Checking Out The New Tim Holtz Stencils & Rub-Ons!

Hello everyone, Annie here today to share some ideas and inspiration with you.

I was very excited to open my parcel from SJ Crafts this week, because amongst other things it contained some Tim Holtz goodies and I'm a big TH fan!

In my parcel were two of his Layering Stencils - Dot Fade and Splatters and some Remnant Rubs - Botanical and Life Quotes. There are lots of inspiring vids on YouTube showing you how to achieve some really cool effects with these products, so I was very excited to have a go myself!

After some experimenting I ended up with some seriously inky fingers and this colourful collection of 4"x6" cards and embellishments ...

I used several gorgeous colours of Distress Ink and Distress Paint and a water spritzer - I love the way they all work together. Another essential ingredient not shown here is baby wipes!

Tim said during a demo that the Remnant Rubs will stick to all kinds of things as well as paper, such as wood, glass, metal and fabric, so I wanted to try this out - on the left you can see some wood and metal bits from my rummage drawer, a couple of Ranger Fragments and some canvas fabric to experiment on.

Here are a couple of amazing Tim Holtz demos to give you an idea of what can be done - this one using Remnant Rubs - and this one about the Layering Stencils. I love to watch YouTube videos for ideas and will often have them playing on my iPad whilst I'm scrapping.

For this project, I combined several of the ideas from Tim's demo, adapting slightly to fit what I had available. I started with plain white cardstock and applied matching Distress Paint through the Dot Fade stencil to create a resist background pattern for my first layer ...

Then I added another layer of pattern over this, using two more vibrant colours of Distress Paint and the Splatters stencil ...

Next came the Remnant Rubs - these went on SO easily, because they're REALLY STICKY. You could use them in a "tidier" way if you preferred, but I was going for the messy, grungy style as demonstrated by my hero! This is achieved by rubbing randomly here and there and then quickly snatching the sheet off your project to leave "remnants" of the words and images on your design:

The next layer was created with Distress Inks in Picked Raspberry, Peacock Feathers, Squeezed Lemonade and Orange Marmalade - I love the vibrant colours and the evocative names of these inks ...

A baby wipe swiped over the surface removed ink from the stencilled areas and helped to blend the colours. It's great how the stencilled design keeps its true colour because the paint resists the ink. The other thing you notice at this stage is that despite all the layers you've added, the surface is still totally smooth, so it's perfect for stamping on ...

I used archival ink, so that it wouldn't smudge if I wanted to go back in with more Distress Inks later. Unfortunately the butterfly just didn't work on this card - it stamped perfectly well, but it just didn't look right and I threw it away in a fit of pique and started again :o)

Here's another background - I added Remnant Rubs and stamping to this ...

and repeated the process until I had three cards I was happy with ...

Then it was time to turn my attention to some other types of surfaces ...

The flower was cut twice from canvas fabric using the TH Tattered Florals Bigz Die with my Cuttlebug. I applied the Remnant Rubs before colouring with Distress Ink in Picked Raspberry and Scattered Straw - it was quite difficult to make myself add them truly randomly!

Then I tried some wood and metal - a garden label leftover from our wedding tables and an old front door key, which will both find a home in our wedding album!

I applied the Remnant Rubs to the stick first, then coloured with Distress Inks. I love the way the Rubs act as a resist, so that when you go over the surface with a baby wipe, it blends the colours and leaves a white "halo" around the words and images.

The key got a base coat of Distress Paint in Picket Fence, then I added some Rubs and finished with some Distress Ink in Peacock Feathers around the edges.

One of my favourite home-made embellies is a beer bottle top squished in the Cuttlebug, so that's what I tried next, as well as a Ranger Fragment, just to see how well the Rubs would stick to such a smooth surface ...

The bottle top was treated in much the same way as the key, with a base coat of Distress Paint, followed by some random Rubs and finished with Distress Ink in Scattered Straw and Peacock Feathers.

