Evergreen

The tree is not only the centre piece of many living rooms in the UK at Christmas time but it is also a favourite motif of crafters everywhere. It's another one of those wonderfully versatile shapes to which you can apply countless techniques and create from a range of materials.

As we count down to Christmas I will be making a number of  creations using this fabulous new die from Tim Holtz, namely Bigz Evergreen.

This project is perfect if like me you have scraps of paper left from those beloved paper packs which you can't find anywhere for love nor money, but want to hang on to the bits that you have left even though they are taking up space in your craft stash.

I am using a lovely 6.5 x 6,5 pad from Kaisercraft called Yuletide. Let's begin..... 

I am going to create a collage on a 10 x 13 cm rectangle of mount board using strips from the aforementioned paper pad before cutting a few thin strips of text pattern paper. I have used a couple of Distress Ink pads (Old Paper and Vintage Photo) to deepen the colour around the edges of all the strips.

 Once the strips were attached I used some postmark stamps to add further detail. Once satisfied with the effect I placed the collaged mount board face down onto the Bigz die and cut my shape.

 After inking around the outside of the tree it's time to put the card together. I wound a length of twine into different sized loops before securing with a small staple which will be covered later. I then sprayed the string with adhesive before sprinkling with Distress Glitter, I know that it hasn't picked up in the picture but the effect is wicked. Next, I used a large ornate stamp together with the Old Paper ink pad to add detail to the front of a white A6 base card.

 I cut a 7 x 11 cm rectangle of paper covered in a very subtle vintage pattern which is perfect for the background, any more detail and it would start to clash with the tree. I inked around the edges before strategically scrunching the paper.


Here is the finished card. I attached the distressed paper using double sided tape before mounting the tree using adhesive foam pads. the string and the diamanté gem were  both mounted using a hot glue gun. The gem by the way, was liberated from a piece of old costume jewellery.

More of these on the way between now and Christmas.... Bye for now!

A little more Elegance

Today we are taking another look at the Elegance die range, but this week we are hoping to achieve that elusive elegant touch using a very basic colour palette. They say simple is beautiful well I like to think it can also be elegant too!

The die that I used is a dove named Delicate Wings together with some great stamps from the good people at Darkroom Door. The colours of card are a couple of warm greys together with some pale cream and the Distress Inks are Old Paper and Pumice Stone.

I started by die-cutting the dove from cream card before applying the text stamp inked up with Pumice Stone Distress ink; these inks are not really designed for rubber stamping but they do give a lovely soft, subtle image.Next, I gently applied Old Paper ink around the edges.

I cut a rectangle of grey card measuring 95 x 140 mm and rounded off the corners with a punch before stamping the legend 'thank you' onto a strip of darker card before gently inking the edges. I gave the dove a very light spritz of spray adhesive before applying a little Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter which creates a very subtle effect on the right side of bling!

Here's the finished card piece mounted onto a standard sized cream base card. Hope you like it! 

Next Wednesday I will be blogging as usual but I will be on my way to Frankfurt to attend the Creativeworld fair, It's always a very exciting time and I promise to tell you all about it when I return.

Frozen fractals all around!

What on earth is a fractal I hear you cry and you are not alone? If you really want to know the answer, ask any little girl from the age of three upwards. The title of this blog itself is in fact a fractal of a lyric from the song 'Let it go' which comes from the Disney movie 'Frozen' and if you have a young daughter or granddaughter you will no doubt be familiar with both the tune and the lyrics.

My own daughter dressed up as the character Elsa for a Frozen themed lunch at her school last week complete with regulation blond plait so I thought I would use this weeks blog to create a frozen themed card featuring some of the new Tim Holtz collection.

The dies I used are:

• Sizzix Bigz Die w/Texture Fades - Layered Snowflake
• Sizzix Bigz L Dies - Stacked Snowflakes
• Sizzix Texture fades Embossing Folders 2PK - Beaded Garland & Snowflakes Set

You can see the different dies/folders by clicking on the links above.

OK! so it's Disney, it's one of the biggest grossing movies of all time, and my daughter will never speak to me if I get it wrong.... no pressure!

I took a 10.5 x 14 cm rectangle of white card and applied Broken China Distress Ink across the surface. Next, I applied the darker Chipped Sapphire working closer to the corners before going around the edges with Black Soot.

