ATC Suitcase

Hi Everyone,
I am sharing a little treasure I stumbled across when doing a bit of online shopping.

 I found this kit from a class Tim Holtz taught back in 2011.  The kit was never used and it was a screaming deal.  It has been sitting waiting for me to jump in. 
The little suitcase is the perfect size for this ATC booklet.    The suitcase was brown and green.  I painted it and then sanded it to expose a bit of the original brown.  I wanted it to look like it had been carried for many years.  The inside was cream colored velvet that I sprayed with Pumice Stone and Vintage Photo Oxide Sprays. 

This post is super picture heavy, so grab a cookie and get ready to scroll. 

The cover is made with grungeboard.  Anyone else love the smell of grunge board? I love how it can really take a beating and still look amazing.  I painted it black, then ran it through the vagabond using the botanical 3D embossing folder.  I spritzed it with several colors of Distress Oxide and then added Distress Crayon in Tarnished Brass.  

The pages are a mixture of little pockets made from paper, plastic photo sleeves,  and journal tickets. 

In a couple of the paper pages I made artist trading coins to fit inside the pocket.  

The photo of the couple is the back of the first page holding the trading coin.  The little fairy is inside one of the photo sleeves.  The small journaling blocks from Tim fit right inside the sleeve. 

Lots of paper dolls, clipping stickers, and ephemera in here.  

Every page has a bit of gold on it.  If you look closely you can see little dots of gold.  

Some of the large paper dolls got a snip and I just use their busts on the coins.   

I think this little block front and back is my favorite in the bunch.  Of course, that could change with the next flip through. 

Some of the pictures look cloudy because of the photo sleeves, but in person they are crystal clear.  

I cut a little slit and slipped this ticket in his hand.  He looks excited to go tot the show.  

The best part is because my journal is so chunky I have enough to make a second album.  I would just have to track down another suitcase.  

I hope you enjoyed seeing my take on this kit and thanks for looking at all of the photos!

I am entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge- ATC

One can be both weird and fabulous

Hi Everyone,
I know it's been quiet on the blog, but I do post a bit more on Instagram if you want to follow me over there.

 I have been really into creating oversized cards lately.  This one measures just over 5x7.  I started with a piece of precut mixed media heavy stock and used Distress Oxide Sprays in Peeled Paint, Abandoned Coral, and Peacock Feathers.

I misted the paper first to get the blend.  Once that was dry I added a bit of Frayed Burlap ink to the edges.  The Oxide colors mixed and made a bit of brown,  so the touch of Burlap really tied it together.  I used a bit of embossing powder and a stencil from the Studio Light Grunge Collection to add the yellow numbers in the background.

 It's pretty cool that they blend in even though I didn't use any yellow for the original background colors.  I went back in with the stencil and using Distress Ink in Brushed Corduroy added more of the numbers.  I finished the background with a touch of DecoArt Metallic Lustre Paste in Brilliant Turquoise on the every edge of the paper.

The focal image is from the Steampunkesque set from IndigoBlu.  I stamped the lady using Black Soot Archival Ink and then colored her using Distress Inks and my waterbrush.  I added glossy accents to the glasses and light bulb.  Once everything was dry I fussy cut her and added a halo behind her using a 3d impresslit.

I had to position her on the paper to see how I wanted to add my sentiment and just decided to stamp it right on the background using Black Soot Archival ink.  The ink goes right over the embossing powder.  I used my stamp platform to be sure I got a good dark image.  The sentiment stamp is also from the Steampunkesque set.

To complete the card I used used plain brown card stock and a couple sheets of Distress cardstock.  A bit of scribbling with my gel pen in random spots made it feel finished.

I hope you enjoyed my card.

Happy crafting,
Jess

Spring Cleaning

Hi Everyone,
I'm up on the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts Blog today.

Well it's time to do some spring cleaning and that includes my desk.  I try to be a neat crafter, but my desk always ends up looking like a large bomb exploded in the general vicinity.  For today's project I used only items that were on my desk or within reach of my desk.  I will admit some of these are mop up tags, so I don't know exactly what is on there.

Adventure is out there tag-

The butterfly man background was made using Vintage Photo Oxide Spray and then I added Hickory Smoke ink through a stencil(THS091).  I shifted the stencil and added Peeled Paint Oxide Ink.  I splatted on some Black Soot Distress Paint and then stamped the flourish(CMS070) in  Ground Espresso Archival Ink.  The edges got a bit of Vintage Photo Distress Crayon for shadow.

The paper doll was inked up using Tsukineko Inks.  His buttons and watch chain were colored using gel pens.  Get got a pair of wings and was glued to the tag.  I had a snippet of the mini provincial impresslit left so I popped that in the top corner.  Chic chat words were inked up using Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and glued down.

A snippet of the Meadow Flowers was on my desk so I added a couple layers of gesso and once that was dry I added PaperArtsy Infusions in The Sage to the stems.  I added grit paste to the flowers and used Peacock Feathers Distress Ink to color them.  There was some leftover Distress Crayon on my desk from edging the tag and I used that to dirty up the flowers.  Once that was glued down, I added detail using gel pens.