The Fragment was initially coloured with Alcohol Inks on the back, which looked very pretty, but when I added the Rubs to the front I realised that you couldn't see them very well against the alcohol inked background, so I got the Blending Solution out and removed most of it. Interestingly, although I ended up with the Blending Solution (which is a solvent) all over the place, those Remnant Rubs stayed put, which was pretty impressive - having struggled with rub-ons in the past, I was very impressed with how well and easily these stuck to any surface I tried - just bear in mind that they really are super sticky, so you need to be careful (but that's hardly a negative point!)

What a lovely time I had with these - and I'm stull bursting with ideas to try out! Have you tried Remnant Rubs yet? Do you Love to Layer? Are you a Tim Holtz groupie or a YouTube junkie like me?!

Remember to check out all the Ranger / Tim Holts goodies in the SJ Crafts shop HERE!

Remember to share your projects on our FaceBook page - we love to see what you create!

Cheerio for now

Annie :o)xxx

Annie is often experimenting and sharing her fabulous results over at her blog Arty Farty Annie, go pay her a visit!

P.S. Louise will be here with more Tim Holtz inspiration tomorrow!

May Challenge - Bingo!

Hello and welcome to our May challenge! 

Did you know it's (Inter)National Scrapbooking Day (otherwise known as NSD!) tomorrow on the 3rd of May? Happy National Scrapbooking Day to you, we hope this challenge will give you some inspiration if you are crafting this weekend, and there's a chance to win a small prize if you enter!

Thank you to everyone who took part in our April Challenge, we loved looking at the entries, and we'll announce a few of our favourites and a winner here on the blog soon!

If you haven't seen our challenges so far this year, then here's how it works. Each month throughout 2014 we will set a challenge and we'd love it if you would play along. Each month the challenge will vary - sometimes we'll have a sketch, sometimes a colour palette, a photo inspiration or a "recipe" of stash to use or maybe a technique.

At the end of this post there is "linky tool" for you to link up your challenge entry so we can pop along and see and we will feature a few of our favourite projects next month. 

This time it's a BINGO Challenge!

Here's how to play ...

Select 3 boxes from the grid in a line (horizontal/vertical or diagonal) and include the items or technique in those 3 boxes on your project!

Eg: you may choose Ink, Metal, Bow (diagonal line) .... OR .... Transparent, Metal, Stamp (horizontal) but you couldn't select Transparent, Metal, Torn Paper as they are not next to each other in a line!

Here's some inspiration from the Design Team:

Louise:

 Louise was inspired by the top row of the bingo grid. She used Mr Huey Mist, a border punch across the bottom and a 1" circle punch. All supplies are from the March kit which included lots of the 7 Dots Studio "Illumination" Collection, with the addition of a blue cardstock, file tab, cotton and badge. 

Jenny:

Jenny also used the top row from the bingo grid: ink /mist, border punch, and circles. Her products include Kraft card, Distress ink (Weathered Wood), Glossy Accents, and Stickles.

Lisa-Jane:

Lisa-Jane selected the middle row: Transparent - Metal - Stamping 

Her supplies include stamps by Hero Arts, papers, stars, vellum and ephemera pack by Crate Paper Boyz Rule, enamel dots by Studio Calico and kraft cardstock.

Jemma:

Jemma's page features holiday snaps of her daughter playing in the "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids" playground at Disney! She also chose the middle row:

Transparent stickers from a pack of Simple Stories Insta Clear Word Stickers, a Metal word by Prima, and Stamps from her stash.  

The rest of the supplies are 7 Dots Studio products

(Acceptance , Connections, Balance, Element Stickers, Word Stickers, and the Die Cut Sheet).

Annie:

Annie went for the middle vertical row and used a border punch, metal embellishment (staples), and torn paper - but in fact she ended up using mixed alphas and circles too, so it could just as well be the diagonal row bottom left to top right!

Her supplies include patterned papers, stickers and diecuts from the 7 Dots Illuminations collection, Studio Calico wood veneers, Simple Stories DIY Typeset stickers and Burlap Stickers, Prima Alphas in black and one of the Prima stitched diecuts from the March kit.   

