Monday, August 30, 2010

Inspired by Babies

I love babies... who doesn't? And who doesn't need a cute little baby card from time to time? Well I am all set for the next bundle of joy. When I saw Tim Holtz' paper with the little vintage inspired cards of nursery rhyme animals, I was inspired to think baby.



I took a piece of the green rouche paper to mat four of the cards. I sanded the card edges to make sure that my cut edges blended in. I used my labels Nestabilities die to cut out a dusty purple and a white label to stamp the message. A piece of ribbon, a flower, and some bling finish it off.

thanks for stopping by!
erin






Sunday, August 29, 2010

Altering Grungeboard

Ever tried grungeboard? It's like chipboard, only better. It's bendable and takes well to embossing, painting, inking, sanding, etc....

I used a large grungeboard piece on this layout:


And here's a close-up of the grungeboard.

First, the grungeboard was embossed using a Tim Holtz alterations embossing plate (the bingo card). I stamped the grungeboard and heat embossed the image with black embossing powder. Once the grungeboard cooled down I used several colors of acrylic paint on top. When the paint was tacky I swiped a damp paper towel over the piece, wiping paint off to reveal the embossed image.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

DT Sketch - "Bloom"

It was fun to go grunge and a pleasure to work this collection. The vintage theme of the papers are right up my alley. The collection has two beautiful floral patterns. I used the blue floral because it went so beautifully with my daughter's shirt.

I loved this film strip element. It is the neatest thing! I attached it to the layout using brads.

I used stickers from K & Company. Whatever you do, never get rid of your stash. I remember buying these for a Thanksgiving layout, but never used them. I guess they were just waiting for Tim Holtz to come along. The book cover and metal edging are from 7 Gypsies.


Thanks for joining me today.

Robin

Friday, August 27, 2010

it's all perspective


I love how quickly this quirky, tongue in cheek card came together.

I used the Tim Holtz bird cage & bird die on Grungeboard. I painted the bird cage with Bronze Distress Paint. I painted the bird with brick Distress Paint and then covered it with crackle medium for extra shine & crackle.

The paper is from Tim Holtz, as is the "it's all perspective" stamp. TFL.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Life in Texas by Esther


This is my pagemap using older photos. When you save older photos, they might be different sizes due to when they were taken and types of cameras. These photos were probably taken in the 1940s or 1950s. They were not labeled. They are too precious to leave in the shoebox. Since they were different sizes, the one is larger as the focal and the other three are supporting looks.


A solid color was used as the base to highlight the frame cut for the focal photo. The bottle caps in the Tim Holtz cardstock were vintage enough. Other bottle caps were used for accents. Strips of paper were torn and inked with timber brown Staz-on ink. The title was formed from welding with the Gypsy.


The three smaller photos were also in black and white with a tinge of sepia (probably from ageing process). Computer generated journaling was printed in a brown on cream cardstock. Keys, metal pieces and found objects, like buttons, can add to a vintage page. The chipboard key was sprayed with Glimmer Mist. Copper brads attached the flower.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

A book of memories!


What a great way to put lots of photos together of a specific event, is in a small album. Since we are working with Tim Holtz's great line this month, I thought it would work great with my Italy photos.


I first made my chipboard album using the new We R Memory Keepers "Cinch" binding tool kit. It is so easy and fast to use. I purchased it at Scrapbooks-Plus. I use it to bind lots of little books, kids art work, recipes, my scrapbook designs and sketches, and event albums.


After I glued the paper to the cardstock, I used sandpaper and brown ink to distress both the covers and pages. This was a great time to add the Tim Holtz grungeboard. I first inked the die then sprayed some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist to enhance the die as well as add textured to the page.
Making small albums of special events is a great way to use lots of photos. These are also great books to have on your coffee table to share with family and friends.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Tag Tin

I am trying to get purge my scrap room so I actually have a room instead of piles of "stuff". It is not going well. This tin is evidence of that. I had bravely put it in the give away pile. It is an old K&Co. tin that came with chipboard letters. I couldn't sleep. I knew it was downstairs in that give away box & my brain starting trying to justify keeping it. My brain won coming up with this idea to alter the tin. Perfect Tim Holtz project. A good practice run to alter my other Holtz organizers, which I have not been brave enough to tackle.

