Go Seek Adventure - Tim Holtz Chapter 2

This piece was inspired in my sleep. LOL! I really have no other explanation and I don't know what sparked the idea.  You see, I was planning a sample Trinket Tin for Creativation that was spring inspired and I did get that one mostly finished, but decided to go in a completely different direction after waking up with this in my mind.

Warning, this is not going to be a tutorial because I was in the midst of inspired creating and I didn't stop to take any pictures of the process. But just know my studio was pretty messy after this one! Hopefully by explanations with the close-ups will be sufficient.

To start, I took apart an Ideaology Trinket Tin, by loosening the hinges. Next I covered it with a thin coat of Distress Collage Medium. Then painted it with Distress Paint in Vintage Photo, followed by a layer of Distress Clear Rock Candy Crackle Paint. When that was dry I rubbed some dark brown Alcohol Ink (I think Teak Wood, but it could have been Espresso) anyway, I rubbed it over the crackle paint so it went into the crevices and then wiped off the excess. 
 I had purchased a $4.99 spool of 2" Faux Leather Trim from Hobby Lobby that I thought would be perfect for this. I cut a piece long enough to go around the deeper bottom part of the Trinket Tin. Then I carefully cut that 2" wide piece into 4 equal 1/2" strips on my Tonic Cutter. I sewed down each side to make them look like bands on a suitcase. Then I went over the pieces with the dark brown alcohol ink so the texture would show.
I attached them to two Ideaology Buckles with Hex Fasteners and then adhered them around both sides of each tin with Collage Medium. Make sure that the buckles are on the top of the top tin. You have to hold it in place for awhile so that it dries. You will need to trim off the part on the bottom of each leather piece so that it sits under the tin and doesn't show on the front. Be sure not to cover up where the little metal hinges on the tins go as you will need to put them back together. The leather straps keep the top of the tin even so that it doesn't tilt back. The last thing to do before you turn your attention to the inside, is to add collage medium on the straps where the top and bottom meet, so that the lid doesn't flip closed.

The featured die for this piece is the Trinket Frame. This die is a Bigz die so it cuts thick material including chipboard. Its purpose is to make frames that will fit inside the Ideaology Trinket Tins in order to make little scenes and things.

The top inside of the tin is painted and inked along with the outside. Then I cut a piece of chipboard and the globe paper with the "bracket" Trinket Frame Bigz die. I attached the paper to the chipboard and then adhered the frame portion to the back of the top tin.
I wanted the sentiment to stand out, so I added some dimensional adhesive to the back of the inside shape cut from the frame and adhered it to the center of the top tin. See how it stand out away from the frame in the back?
Then I used the new Alpha Numeric Label dies to cut the sentiment from black paper backed with Sizzix adhesive sheets to make them easy to attach to the piece. The last detail was to cut the plane from the Side Order Travel set, ink it, spray it with Distress Resist Spray so it was shiny, and then attach it to the corner.

The bottom was what took the most time.  I started by cutting the Trinket Frame and inking it and sealing it with Collage Medium so that it looked like leather, Then I used it to trace a piece of Heavystock so I knew it would fit inside the bottom of the tin. I colored the Heavystock with Old Paper Distress Ink using the Wrinkle Free Distress Method.

I cut the Destinations globe map out of Heavystock I had inked brown. Then adhered it to the Old Paper piece and trimmed it to fit. This was attached to the back of the tin.

Then it was on to the Tiny Travel Globe pieces. I cut the ones I wanted to use out of Heavystock that I had backed with Sizzix Adhesive Strips. I cut these on my Sidekick. All the pieces for each travel place are on one die, so it was easy to sit at my Glass Media Mat, secure my Sidekick and start cutting away.

Once all the pieces were cut, I started watercoloring them with Distress Inks and adhering all the little pieces into place on each one. This was simple to do because I had put the Sizzix Adhesive sheets on the back of the paper. When all of them were colored and assembled, I sprayed them with Distress Resist Spray. This made them shiny, like the airplane in the top tin.

Before I put the pieces into place, I adhered the frame into place right behind the lip of the tin. Then I cut some pieces of black foam that I keep from the Vignette Tray packaging, into little platforms that I wanted to have the pieces sitting on so they were elevated.  I attached these in various spots at different heights along the back and front of the bottom of the tin.

I eventually covered the back pieces of foam with the green moss, but if you do this first you run into some trouble, so wait. The front pieces I covered with collage medium and sprinkled some of my precious, retired, Distress Embossing Powder, to mimic sand. Once I thought the Collage Medium was dry, I did go ahead and use a heat tool to set the powder so it didn't fall out or migrate too far.

My last task was to actually attach the Travel places into the areas where I had test positioned them. First I put a small adhesive foam square or two on a few pf the travel pieces on the back side near the bottom to give them stability. I added collage medium on the bottom edge of the dies and hled them in place until they dried, Then I covered any of the foam that showed with moss. You will most likely need some tweezers for this. I would take a small piece of moss, add a little collage medium to the bottom, and then put it into place and hold it down for a minute with the tweezers.  The other travel spots in the front, I attached with more Collage Medium along the bottom edge and held them in place until they stayed. This is not fast and you need to be patient as you hold them in place, to let the Collage Medium dry.

For the base of the piece, paint the largest Vignette Box with the Old Paper Distress Paint and wipe it off. Let it dry. Then adhere a piece of the globe patterned paper from the Correspondence Stash onto the top.

Color a piece of Heavystock with Old Paper, then cut it into 3/4"strips and run it through the 3-D Star Trim Framelit until you have enough strips to go around the outside edge.  Run the Vintage Photo Ink Pad lightly over the raised areas to give it some dimension and to really let the stars pop! Then adhere to the sides of the box.

Stamp two of the Ticket Booth stamps onto some heavy stock and ink them with Distress Ink before cutting them out with the corresponding Ticket Booth dies. Adhere these on the top of the box over the paper. Then attach the Trinket Tin in the center.

As you can see, there are a ton of steps to this piece but it isn't difficult to make. It just takes patience and a lot of die cutting and coloring.

I really hope this inspired you to want to make your own mini scene in a Trinket Tin.  It's a lot of fun!

Tami