Jennifer:

Jennifer chose a diagonal line from top left to bottom right on the bingo grid (Mist, a Metal Embellishment, a Knot). Her products include Heidi Swapp's Navy Color Shine Mist, Crate Paper's Boys Rule collection Zap & Top Score paper and some Wood Embellishments and Ephemera pieces, and some Studio Calico Cork Stars. Her metal embellies are an old key and some metal rimmed brads, and she has two knots - one in string under the title and one in bakers twine on the key.

We'll have a little mystery prize this month for one entry picked at random from all those who link up! The winner will be announced after the challenge has closed along with a few of our favourites! 

So, will you take up our challenge this month?

Use the linky tool below to add a link to the blog post (or your gallery) with your layout or card and a link back to this post is much appreciated.

You will need to ensure your link is added by the 31st of May (11.59pm).

Enjoy!

One Step Further ... Playing with Patterned Paper!

Hi everyone, Annie here!

Like most scrappers, I love patterned papers and I have piles of the stuff. I can't get enough of it! It's beautiful just as it is, but it's also fun to tweak it a bit to add interest, or to suit a particular project.

Today I'd like to share a few ideas for altering patterned papers to take them one step further ...

This MME Lost & Found Record It! 6x6 paper pad is really gorgeous and so versatile - I've already used some of it to make a valentine for my DH and two pop-out birthday cards for a friend - but I have all of this left and I thought it would be perfect to experiment with.

Here are the results of my experiments with cutting sticking, punching, doodling, embossing, flocking, layering and eyeleting (if that isn't a word, then it should be!) ...

First I took the pretty heart pattern ...

... I cut a few of the hearts from another identical sheet, inked the edges with Distress Inks and adhered them with foam dots to add dimension ...

Then I took these three sheets ...

... I carefully cut out the bookprint hearts, inked the edges and adhered them to the bookprint paper to give extra interest and texture to the background ...

Layering the heart paper over the chevrons paper allowed the pattern to show through the cut-out heart shapes, and I doodled around them with a pencil to add some definition ...

Next, I dug out some eyelets (I can't be the only scrapper who has loads of these lingering in my drawers from years ago!) ...

... and had fun dotting them around to accentuate the spotty patterns ...

Out came my trusty heat gun next, and I used a pearlescent gold embossing powder to enhance some of the stripes ...

It works better with the extra-strong tape and I always burnish it with a bone-folder to make sure it's stuck and help the backing to come off more easily. Here's the result ...

Whilst I had the heat gun out, I did a bit more embossing, using a juicy Sakura pen to add handwriting and doodling to the bookprint background ...

... and then adding embossing powder in a deep shiny lipstick pink ...

I used a gold pen and more embossing to bring some fun textural detail to this lacy pattern ...

Finally, I broke out the flock and used it to create tactile accents ...

I tried a couple of different methods to make the flock stick, and this one seemed to work well. First, I filled in the parts I wanted to accent with the Sakura Glaze pen ...

... then sprinkled with the flock and left it to sit for a while until the pen had dried ...

... then, without shaking off the excess, I folded a sheet of copy paper around it and ran it through my Cuttlebug ...

... then brushed off the excess. This way, the shape stayed well defined and the flock was stuck fast, adding a nice tactile detail to the page ...

These little 6"x6" paper pads are so versatile and you can make them go a really long way. I used my "enhanced" papers to make a couple of scrapbook pages with very different looks ...

Watch:

For this page about my little great-nephew, I added in some chipboard stickers from the MME Chalk Studio Collection and a couple of scraps from the MME Chalk Studio 2 Collection, some Bazzill cardstock and black Prima Canvas Alphas.

I sanded the edges of all the chipboard pieces and used chalk inks to colour them - this is something I often do to make embellishments match my page.

I Love Us:

For this page showing a "double selfie" of me and my DH, I've used small pieces of my patterned paper to form a grid design. The camera is a Simple Stories Daily Grind chipboard sticker - I distressed it and added a button tied with twine to cover the heart motif which was the wrong colour for my page. There is also a cut-apart from the Teresa Collins Daily Stories Collection and I made a couple of embellies from the patterned paper scraps.