Step 1: Alcohol ink the whole tin. To get into the edges take the felt off the applicator & use it with your fingers, it is messy but works. I used eggplant & stream. Next I stamped Tim's diamond stamp with metallic green acrylic paint. I didn't use a stamp block so that I could get good coverage. Careful it can slip, but if you mess up just wipe the paint off & start over. I stamped the clock face & butterfly with stazon, a little tricky because again they want to slip around. For the stamps that touched the alcohol ink I used archival ink.

Tim's Alterations for Sizzix are ridiculously cool. Here I used Fanciful Flight & did 3 layers. I started with grunge to give it some strength, L&F paper for the wings & metal for the outline. The metal was inked with purple twilight & stream alcohol ink. For the body I used grunge board, embossed, & lightly inked with broken china distress ink than ran dusty concord over top to pick up the embossed bits. Added distress stickles. The great thing about this product is you can dry it with a heat gun unlike traditional stickles. Wires & beads were used for the antenna. My husband thoughtfully drilled a hole in the top so I could attach the curio knob. I attached a key hole & some metal including a Type Charm-using the bottle cap from the 6x6 paper from L&F. Now I have somewhere to keep my tag creations until they find there way onto a scrap book page. Yay.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Vintage Feel, New Pics

I loved the vintage feel of the Tim Holtz papers. It finally gave me the excuse to scrap some photos I took of historic houses in Galveston, Texas. The two-page spread is filled with one 8 by 10 shot of my mom standing by a row of those beautiful houses. I flanked it with six wallet-sized prints. The spaces between the prints housed my journaling and my title. I used one of the Martha Stewart border punches along the top edge which echos the brick-a-brack on the houses themselves. I used a large Basic Grey label holder for the title... which was printed on the computer and finished up with the typewriter key stamps I've had forever, but never used until now. Some classic Primas with jeweled centers finish it off.

thanks for stopping by!
erin

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Creative Recycling


This layout was inspired by the page map Karen included in this months Design Team kit. In the kit she also included some of the packing from the products. She said that Tim Holtz is big on using the packing from products as a element in his design work. She included some of the packaging in our kits to encourage us to do the same. I utilized this plastic piece on which I built my title. I am not sure what product it once packaged but it worked really well here to pop my title and add a bit of dimension. I attached it to my page using the ever so wonderful Tiny Attacher that I love so very much! Hope this inspires you to think of creative ways to recycle too.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Canvas Art

This canvas was inspired by a technique on Tim Holtz's blog. Using Alterations Tattered Florals, cut patterned grunge, and glue to the canvas, using Rangers multi-medium.

Position book paper over canvas for placement, remove, put paper on firm surface & stamp images. Cover canvas & grunge piece with multi-medium. Top with stamped book paper.

Use fingers to mold paper to canvas, & glue edges down. Let dry. Distress over grunge flower to bring embossed image up. Add dabber paint to metal pieces, let dry until tacky, than wipe off raised parts with damp paper towel. This brings out the metal color but the paint color remains to add depth. Dabbers are great to use on metal as you can get the paint down into the debossed areas evenly. Lastly I added the painted grunge crown. With a few stamps, some distress ink & paint as well as awesome Tim Holtz products, we can now all be artists! Have fun & be creative!

Friday, August 20, 2010

My Pagemap

I enjoyed playing with the sketch for this month's page map. I made a few minor changes from the sketch. I used a lot of Tim Holtz's metal accents on this page, along with accents made from his packaging.

His findings containers have this little "bubbles" where the product sits. I cut around a few of those and glued them patterned paper for cheap embellies. Since my layout is about my daughter learning to read, my accents are words from the "pictoral alphabet" paper.