Eccentric, but very estimable gentleman-

For the eccentric, but very estimable gentleman tag I used a mop up tag that had some blues and purples on it.  I added some leftover rust from when I was rusting up bits and some Seth Apter Stamps(Eclectica3). 
The circles are from the Mixed Media Fragments 1 Small.  I rusted them using PaperArtsy's Rusting Powder and then added Verday Paint from 10 Second Studios for the oxidized brass bits.  I cut the circles into three segments and attached them to the card using glue.  I added Tim Holtz Hardware heads to make them appear to be bolted down. I added alcohol ink in Patina, Mushroom, and Coffee to the hardware heads.  Then I popped on a bit of Distress Crayon in Cracked Pistachio for a bit more dimension.

I tied a little brass heart to his wrist and glued him down.

 Clipping stickers make for really fun stories and gel pens add the final bits to this tag.

The Proprietor of Ideas-

This little guy gets stuck in all kind of things.  Today I popped him in a lightbulb from the Steampunk Lightbulb Set.  The lightbulb was painted white and then the bulb portion was given a layer of DecoArt Crackle Glaze.  Once the glaze was dry I added Distress Crayon in Black Soot and Brushed Pewter.  A thin piece of acetate was added behind the bulb and colored with mushroom alcohol ink.  The tiny crown on his head will be coming soon to the GSL cuts store(I cannot wait for you to see all of these teeny crowns).

The base of the bulb was painted with Tarnished Brass Distress Paint and then pounced with Mushroom, Latte, and Coffee Alcohol Inks. I snuck in another hardware head here and a story stick.

This tag was made by using Oxide Spray on my gel plate.  It makes such gorgeous and dreamy backgrounds.  I used a Tim stencil(THS051) for the words and numbers.  I used Hickory Smoke and Black Soot Distress Ink for the coloring.  White paint is splattered all over the back, Perfect Pearl spray, and gel pens finish the background.

The main title is from the Tim Holtz Noble Gent set(CMS301).  That was stamped in Black Soot Archival.  The little halo around the bulb is the same set.  I used Dina Wakley Paint in Ancient and Gilt to stamp out the halo.  Be sure to clean paint off your rubber stamps right away!   

Do you save all of your little bits to make projects with later or do you toss out the scraps?

Jess

Spring toadstool fairy exploding canvas

Hi Everyone,
I'm up on the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts Blog today.
The weather has been so nice here.  Flowers are blooming and pretty soon we will start seeing the baby ducks in our little neighborhood lake.  It's also the time of year when I start to make fairies.  Ah, who am I kidding I love to make fairies all year round!

A couple years back I made an exploding canvas and I totally loved the process.  I decided it was time to make a new one and this time I gave it a little twist.  I knew I wanted a tiny fairy so my canvas had to be small  too.
I started by covering a 5x5 canvas with Tim Holtz Collage paper.  I used collage medium to adhere it to the canvas and coated the top too.  I dried it with a heat gun.  Once the collage paper was dry I used texture paste and a flower stencil to add detail to the top and bottom corners.

I sprayed the canvas using Distress Oxide Spray in Peeled Paint, Vintage Photo, and Iced Spruce.

 I added paint splatter in black(Distress Black Soot) and gold(Dina Wakley Ancient).   I used Distress Crayon in Lucky Clover to enhance the texture paste flowers. At the end I decided to add a bit of Worn lipstick and Picked Raspberry Crayon to the flowers too. 

Once the paint was dry I flipped the canvas over and used a different collage paper to line the inside of the canvas.  I blasted it with the heat gun and then cut the canvas up.  You can see the cut lines.  This is the scariest part of the whole process, but the outcome is fabulous.  

Before I started prepping my canvas I took the Mini Shadowbox set and put together a couple of the boxes I thought might fit into the frame.  Once I had one that fit right I started working on the canvas.  I didn't want to get this far into the thing just to discover that what I thought it would look like in my head would not work out at all. 

After the canvas was cut I glued the pieces to the front of the canvas creating an opening.  

For the hollow, I wound up using the smallest of the shadowboxes.  The fun thing about the box this size is that it doesn't take much paper to cover it.  I spritzed a manila tag with Worn Lipstick Oxide Spray and let it air dry.  The air drying seems to make it oxidize a bit better(it also could be my imagination).I gave it a quick mist of water on either side and ran it through my 3d Kaleidoscope  embossing folder.  This one tag covered the entire outside of my box with some to spare! I sanded the tag a bit and added some Distress Crayon in Gathered Twigs to highlight the raised areas.  

For an added detail I ran metal plumbing tape through my impresslit folder.I colored it using gold, latte, and caramel alcohol inks.   

I cut the manila tag to cover the outside of the shadowbox I used the faux dresden to cover the edges.  The edge of the dresden is the perfect size to cover the edge of the chipboard. 

The inside of the box was lined with paper and washi tape.  I really just wanted the little flowers to peep through in the back there.  I added some spun cotton toadstools, moss, and a teeny paperdoll.  The new Tim Holtz  wings work perfectly on this guy.  

To finish the canvas I colored seam binding using the Worn Lipstick Oxide spray and a bit of Tea Dye Distress Spray.  I made a fluffy bow and added a word band. In the top corner, opposite from the bow, I added a flower cluster with some additional moss.    

Happy Spring! 

Jess