#timholtzdemo call to action.

How many times do we all watch inspiring stuff online but then never get round to using all those exciting new techniques or ideas? Just as we horde our growing stash of craft materials, we store the ideas away "for later." But 'later' often fails to arrive. I was delighted to hear Tim Holtz say he wanted everyone to go make, create and most important of all play with their materials and techniques. He emphasised it should be fun and not limited to finished or perfect projects.

last summer on my beach walks I picked up eroded bits of tiles as I wandered around, unaware of the luxury of my liberty! Of course the collection of ceramics was stuffed into a drawer and forgotten for months. After watching the inspirational Tim Holtz demo I got the forgotten ceramics and my neglected alcohol inks out to play.

Tim did a previous demo on alcohol ink which I watched and stored but I was inspired to action. Alcohol inks are a liberating medium for play as you can wipe off the results you dont like and start over.

I also used my newest stamp set 'Field Notes' by Tim Holtz and Stampersanonymous. I knew this set would be really useful but once it arrived I was overwhelmed by the possibilities and it sat neglected for a while.

I have started small, one single stamp on these lost fragments. Nothing monumental just tiny treasure.

During these difficult times life has changed for all of us. For those of us on lockdown one of the advantages has to be time to play, explore and create. I hope you are lucky enough to be home, safe, well and free from some of the terrible burdens many of us have to carry these days. If so I hope you play.

I am linking this up with the latest Simon Says Stamp Challenge which is Anything Goes

Blue houses made with Artful Dwellings die

Christmas is definitely coming now. Christmas lights have been turned on and Santa is in his grotto in town. I have started making my presents now which are increasingly handmade. I think the older I get the less interested I am in buying more 'stuff' for people or myself. There is so much mass produced nonsense available and things all start to look the same in the shops. A handmade gift is always unique and has much more meaning. You are giving your time, sharing your imagination and creativity. You are sharing your sense of that person as you make something that is just right for them. I think it is time well spent and much more fun than Christmas shopping.

I usually come up with ideas for a few types of  gifts that suit lots of my friends and family. I have started off with an accordion that can be a decoration for Christmas, an elaborate card or an all year decoration.  Once its folded up it is also is very easy to post. This is great for people overseas. Having lived in England Australia and Canada I post a lot at Christmas.

I used the Tim Holtz Artful Dwellings die to cut coloured card stock in a range of blues. Each house shape was cut individually using a piece of card accordion folded so it lay just inside the edge of the cutting blade on both sides. This way the top and bottom cuts through but the two side edges are left intact to produce a connected continuous row of houses. Once I had lots of the four different shapes cut out I had a stamping feast. Using lots of blue inks including, Versamark Momento, regular Distress, Archival and  Powder Puffs chalk ink.

The edges are all distress inked to finish off. I think I might add some treasure gold or silver to some of them to make them more festive. I didn't want them to be Christmas themed as it seems a shame to have to put them away most of the year, I think the blues give them a wintery feel.

The rows are all the same shape but I overlapped them and glues different shapes together to produce a few sets that were longer and mixed up the house shapes. 

I really enjoyed making these and it gave me a chance to use lots of lovely stamps that have been neglected, I think I will do some more Christmas coloured sets next and use lots of my Christmas stamp sets. My non crafting friends often complain about the Christmas preparation and think I begin  very early but I think anyone who enjoys crafting knows it is a joy to have such a wealth of reasons to spend more time at my desk. Hope you are getting lots of time at yours too.

I'm linking up with:

Happy Little Stampers  November  anything Goes With a Die Challenge. This challenge always gives me a great prompt to get out my old dies.
and Frilly and Funkie whose latest challenge is "Tis the season for gift giving."

Deep Sea Collage

The latest paper artsy challenge is "Baked Texture" which inspired me to get out my embossing powders and play. I love using embossing powder. it is like a form of alchemy turning dull grains into molten reflective magic. I love the unpredictable and invisible process of applying virtually invisible Versamark and then coating and melting the granules to discover what will happen this time. Anyone who has visited me much knows I love the new baked texture powders by Seth Apter and Emerald Creek. I only have Deep Sea and Vintage Beeswax but I have mixed in a few of my other powders to create different effects. First I covered the baseboard with a few scraps of sea themed paper and Paperartsy fresco paints in blues and greens. I misted a little dark green from an old ink spray that usually produces big splotches. There are a few dark speckles on the final piece but most of the base colours are not very visible and I didn't take photos, sorry. I was only intending to play a little when I started out. I have include lots of pictures of all the effects and details.

I knew I wanted to use the beeswax and deep sea. I had the blue book spine and the shell and two fish scraps. I tore out several nautical pages from an old almanack. I also inked a piece of seam binding and stamped some text onto it and I used one tiny piece of design tape. I stained and glued down some pieces of the book paper and then applied some rock candy in some areas to create crackle . While it dried I stained and embossed some of the book paper fragments.

Each piece of book paper ended up with a very different look with all the various media used. The top fish is sitting on a piece that had 3 coats of beeswax. The bottom one is on a piece stained with distress stain.

This piece has only one coat of the vintage beeswax. The pale blue under the beeswax is a touch of blue distress stain. You can see the deep sea baked texture clearly here at the top.

All the heating the embossing demanded was too much for the rock candy and some of it flaked off. You can see the effect above in the bottom left hand corner. It just added to the sea texture so it looked quite good. I used a coat of beeswax then a coat of the sea embossing mixture to create a deep blue sea under the bottom fish. The 'Sea mixture" is lots of Deep Sea Baked texture, a pinch of Wendy Vecchi Fern green and Sky blue and a slightly bigger pinch of Ranger Antiquities Verdigris. 

I love the way different elements float and emerge in and out of focus. The different coloured layers all affect each other just like underwater. The Deep sea under the Vintage Beeswax is much greener. The blue area at the top of this picture is  Deep Sea baked texture under the Vintage Beeswax and on top of blue distress stain. It is very hard to describe any collage without using terms associated with water drift, float, swim all work so well to describe the way the elements and layers sit together and move between each other. 

In this section the gilt publishing company name on the old book spine glimmers just under the fishes tail. I had not noticed when I began that the publishing house was called Nelson! The book paper lists the tides and Rear and Vice Admirals in keeping with the nautical theme.

I wanted to use antiquing cream to emphasise the cracks in the rock candy and create a contrast to all the creams, greens and blues. Red Oxide ended up suggesting coral which was a pleasant surprise.

I thought the whole panel was too dark so I added a touch of white. After randomly sprinkling in a few spots I added individual specks of white from a pot of Stampendous Frantage to create bubbles for the fish.


Adding this to:
Paperartsy challenge #14 Baked Texture
Country View Crafts Challenge Sun Sea Sand
Emerald Creek Great Outdoors #ECAUG2018
That's Crafty Animal Magic challenge