This month's Tim Holtz kit really inspired me to get out my inks and just play. I took a scrap of October Afternoon paper from a few months ago that was light blue and used a blend of Distress Inks to change the color to more of a greenish-teal. It's easy to do - use Tim Holtz's ink blending tool (with foam) and gently sweep one color on at a time from the edge of the paper inwards using a circular motion. Flip the foam around and add another ink color. I think I used three or four colors on this.


I also inked the flower parts, then added a metal Idea-ology memo pin through the center.


I chose to tie Tim Holtz key to the front of my envelope (and then a bit of glue to the back of the key so it stays put). So for my journaling, I cut a slit in the side of the envelope and added a Tim Holtz ribbon to the edge so it can easily be pulled out.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

BINGO

I love this Tim Holtz "Bingo" paper. Somehow it reminded me of this picture of my kids & their cousins. I painted the letters with Tim Holtz black distress paint. The chipboard heart is a Tim Holtz die painted in brick distress paint. The butterflies are from Jenni Bowlin.

The charm on the heart is als from Tim Holtz. The evenlope is from Maya Road spritzed with Walnut Gold Glimmer Mist. TFL.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Beautiful

I decided to make this layout look as if it was a page from a fairy tale. The floral paper worked beautifully with this photo. I used pearl accents from Prima and 3-D floral stickers from Anna Griffin. It is always fun to mix designer collections to create your own unique project. Who would have guessed that the grunge style of Tim Holtz would work so effortlessly with the elegance of Anna Griffin?

I folded the top corner of the page to reveal a beautiful laser cut border from Scherenschnitte Designs. These beautiful border can be found in the store.  I bought nearly one of each!  The folded corner is being held down by a Tim Holtz metal piece which says “Imagine.”

The hinges are made of grunge board which I painted chocolate, green and gold to achieve an antique effect. I used pink crystal brads for the nails holding the hinges in place.

Thanks for joining me today.

Robin

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Memories!

I took these photos of my "old neighborhood" a few years ago. I grew up there in the 50's and 60's. I was amazed at all the changes there since I grew up. I wanted to do something special with them but didn't know what to do. When I received the Tim Holtz page kit this month, I thought, this is it. What great colors and prints to help show my childhood memories.

The new flowers are very cool. You can make them whatever color you want. You can paint them, ink them, or use any popular mist on them. Since I kept a white border on these photos, I kept my flower white and added a little ink, just to make them pop. I used lots of distressing with ink and sand paper to make this layout work. This is a keeper.

Monday, August 16, 2010

New Baby Calf by Esther








This layout was inspired by a place that is close by, but mostly ignored. The Fairfax County Park Authority maintains The Kidwell Park for children and adults to view farm life. The "New Baby" sign caught my eye. A group of calves were munching on the hay in the farmyard. They had no idea that they would be on a layout and in a blog.





Tim Holtz's papers were perfect to highlight the calves in front of the red barn. The base papers are two sheets of green Bazzill. One picture was printed 8"x10" as the feature that was framed with the solid distressed cardstock from our kit. The framing of the picture included the fence to give balance. That formed the left side of the two-page layout.




The right side has three pictures of the different views of the calves moving together to feed. The "New Baby" sign hanging from a post was used as my title. Journaling and the park name were printed on the computer. I also printed definitions of calf and farm on white paper to compliment the New Baby sign. Pieces of red distressed cardstock were used as accents along with the Tim Holtz tape at the top. Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist was used to spray a stencil on tan cardstock for an accent on the right side to break up the darker colors.





This was a fun page to do with an ignored subject. The children go there to view and pet the animals. I usually pass by the farm and concentrate on the traffic. Now I will consider it a place for blogging material.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Hip Photos

One of the cool things that you can do with today's phones is taking pictures. Sure they're not high quality images, but that's fine. I have this fun app, Hipstamatic, that imitates the look of plastic cameras from the past. You get this 1960's feel from the photos. Perfect for Tim Holtz products!


I took one of the Hipstamatic photos from our recent trip to California and paired it up with Tim Holtz paper, a few Tattered Angels transparencies, some hand-stitching and a lot of distress ink.