Well, after all this I still had loads left in my little paper pad, so I chucked in some more of the Chalk Studio chipboard stickers and four empty toilet rolls ...

... which have been squashed flat overnight for reasons which will become obvious when you see the finished project ...

... a little toilet roll mini book for my niece, with pull-out tags for photos and journaling. These mini books are so much fun to make - you can find loads of tutorials on You Tube.

I hope you will have a go at taking it one step further to give your patterned papers a unique twist and remember to share your results on our FB page!

Thanks for reading my post, see you again soon.

Annie :o)xxx

P.S. If you need more 'One Step Further' inspiration, check out Louise's Stitching and Stamping post HERE!

Annie blogs projects full of beautiful details at her blog Arty Farty Annie. Please pop by and say hello!

April Challenge - A Spring-Time Mood Board!

Hello and welcome to our April challenge!

Thank you to everyone who took part in our March Challenge, we loved looking at the entries, and we'll announce a few of our favourites and a winner here on the blog soon!

If you haven't seen our challenges so far this year, then here's the "scoop" Each month throughout 2014 we will set a challenge and we'd love it if you would play along. Each month the challenge will vary - sometimes we'll have a sketch, sometimes a colour palette, a photo inspiration or a "recipe" of stash to use or maybe a technique.

At the end of this post there is "linky tool" for you to link up your challenge entry so we can pop along and see and we will feature a few of our favourite projects next month.  
There's even a little prize to be won - more on that further down!
We really hope lots of you will play along!

During April we'd love you to take your ideas from this mood board:

Take ideas from this however you choose. You could: 

Use the colours - Yellow, Green, Peach, White, Cork/Kraft

Use the quote 'Look How They Grow' 

Make a page about flowers or plants

Use some of the elements, eg. feathers and stars on your page 

Use the composition somehow (eg. two lines along the base of your project)

Or anything else you get from the mood board!

The SJ Crafts Design Team have created some projects to show what ideas they got from the mood board...

Louise:

Louise took the composition of the mood board to put together a layout of a (rare) photo of her with her three sons. Her page supplies include the Teresa Collins Family Stories Collection Kit, camera and heart wood veneers, enamel dots, and an Amy Tangerine Badge.

Annie:

Annie was inspired by the mood board to create a pinboard-style page, following the composition and using sticky pearls and enamel dots to "pin" items to the background. To echo the fresh, spring colour palette she used peach/green/yellow/pink - the chalky pastels in the Chalk Studio 2 collection were perfect and contrast beautifully with the Chalk Studio chipboard pieces, frames and stickers. Other elements picked from the mood board added some interest and fun to Annie's page - washi tape, flowers, cork arrows and wood veneer stars. Finally, the quote inspired her journalling!

Jemma:

Jemma was inspired by the 3 columns and the colours from the mood board to create a holiday album page.

Jenny:

Jenny was inspired by the colours and some of the elements on the mood board. She has used kraft card, some pretty yellow striped paper from MME Now & Then Mildred pad. Jenny printed her sentiment onto vellum to look like the title on the mood board, and added some paper flowers and adhesive pearls. 

Jennifer:

Jennifer mainly took inspiration from the colours, using yellow, lime green, and some cork elements (including the American Crafts Cork Alphas and Arrows), though she swapped the coral hue for a bolder orange from the Amy Tangerine Cut & Paste collection. She also used some feathers, along with some Studio Calico Stars and Enamel Dots!

Lisa-Jane:

Taking her inspiration from the colours, gold highlights, the feathers and flowers Lisa-jane created a pretty card for a special girl's birthday. Those enamel dots finish it all off perfectly.

We have a little mystery "Spring themed" prize this month for one entry picked at random from all those who link up! The winner will be announced after the challenge has closed along with a few of our favourites! 

So, will you take up our challenge this month?

Use the linky tool below to add a link to the blog post (or your gallery) with your layout or card and a link back to this post is much appreciated.

You will need to ensure your link is added by the 30th of April (11.59pm).

Enjoy x