask and spritzing with Caramel Apple Glimmer Mist. I used my heat gun in between layers to stop the colours turning into a swampy mess (although if you like grunge grunge ....).

I had to leave the tag overnight as I just couldn't decide which stamp to use.  It was going to be one of the 3 zillion PaperArtsy stamps I have, but which one.  Oh the dilema.  Don't worry though as having slept on the matter the decision was made.  I chose my favourite PaperArtsy stamp of that particular second (mmmm, might be time to highlight my addiction to PaperArtsy stamps and admit to most of them being my favourites.  On second thoughts ... ). 


Enough of the digressing, the stamp was from Hot Pick HP1006.  I love this stamp as its so versatile - I didn't want the bottom bit so I didn't ink it, simples. Love those adverts, love meerkats - do you think the cats would mind a new resident?

Talking of all things Tim and PaperArtsy its less than two weeks til he who can be named (and swooned at) arrives.  Tissues packed ready to cover up drooling episodes, facial, manicure, pedicure and face lift booked.  Think I might be ready by 25th ... just.

Anyhows back to now, I sprayed some Paper Cellar raffia with Meadow Green glimmer mist, squirted some distress stickles on the dragon fly and finished off the tag with some embellishments.

Hope you like it

Debz
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Messing around with ink

I'm suffering from whiplash at the moment which means I can't do a lot.  Bored out of my mind last night I decided to venture to my craft room and play with some stampboard using Tinkerbella inks, some Technique Tuesday stamps and a B Line Designs Stamp.

The result:

I'm quite pleased with it considering I used red, orange and yellow which are not my favourite colours.  I love Tinkerbella inks (Graphicus) as you can blend and layer them creating really great texture.  I than used stampbord tools to highlight the stamped image (B Line Designs TP310F High Street) and covered the edges of the board with a gold metallic pen.  Finally I stamped a couple of Technique Tuesday word stamps on the piece.

Hope you like

Debz
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Paper creativity

Following on in my clean hands mode I've been busy entering challenges on the Two peas in a bucket website.  They have loads of free classes to take part in and there are loads of members layouts to take inspiration from.  There are 4 free classes a month, spread out throughout the month.  So far I've taken part in the January classes for "products you love every which way", "scrapbbok stamping" and "stretch a sketch" (which for some reason I'm saying in an American accent like "move that bus", I guess you have to be an Extreme Makeover fan.  Who wouldn't be with Mr Pennington hosting it).

Products you love, every which way (border stickers)

I loved this class as I have loads of border stickers

and I've learnt how to use them up rather than throwing them away

Scrapbook stamping

 A stamper at heart, can you believe I've never mixed scrapping and stamping, err why not?

Stretch a sketch

Owned by two ginger moggies

and I think they are getting their relations to say hi in every country I visit.

First Cyprus, now Thailand.  Whre next?

Debz

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Scrap happy

This year I have promised myself to stop letting my photos languish on the computer and will {shock horror} be printing them and possibly even scrapping them.  Jan is crazy at work and I have to present to the big bosses which means have ink free/ paint free hands - yawn!  Good news for my scrapping though as I can usually stay pretty clean (if not tidy) doing this.

Here are some pics of what I've been up to.  Both are layouts were created using club kits from Scrapagogo.  The first one was using their "blueprint to go" and the second their "details delivered" sketch. 

Debz
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