I next applied Perfect Pearls (Biscotti) which comes in a mister bottle. This serves to add a lovely pearl sheen and it also gives the inked surface a lovely mottled look if you spray enough on. After embossing with my snowflakes folder I used a little white gesso applied with my brayer working from the corners inward. I wanted the effect to be quite random and it brings out the embossed detail beautifully.

I die-cut the gorgeous layered snowflake and inked using Broken China and Chipped Sapphire and embossed with its corresponding Texture Fades folder (they come packaged together). Next, Iused my brayer to apply some white gesso in a thin layer.

Once the gesso had dried I used My Fingertips to apply PVA glue to the arms of the snowflake before sprinkling on a little Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter. Next I die-cut a couple of the smaller snowflakes using the Stacked Snowflakes die (LOVE this die!!!) before embossing both with the same folder. You can use this folder with snowflake die you may already have because they all conform to the same symmetrical six sided shape. I inked, applied the gesso and glitter as before and mounted all three snowflake together using adhesive foam pads to build up a little dimension before mounting toward the top of my embossed rectangle.

I took the final and most famous line from the song 'Let it go' and printed it onto white cardusing several fonts in different shades of the same blue colour. Next, I used scissors to cut them into asymmetric rectangles before lightly inking the edges

I attached the separate words using a combination of glue and foam pads before nervously crossing the room to seek the approval of Nichola and Natalie, our resident 'Frozenologists'

for there stamp of approval which I'm happy to say it received...PHEW!!

Now all I have to do is run it by my daughter (Jorja and Jessica too!!!) like I said, no pressure! 

I hope you like it though?

Snowflake Alchemy!

Firstly, Hello to all the gang at Sprinkle Twinkle in Kings Lynn where I was giving a demo day and workshop at the weekend, we had lots of fun looking at some of the new Christmas dies and sharing a few techniques.

At the start of the day, a lovely lady named Tina brought me some Welsh cakes to make me feel at home so 'Diolch yn fawr iawn'. Next time I'm down that way I'm going to take them a few mountains, we've got plenty to spare in North Wales and they could do with a couple dotted about the place. I've never seen so much sky?

One of my demos on the day involved a new set of Thinlits snowflakes from that man Tim Holtz who has hit a winner again with his gorgeous new collection of seasonal dies, click on this link to see what I mean!

I am also using a set of Thinlits Tags which everyone should make some room for in their die-cutting stash. Two other sets which proved very popular on the day and which I couldn't resist using are the Thinlits Holiday words collection and the Thinlits Labels collection. The embossing folder used is from a set of two namely Beaded Garland & Snowflakes. All of the products named are designed by Tim for Sizzix and I will be featuring more in the coming weeks because they are fab!

I use the word alchemy in the title which was. of course, the pseudoscientific vain pursuit of turning base metals into gold. With Sizzix and a few Distress Inks however we can hopefully turn plain ivory and kraft card into crafting gold..... I hope!!!

I die-cut the tag and word 'joy' from stiff ivory card and I die-cut three of the five snowflakes and the rosette label from kraft card. I then embossed or to be more precise, debossed the beaded garland onto the ivory tag before blending some of my favourite Distress Ink colours (Broken China, Shabby Shutters, Dusty Concord and Vintage Photo) over the top.

I used a brayer to apply a thin coat of gesso to the label and snowflakes before strategically inking with the green, blue and purple. I then delicately spritzed the die-cuts with clean water to add a subtle mottling effect. Finally, I applied a little Vintage Photo inks to the edges. 

Do you use Distress Glitter.... If not why not? It's super fine and adds a wonderful sparkle to whatever it touches, you can apply as much or as little as you want and it always allows the underlying colour to shine through. I applied a blob of PVA glue to my craft sheet and used my fingertips to apply some to the edges of the die-cut shapes in a random fashion before dipping it into the glitter. Next, I used 3D foam pads to mount the three snowflakes together before decorating with a few adhesive gems.

I applied the glitter to the word 'Joy' which I attached to the label before adding an adhesive pearl in place of the die-cut dot over the letter 'j'. Next, I used a pokey tool to pop a hole through the top of the label and added a couple of jump rings.

I used my Distress Inks to colour some Crinkle Ribbon and attached it around the base of my tag tied into a bow.

And here is the finished tag, I added some paper string through the hole in the top from which I hung my label and mounted the snowflake with some more 3D foam pads. It may not be alchemy, but it's certainly very different from the raw materials with which we started our journey... More from Tim's new collection next week!