The flower is made from Tim's grungeboard using a Tim Holtz Alterations die. I inked it with distress ink then embossed a pattern using clear embossing powder. Once the embossing powder was cool I inked around the flower using two more colors of distress ink.

The stitched "waves" were made using a Bazzill bling template. Instead of placing bling in the holes I marked on my layout with pencil, then went back and sewed with the thread.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

My Dad!

I had so much fun creating this page. My Dad meant the world to me and what a great way to share him with everyone is with Tim Holtz's great products.

I loved using the grungeboard dies and distressed them with brown ink. The small Bingo cards came from one of the printed pages. I cut them out, tucked them under the great clear plastic photo negatives. How cute are they?

I added a paper flower at the lower left corner of the photo. I used a petal and round punch. Then I sanded the ends and crumbled the paper. Added a metal heart brad, and called it a day. I think this is a great time to use use Tim Holtz's small stapler gun too. You can add an embellishment here and there, plus the staple adds the metal look as well as dimension. Stop by ScrapbookPlus and pick up Tim Holtz's products and have as much fun as I did.

Friday, August 13, 2010

More Everydays

I loved the Tim Holtz text block patterned paper and wanted to feature it on a page. (I actually own a couple of typeset trays and have one displayed in my home with the names of each family member spelled out in antique typeface and the other on my scrapdesk with inks, stamps, and embellies in the slots.) I decided to cut out my title and pair it with the date book patterned paper. I overlapped the letters and popped a few of them with dimensional adhesive. A metal photo corner, some of the tissue tape (this stuff is really cool and completely worth the splurge) and Melissa Frances buttons finish it off. The butterflies are an EK Success punch and fit perfectly in the squares of one of the quadrant papers included in the package. I was inspired by the Jenni Bowlin butterflies and filled the centers with some clear Kaisercraft, making them a perfect match.


thanks for stopping by!
erin

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Back in the USSR

Most of the products I used on theses pages were- yes Tim Holtz, Ranger, Alterations. The Tim Holtz Lost & Found papers were perfect for my travel photos. It took me longer to find the negatives & reprint them than design the page-ah the digital age. The amazing thing is the photos I reprinted were fantastic compared to the ones I had developed in the Ice Age of the '80's. At that time I was an athlete & had the amazing good fortune to spend a month in the former Soviet Union. The end of our trip found us in Moscow, doing a photo shoot for our sponsors. I did 2 pages & I call this the "I can't stop adding to this layout, layout".
Page 1: I stamped & embossed on the edge with distress powder. I scrap lifted an idea from a page Tim did for Ranger. Mount the photo & leave extra paper on the bottom. Paint the edges of the paper & photo with crackle paint. Let dry & rip the bottom edge & distress. I attached the star with the most amazing Tiny Attacher. This uses tiny staples but is super strong & good to hold embellishments. I used it to attach the ruler ribbon & soda labels, I saved from my trip. The letters are Tim Holtz salvage stickers.
Page 2 was us being photographed in front of the Bolshoi Theatre. & Red Square. I wanted to cover postage stamps but I had printed them & sometimes the ink runs. I covered them 1st with multi-medium which makes them water proof, than I covered them with rock candy crackle paint. I used the 2x2 squares from the L&F pack & adhered the stamps to that. The last square I covered with fired brick crackle paint & posted the title "red square" (haha get it?) under Tim's film strip. In the upper right I used the barb wire mask, distressed & added the Alterations hinge cut from grunge paper, embossed, painted & distressed. How much fun is this?! I added a journal box yes of course distressed. My favorite part of this page is the lower right cormer. I took a fragment, with some glossy accents, put it on top of one of the clocks from the L&F, cut it out & hung it from a swivel clasp. Put the page down & step way! This was a fun page to just keep adding to & adding to. That is why I love Tim Holtz products, you can layer & layer for great fun dimension. Drop by ScrapbooksPlus, pick up a Tim Holtz kit & scraplife the design team-brilliant!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

All Star

The stars on my "All Star" pages are covered with Tim Holtz distress paints and then covered with Rock Candy Distress Stickles.
The title was cut using "Baseball" with my cricut using Tim Holtz paper. The star corner punch is one I have had in my stash for awhile and never used!

