Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge: Have a Heart!

Give a Hoot and Have a heart! I had fun creating this great little valentine for this week's challenge.  Using a Tim Holtz layering stencil, I applied transparent embossing paste to brown card stock to get the tree bark background.  The rest of the card used Paper Smooches Stamps and colored with Copic Markers!
You can see all the details from the Simon Says Wednesdays Blog Challenge here.

I decided to enter a second creation as well- just love texture paste, so in this one I colored texture paste and used it with another of Tim's layering stencils to create the heart background.  The XO stamps are from Impression Obsession and were colored with Copics:

2015 Dare to Dream Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2015 January

Wow! Cannot believe it's 2015- time to start a brand new year of 12 Tags and I am so excited.  I took this month's tag as an opportunity to reflect on what inspires me and the direction I am going artistically this year.  Here's my take on this month's tag:

Just love the colors I used in the background for this- amazing how differently the many distress colors can blend and look together- always finding a new combination!

You can see Tim's tutorial for this month here

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas...Tim Holtz Style

Well Christmas is 7 days always and all my Christmas cards are done...made 42 total and some gift card holders. Wanted to use some new techniques and also as many Tim stamps as possible.  Here is a sample of my cards:

The background here is painted enamel- love this technique!

I used brown flocking on the reindeer for texture.

Next up are the winter wonderland cards:

Backgound here is done with alcohol inks! I entered this one into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Winter Stamping. See details here.

And now for the blueprints:

A few inspired by Tim's tutorial on the Ranger blog:

And of course the gift card holders-Katie made these!

She is so talented!

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Ho Ho Ho.....

Made this super cute Santa card yesterday and wanted to share.  I have been wanting to do the chimney for a while now and I just love how it came out.  I inked up the Tim Holtz Brick Wall embossing folder with Pumice Stone distress ink and ran it through the vagabond to get the color of the cement in between the bricks.  Then I went over the raised bricks with Fired Brick distress ink and a blending tool.  I used the drippings from the Alterations Bigz die Candlelight for the snow.  I covered them with texture paste and distress tickles rock candy glitter for texture.  For the Santa- I painted all the pieces, inked the edges and applied snow batting to his beard for actual fuzzy texture.  I used distress rock candy glitter on his hat, pom pom and mustache!  I placed both pieces with pop-dots on Tim Holtz Merriment paper- "twas the night before Christmas"- how appropriate!

The Countdown begins.....

Cannot even believe it is already December and we have started the Christmas countdown.  This year to commemorate the days leading up to my favorite holiday I made some advent calendars.  Thanks to the inspiration of Tim Holtz and his media team member Anna-Karin. Instructions for the advent calendar are here on Anna-Karin's blog Layers of Ink.  I also made three others in less of the vintage style for my sister, a friend and of course us!

Here they are:

And of course the one for my sister HAD to have snowmen on it:

The other two: 

For the latter ones- I added my own flair and used wash tape around all the edges instead of painting. I love the candy cane look and feel that it gave to the project.  I also used Tim Holtz's Letterpress and some decorated trees (colored with distress stain sprays of course) to add some interest to the top!

Let the countdown begin! Oh, and most importantly all drawers were filled with yummy surprises!

Tim Holtz Assemblage Clock

Well it's been a bit since my last post as I have been relocating, redesigning and moving my studio-blog entry and pictures to come.  Wanted to share some holiday projects I have been working on in the meanwhile.  First up is Tim's Assemblage Clock.  You can purchase the instructions from Tim's Etsy store here. First I made one just like Tim's:

And then decided to make one with a snowman theme for my sister as she LOVES snowmen:

Just love the assemblage clock idea- so many ways to decorate. Thanks for the inspiration Tim! 

12 Tags of 2014-November Tim Holtz

Because the weather here has been so frigid (for fall), I decided to get a little "frosty" with my November tag.  I also completed the tag as Tim did with the Layered leaf, but liked the winter wonderland look better.  Using the same techniques as Tim Holtz did in his tutorial for 12 tags, I
created my tag below:

I used Broken China, Picket Fence, and Pumice Stone distress paint to create the backgorund on the tag, then ran it throw the vagabond with the snowflake embossing folder.  I used Pumice Stone distress ink on the raised portions of the folder before running it through. I then used the corrugated cardboard and sprayed with Brushed Pewter, Picket Fence and Salty Ocean distress stain sprays.  I finished by coloring the word WONDERFUL with distrss paints and wiping off gently.