Switzerland 2011 - Title Page

Well we have been back 4 weeks so I  thought it was high time I started my Scrap book album dedicated to our Family holiday this year. As my big girl will be off to Peru and then hopefully university next year it is probably our last main family holiday in its current form. To make it a little bit more special instead of going camping in the UK we decided to go to Switzerland to enjoy the scenery, fresh air and good food in a hotel. We were not disappointed it was great from start to finish.

This is the Title page of the scrapbook and is my entry to the Simon Stays stamp and show some Travel challenge this week and the Stamp Man Challenge #30 -Travel, there are many more pages to do I wont blog them all so dont worry !

The main paper is from the DCWV Garden Party Stack, I used Tim Holtz Distress ink crushed olive on the edges. I photocopied a swiss train travel map in black and white and then cut it out and distressed it with walnut stain and tumbled glass, as well as colouring in lakes lightly.

Using my Cricut I cut out the word Switzerland and 20ll from blue color core card stock, I used the stencil at the bottom to ink through using crushed olive, and also gently inked the actual letters and number with walnut stain.

Also using the cricut I cut out a tag and used a Tim Holtz technique were you use the whole ink pad - weather wood to roughly cover the tag and then sprinkled on embossing powder, I then flicked the tag to knock some of the powder off before heating, once dry I used walnut stain and crushed olive to rub in on top before rubbing off with a dry cloth. The insert in the middle was created using the computer.

 I stamped an airoplane from the clear Choice stamp set - 20 journey stamps in faded jeans, after cutting it out I used walnut stain again to tie it in.

The picture in the top right is of the jungfraugh - The Top of Europe where we went on the last day of our holiday and was the view from the hotel - beautiful. To tie the photo in with the page Mr W used photo shop for me and aged it up.

Once everything was in place I carefully drew arrows showing the route. So there you have it the title page to our 2011 holiday. Bye for now Dinner to cook and scrap booking to do..

21 Years My Love

This is especially for my man as today sees us reach our 21st wedding anniversary. We have been through a lot over the 21years but time is flying by and we have a lovely family around us especially our two fantastic offspring who continue to make us proud.

To celebrate the occasion I have created a canvas. I have never done one before so it was a bit of a leap of faith but I am pleased with the result.

I cut the word love in two different sizes and the number 21 using my cricut. This gave me both a mask and a stencil in both sizes. I then used my Cosmic shimmer Mists Golden Mint and Peacock Green to spray various layers waiting for each layer to dry before moving the stencil or mask to another spot.

My cousin has been using cut coke cans in some of her pieces recently so I thought I would have a go (thank you B). So I used my cuttlebug and embossed three hearts which I then carefully cut out and used Sail boat blue and citrus - adirondak alcohol inks on my alcohol ink dabber (all recently purchased at the wonderful LB crafts in Olney )to tie in the colours. These were then stacked and stuck to the canvas.

To finish of I used faded jeans distress ink around the edged and then dusted with blue perfect pearls to give a slight shimmer.

I have also made a card from a Tim Holtz tag die' firstly I tried to stamp white acrylic paint as a background but this didnt seem too successful so I repeated using a multi coloured green ink pad and clear embossing powder to make the tools pop out . The tools stamp is from the Creative expression It's a Guy Thing stamp set - did I mention my friend is now on the design team of said company and has just done something scrummy with ribbon and distress stains?) I then used Shabby shutters and tumbled glass distress ink over the top followed by faded jeans around the edges and again used some perfect pearls to give it a shimmer.

I used two different ribbons and grunged them up with the faded jeans again.

The tag was then mounted on wood effect card which I had distressed with the walnut stain, for the love I used the stencil I had created for the canvas and just dapped the walnut stain through the middle until it was the right colour.

Well there you are another year over and another just starting lets see what it will bring us.

New job and Thank you tags

Just made this tag for a colleague at work who has just been promoted. I used one of the new Tim Holtz  techniques I learnt on Saturday at a Masterclass at LB crafts led by Linda Elbourne so heres my entry for the Simon Says use a Tim Holtz technique. Technique number 14 - distress, mask, spritz and flick! There you go it says it all. Used my trust rusty hinge and mustard seed for the base and then used spiced marmalade for some stamping  using my new Paper Artsy stamps in the back ground as well as good old walnut stain to grunge it up a bit.

Amy also had a fantastic go at a thank you tag and used the directions from Septembers Stamper magazine to spray and flick lemon juice onto the tag and then to heat it up causing it to go brown as well as distressing the tag with stormy sky and faded jeans, she added some stamps and heaven forbid she ripped a page out from the dictionary and stamped on top of it with the Eiffel tower! (Amy is now traumatised as you are not allowed to rip pages out of books !)

Discover The World

A special tag for my friend Gabrielle who has just become a member of the Creative Expressions Design Team, a well deserved Step along the way for her to share her fantastic creations and designs with a wider audience so we can all share in her amazing works of art.

The tag was made using the same technique as my previous post using the Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas 2009, day 8 but using a range of different blues for the distressing - faded jeans,stormy sky, weathered wood and tumbled glass. I used stamps from Hot picks (Paper Artsy) HPX T03 and Clear choice Stamps- 20 Journey Stamps. The main map stamp was from the Glitz Clear stamps Distressing set 3 I also used it on the tag using plum ink but it seems to be hiding in the picture.

So congratulations Gabrielle and heres to many more days and exciting challenges of creating designs for everyone to enjoy and discover new techniques along the way.

A Postcard Thank You

We have just got back from a fantastic week away and I wanted to say a special Thank You to a special friend and her family for looking after our two lovely but excitable dogs, so what better way is there than making my own tag to attach to her gift from Switzerland.

For inspiration I am using the Grungy Monday 18 challenge from Studio L3 using the Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas, day 8 technique but will also be putting it forward for the Simon says Stamp and Show a Tag challenge.

So as prescribed I found some vellum buried in my stash it was quite thick so I wasn't sure it would do the job but thought nothing ventured nothing gained. I stamped it using the postcard stamp from my Glitz Clear Stamps distressing set 3  which I bought at LB Crafts in Olney using black archival ink and dried it using my heat gun, after this I covered it with  Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Ink antique linen and heated it using my heat gun until it was well and truly heated. The next step was to tear the edges which I did trying not to make it too tidy, the edges were then inked with DI walnut stain.

Next I grabbed a tag that I had cut using my cricut previously and used DI antique linen, crushed olive and a little of the walnut stain to cover it. I then spritzed some water onto my hand and splashed droplets onto the tag and watched as some delicate spots of colour changed the appearance of the ink. Once I had dried the tag I distressed the edges of the tag using the edge of a pair of scissors and found a tool from a child's silver scratch picture set to scratch into the front of the tag to give it some texture.

Using Rich Cocoa Momento ink I distressed the edges and the front slightly so that the roughened edges picked up the dark brown. Then using a flourish stamp that was one of my first buys (have no idea who made it) and some plumy pink ink to add a couple of bits top and bottom.

I  stamped a small thank you in Momento Ink in Rich Cocoa on the corner of the inked vellum and curled the vellum and stuck it on carefully to the tag at an angle.

Not having purchased any grung board (yet...I am sure the opportunity to purchase some will be upon me soon seeing as I will be visiting the the said LB craft shop on Saturday during a very special crafting workshop that I am going to along with my friends) to make an embellishment I decided to use a metal Friendship emebellishment from my box of bits and a few buttons (my favourite embellishment ever) and finished it of with a small bulldog clip on the side for good measures.

Well there you have it my Thank You tag to a very special person and her family.