All the embellishments are from the Tim Holtz collection we were given to play with!TFL.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Deck the Halls

When I was a child the Christmas season always began with my mom decorating the house the day after Thanksgiving. She would pull out the tree and the ornaments, wreaths and knickknacks that would decorate our home all through the season. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of my childhood home decorated for Christmas. That was the inspiration behind this layout. I wanted to photograph some of the decorations in my home so that when my kids are grown they will have a record of what Christmas looked like when they were children.

The title of this layout was made using the Tim Holtz GrungeBoard plain alphas. This set includes one sheet of each letter with 9 variations of the letter on each sheet. I was able to pick and choose from different fonts to add a bit of whimsy to the layout. I misted the letters with Glimmer Mist using the color brick.




I decided to hide the journaling on this layout mostly just because I wanted to include all three photographs as well as have a large bold title on the page. Since those pieces of the layout took up so much space I wrote down my journaling on a tag, attached a small bit of ribbon using my Tiny Attacher and tucked it behind one of the photos.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

A Week with Karin by Esther

This layout was designed with the days of the week from the Tim Holtz Lost & Found paper. I planned a week of pictures of one person. Each of the seven pictures was taken with a Polaroid camera in the late seventies. The white portion at the bottom of each picture was typical of these types of photos. In order to get seven on the layout, six were shrunk to fit the spaces and one was left larger as a focal point. It was mounted on blue cardstock.

A sheet of cream cardstock was used to print the journaling that describes each day's activities. This is a great way to chronicle memories of a loved one.

Flowers were cut using the Cricut from Kraft cardstock. They were sprayed with Passion Red Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels.

Sorry for the lack of pictures due to technical difficulties. Please view the DT Wall at www.Scrapbooks-plus.com

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Tim Holtz lights up Venice!


If there is one word to describe Tim Holtz is "FUN". He has so many embellishments and fun products to use on your pages or cards. Karen's page map this month went well with Tim Holtz's kit. I love this photo taken by my husband on the morning we were leaving Venice. It was a beautiful Venice sunrise and he was lucky enough to photograph that great moment. In Karen's kit this month we also received a few great embellishments to add to our pages. I added a few of them with Tim's staple gun under the photo. In the right top corner of the page, I also used some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist (Sunflower) on a sunburst sheet of Tim Holtz's grungeboard. It is a great way of adding texture to your pages. If you love to distress, paint, ink, play with metal, you too will enjoy Tim Holtz's products. Check out this month's ideas from the design team to help you get started.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Travel Journal by Esther

What a fun collection in the Tim Holtz used for our DT kit for August. I made a travel journal that is on the Design Team Wall. Then I got crazy and made the second one from some of the papers left in my stash. Chipboard 6" squares are at ScrapbooksPlus. These are a great find because I did not have to shape them.



The squares are covered with the Tim Holtz Lost and Found cardstocks with the edges inked with a Sepia Brown Copic Marker on right-handed corners that are shaped with Chompers. Each page has a different Chomper shape. Pockets and decorative pieces are added to the book base pages.



On the cover, the numbers from Bingo were used to indicate the year of the trip. A metal tag gave the title, "Journey 2167". I'll figure what the numbers will represent later. Hotel motifs on front; license plates on second page,; Bingo motif over mini travel sheets; next page sports the word Bingo; fifth page shows bottle caps with a distressed cardstock pocket; and the back cover has colorful rulers.



The book was assembled with a bright ribbon in two holes on the left made with the Crop-a-dile. I found copper brads to decorate the strips added. I really like walking through the store because things are there for scrapping. If not, it can be ordered to make your projects look like you want them.



