Playing with Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powders.

Hi all :)

A little while ago i bought a set of six of the Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powders, not a new product i know but they are new to me.

Here is a simple tag that I have made to show the powders off on different coloured distress inks.

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What I love about this product, is that Ranger have addressed one of my "niggles" when it comes to the art of distressing. It doesn't have to be dull, dark and dowdy every time! "Vintage" or "distressed" makes can indeed have colour to them!

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For those of you who have not used these powders before, they are used similar to ordinary embossing powders, except for when they are dried, you rub off the "release crystals" that are cleverly incorporated into the powder. This leaves a worn and textured feel.

This picture shows the crystals having been rubbed off with my fingers.
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The main thing you'll notice with these powders are that they don't turn shiney when heated, but you soon get the knack of knowing when they are done.

I think these powders are a great way of creating the "rusty metal" effect sought after by many people.

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I stamped out some butterflies from a Crafty Individuals stamp set, and added them to the tag for a little depth. Nothing difficult, just a quick tag to practise my powders on.
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Thanks for stopping by. :)

A fun tag.

Hi everyone :)

Tonight i wanted to make something fun for a change, i really enjoy making the more dainty things for my kids, but sometimes it's nice to have a change.

This evening i laughed harder than i have in a long time! It was the ultimate belly laugh which almost stopped me breathing it went on that long.....so in honour of the funny, yet near fateful moment tonight, i did this tag......

My girls had finished their homework, and they wanted to play charades, so we did. Now my two, as I'm sure most kids do at their age, change the rules or get them wrong from time to time.

Well you know when you start off, you have to do the action for a book, a film or a song? Well my eldest was doing some kind of strange "pushing" motion with both hands, as if she was posting something through a letterbox or something?

She assured me it wasn't a movie, a book or a song...but kept "pushing something in". In the end i asked her what it was, to which she replied, "It's a DVD!" She was doing the actions of putting a DVD into the player lol. :)

That well and truly made me crack up laughing......i had tears streaming down my face. :)

I enjoyed this tag, it turned out better than i expected. First i stamped some paper with a fantastic new background stamp from Jennie at The Artistic Stamper. She'll probably clobber me for saying this, but i couldn't remember if it was a snakeskin or a cracked wall texture, so i decided it would go well with a "cracked" theme. *Edited to say, i just looked it Jennie's shop and it's "lace". I knew it. :)

Some blending with Distress Inks for a bit of colour, followed by a real hash job with Copics on the image. Maddy will shoot me when she sees this lol, she taught me some real cool techniques with Copics, but i managed to mess them up tonight. Maybe next time. :)

Best bit about this was the words, i drew them myself and thought the cracks did them justice. I thought they looked pretty cool.

So there you have it, one fun tag. Hope you like it.

Night all. :)

Made a tag calender this evening.

Hi all :)

Tonight i wanted to make something quick and easy, main reason being because my eldest wanted to see me make something before she went to sleep tonight lol. She started the night in my bed as she wanted to chat about a few worries she was having about high school....in a years time! :)

As my bedroom doubles as a craft room, she was able to chat away whilst i made this quick calender tag.
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Real simple to make, i just die-cut a tag and covered it with the "wings" paper from the Prima "Angelique Collection", then blended some distress inks around the edge. Then i backed the distress inked mini calender with lace and stuck it on the tag.
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A few white dots around the edge, one of the small paper flowers that i seem to be using loads of these days and some fibres to finish it off with, and hey presto.....one calender tag.



Thankfully it was to my eldest satisfaction, so she's fast asleep now. All that is left to do is to carry her back into her own bed, they don't get any lighter as they grow up do they!?

Hope you like the tag, I'm going to do another one for my little one, it's such an easy project to do. They can even help do this themselves.

Thanks for looking. :)

Back with a tag.

Hi all :)

Sorry for being absent recently, have had a few things on. he the longer i was gone from here, the less crafty i felt. Not good.

So tonight i sat down and forced myself to do a real basic tag....



Nothing too fancy, background paper from the DCWV "Once Upon A Time" collection, some blending with Distress Inks, some ferns from my new Fern Family punch, and stamped willow branches.....not forgetting a fairy in the forest, courtesy of Maddy who gave me a set of lovely fairy stamps (Cheers Maddy xx). A bit of ribbon around the edge and that was enough for me to feel crafty again.

I made this because it has been in my head constantly lately. My youngest watched the video about the Cottingley Fairies the other day, it's her fave. She now wants us to go into the forest and find our very own "beck" (like a stream) where fairies live. :)

Thank you once again for all of you who have visited recently, and a big thank you to those who have commented. It's nice to come back to such nice and funny comments when you're up to your ears in it! :)

More blending practice tonight.

As a wise man once said, "You become a master of what you focus on".

Well although i have a long way to go until i get to that stage, i am REALLY enjoying this blending lark! Tonight i had another go, just to iron out a few difficulties i had the other night really, and it is getting better. Still the usual suspects of the two rogue big sploshes, but I've worked out a solution for that.......



I played with the same colours as i used the other night. First i stamped in black StaZon. Here i used a gorgeous stamp which has a quote from Alice in Wonderland. I bought it from a lovely lady called Nikki who owns DewDrop Craftz , and it is definitely one that will be used a lot!

Colours of distress pad used were, Broken China blue at the top, Fired Brick red at the bottom, and Shabby Shutters green at the right side there. After i had blended them together from the outside inwards, i gave it a dusting of Dusty Concord purple for the edges. This really gives the colours a lovely mystical feel to them.

Then came the water flicking!!! The mistake i made last time was to hold my hand with tons of water on it, over the tag, and i ended up with big blobs when i wanted small flicks. This time i tried it with a toothbrush. I ran the brush under the cold tap, lightly tapped the brush against the sink to get rid of the big bits of water, then flicked the brush at it. Apart from the two big blobs on the left hand side, which occurred because i forgot to tap the brush the rest of the blobs are just how i wanted them.

So from now on it's wet, tap and flick! :)

Apologies for rambling on about this again, but it's more a reminder to myself so i can get the technique down to a fine art.

Night all. :)