This journal will go with me on a trip, while the other one will be a gift to a friend. Look at the DT Wall on the website to see the first journal. We must gather the memorabilia to stir recollection! Sorry, this was not my day to be able to add pictures.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Cards

Yes, thank you Tim Holtz! I love love love his products - and his new paper line is no exception. Seriously I got all happy and giggly when I saw August's kit.

So, I rolled up my sleeves and got all inky and messy. And who cares if I've got a bit of cleaning up to do in my scrapspace, I enjoyed every minute of it!

For this card I used on of Tim Holtz's new dies from Sizzix. After adhering the papers to my card and stamping my sentiment, I placed a Tim Holtz mini mask in the corner and inked it with pumice stone distress ink.

Using the negative image from the die cut above, I inked the empty space with some vintage photo distress ink and then stamped on top with a fun swirl. The bottom two layers of the flower were also inked with several colors of distress ink.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Creating with Tim Holtz


Anyone who knows me, knows I love all things Tim Holtz. It is not an obsession, just a healthy respect for creative genius. I have been lucky to take a few of his classes, which were of course awesome. The invention behind his product, especially his tools is extremely well thought out. We are the ones who wish this tool did this or that, he's the one who thinks the same thing & than goes out & makes a new better one. For my first layout, I used this photo of me & Tim. I went up & took some classes near my home town, in Laval, Quebec. All the products on this page are pretty much from Tim's various lines, Alterations by Sizzix, idea-ology by Advantus, Distress Inks by Ranger, & his spectacular (you can only use the word amazing so many times ) stamps by Stampers Anonymous.

The paper is from the Lost & Found (L&F) paper pack, the flip side of his papers have these beautiful distressed rich colors. I started by using masks & distressing with broken china & spiced marmalade (2 of my favorite colors). The photo was digitally spiced up with a border, title & Tim's name from his packaging. I added tissue tape in the corner. The cool thing about his tissue tape is, it is translucent, you can see the background coming through-love it!

On this layout I tried a new technique-on the tag-painting on paper towel. I painted a paper towel with metallic acrylic paint. The interesting effect is, the debossed image on the towel is not picked up by the paint & creates a textured look. I tore pieces of the towel & adhered to the tag with gel medium. Adding a metal corner, & ball chain with a trinket pin, jump ring & philosophy tag, added the idea-ology bling factor-Tim Holtz style. The key is grunge paper cut from the alterations line, embossed with a texture fade & inked. To finish the tag off, a photo was added & the stamp.

As this layout is following this months page map, I needed some squares in the corner which gave me the perfect opportunity to add some fragments. These acrylic wonders add great dimension & shine to your page. It was also a good way to get extra photos on the layout. Using glossy accents, I adhered pictures of the class projects & L&F pieces to the fragments. The unique thing about this paper pack is the varying sizes, 12x12, 6x6, 2x2, ATC's give you endless ways to use pieces of the paper. The calendar piece which shows the month fit perfectly under the small fragment. As did the bingo # which shows the day. Just a fun way to get the date of the event on the page.

I added to the layout by alcohol inking a memory frame 1st. Stamping a piece of Tim's calendar paper, using various distress inks, & distressed stickles & once dry, put under the frame (very easy to use), with a dangle fleur-des-lys charm. I added a philosophy tag with a brad above, loosely following the page map. To finish up: L&F calendar paper was cut using a Sizzix die from the alterations line. This worked great as a journal tag. Some distress ink & matching stickles, a bit of bling & voila-done.

So the Design Team wall is up & looks fabulous! The gals did a fantastic job with the Tim Holtz kit, using his products in very creative ways. Stop by ScrapbooksPlus which carries the largest Tim Holtz line in the area! Check out the wall, get some new ideas. Pick up some of Tim's fantastic products & get scrappin!


Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Celebrate the Everyday

Quite frequently, my dear husband, as he's looking through the photos I've downloaded to the computer, asks me "why did you take this picture?" I tend to take pictures of all sorts of random things. Things I want to document, things I want to remember, things that are pretty. Many times I have grand ideas for what I will do with this pics, but they are often at the bottom of the to-be-scrapped pile.


When I went searching through my photos for ones that worked with the Tim Holtz papers this month, I noticed these shots I took at Ronald Reagan International Airport. I took the photos once when I dropped my husband and daughter off. The main terminal is a beautiful historic building... and even though I'm sure people were wondering why in the world I was taking pictures from the second floor Starbucks, I went ahead and did it. For a year and a half they've been languishing in my stash... waiting for the right moment... and the Tim Holtz globe/map paper pushed me to actually scrap them.




I used the sketch Karen gave us, but tweaked it to fit my photos and style. My feature photo is a bit smaller and instead of the vertical strips, I used one strip and matted the photo on a double vertical mat. Instead of the tag, I used an additional photo, and I shifted the journaling up and put it on a Basic Grey kraft sticker. The white circles are a Hambly Screen Print I picked up at ScrapbooksPlus and selectively cut. The pattern is quite striking... and although it's a bit more modern than Tim's papers, I like the contrast and how the circles carry through the photos, the papers, and the mat.

Don't be afraid to take some photos just because and get to scrapping them!

thanks for stopping by,
erin

Monday, August 2, 2010

The Magic Of Christmas

It was truly Christmas in July in my little design studio in the corner of my house last month. I had Christmas carols playing while I was playing with all things GRUNGE. It all started when I opened up my kit and saw this little charm that said believe. I pulled out these photos that I took last Christmas and I started playing. I think the thing I like most about this kit and Tim Holtz for that matter is that the products all lend themselves to be used to make your own embellishments. One of the first things I made was this block for the journaling/ title. I
started with a plain sheet of cream colored card stock. I used Fired Brick Distress Ink to get that glow or halo effect around the edge of the paper. Then I sprayed the paper with Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist and dried it with my heat gun. Then I went back over my craft mat to where the Glimmer Mist was still puddling and I ran the edge of my paper through the Glimmer Mist. I used two different fonts for my title/ journaling: Algerian and Brush Script MT.

I did this to create a visual separation between my title and my journaling. I left space when I was typing for the chipboard letters I used for the word magic. For further instructions on how to print on all sorts of different items of different sizes on any printer check out this post on my blog.











Sunday, August 1, 2010

August is Tim Holtz Month!

One of these days I may do a page without a Tim Holtz product (doubtful). Today is NOT that day as it is TIM HOLTZ month at ScrapbooksPlus. The Design Team kits for August feature the genius that is Tim. We start with the paper pack Lost & Found. This is a fabulous collection of 36, 2-sided papers, which makes it a great deal. 12x12, 6x6, 2x2, ATC card size & borders. The patterns range from script, music sheets, clocks, photos, ephemera... this kit has it all & the flip side of the paper are gorgeous, distressed, rich, jewel tones. Don't forget to pull out your Ranger Distress Inks, Paint Dabbers, & Alcohol Ink cause you are going to want to use those.


For embellishments we have all kinds of goodies. Tim's Idea-ology line is jam packed with metal charms, ornate keys & locks, tags & chains. He has cool tissue tape, fabric ruler ribbon, the awesome film strip which you can put those tired index prints under, fragments & the amazing grungeboard/paper. This product is of course perfect with his new Alterations line by Sizzix. These die cuts are designed to cut through thicker material like cardstock, grunge board, metal, fabric... & feature all kinds of interesting shapes that integrate with the Holtz line. Finally the Texture Fades which create a deep embossed image & co-ordinate with his stamps by Stampers Anonymous. So much product & only a month! No matter what your style of scraping you can incorporate these fabulous products too. Check back often to see what the Design Team gals come up with & get a close up, in person look at the Design Wall at ScrapbooksPlus.

As a special treat this month we will be offering Tim Holtz kits. For $10.50 you can get a grab bag which includes some of the Lost & Found paper, metal bits'npieces, Tissue Tape, & pre-cut Alterations grunge pieces. Also included will be instructions to one of Tim's techniques, to get you started. You add your creativity & distress ink!

Don't forget our August Page Map challenge. Be Creative!