Focus on the Good - Easy Z Fold card

Making this card is actually very easy and it's fun to decorate. I made this for the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Summer Travel 2025 Curation. 

To begin, take an A2 side folding card and fold the front of the card back towards the fold. Then measure each secotion and make patterned, stamped or stenciled papers to fit on those sections,

For my card I stenciled my own patterned paper using the stencil in the Mixed Media Set Bold Sayings THMM140I used Uncharted Mariner and Brushed Corduroy Distress Inks.

On the backside of the front flap (which would normally be the front of the card) I taped off the edges and stenciled right on the Mixed Media Heavystock card base. You don't really see it, but if it is sitting on a desk, from the left side you would be able to see these panels and they would be plain so you do want something on them. This is a quick and easy solution but you could also use the other side of the papers you used on the front of the card.

To make it easier to pull the front panel out, I added this tab from one of my die sets and stamped the word Focus from the Focus on the Good sentiment in the Noteworthy 2 THMM162 Mixed Media Set.

The focal point is the camera from the Travel Blueprints CMS148. I stamped it in Black soot Archival Ink and colored it with Distress Inks.

The main sentiment is from the Bold Sayings Mixed Media Set and is also stamped in Black Soot Archival Ink.

I added a few retired metal embellishments from Idea-ology and there is my first Z Fold card. So fun!

 I sure hope you enjoyed that. Thanks so much for visiting. Now let’s go shine brightly, and have a creative day! 😃

Tami  

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp, Ranger Ink, and Scrapbook.com. The links below send you to one of those stores. If you wish to purchase something and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog, the time, the ideas and tutorials I post here. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Rose Masterpiece Card

I'm really enjoying making with the Mixed Media Sets from Stampers Anonymous and Tim Holtz. I hadn't owned one before making for the curations this year so it's been fun to try out something new. These sets have a stencil that is half one stencil in the Tim Holtz line and half of another. Someone commented to me the other day and called it a Frankenstencil which made me laugh but it is a great description. Then the stamps are often resided versions of the signature red rubber stamps normally part of the Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous line as Stampers has been making red rubber stamps over 100 years in Cleveland , Ohio as a multi generational family business. 

Today's card features one of my favorite Sets, Lady Rose THMM19. To finish this card, I added a few bits of Idea-ology and some twine. This card is very simple. I first stenciled the background using both parts of the stencil. The crosshatch side in Tattered Rose and the Burlap side is Frayed Burlap.

Then I stamped the beautiful rose and the sentiments in Distress Archival Ground Espresso. Archival ink isn't water reactive, so I dried it and then could color it in with Distress Inks in Victorian Velvet, Tattered Rose, and Bundled Sage.

I did stamp some of the speckles from the stamp set onto the background in Ground Espresso Archival as well as some of the gothic text in Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. The text is very light but you can see it in person.

I finished off by stamping a few of the cancellation stamps in Victorian Velvet in a few places on the back ground, and coloring two mats with Bundled Sage and Victorian Velvet over a Ground Espresso base.

 It all came together as a very quick and simple, but lovely encouragement card to send to a loved one.

Now let’s go shine brightly, and have a creative day! 😃

Tami  

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp, Ranger Ink, and Scrapbook.com. The links below send you to one of those stores. If you wish to purchase something and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog, the time, the ideas and tutorials I post here. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Just Celebrate - Distress Paint Resist

Hello Makers! Today I have a card to share with you using a Distress Paint Resist technique. I usually use Distress paint for altering Idea-ology, but for today’s technique I used it for resisting Distress Stain. So I’m inviting you to come along, and let’s get making

Gather all the supplies.

·      Distress Paint : Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry

·      Distress Stain: Twisted Citron

·      Black Soot Distress Archival Ink

·      Distress Mixed Media Heavystock

·      Distress Black and White Heavystock for an A2 card base and mat.

·      Blending Brushes or Blending Tool and Blending Foam

·      Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Stamp & Stencil Mixed Media #43

Using a Distress Blending Brush (or Blending Tool and Foam) load with a light amount of Peacock Feathers Distress Paint and apply through one side of the stencil onto an A2 piece of Mixed Media Heavystock in various places. Do not cover the entire piece. Dry and clean off the stencil.

Apply Picked Raspberry Distress Paint the same way through the other part of the stencil.

Once the paint is dry and most of the paper is covered, as shown in photo, spray the entire piece with Twisted Citron Distress Spray Stain.

You will see that the paint resists the stain. Let the stain sit for a few seconds and start to dry.  With a clean paper towel, soak up any excess stain that is pooled on the paint. You can even lightly wipe it off the paint with a damp towel once the stain is completely dry. It will come right off the paint. 

 

I wanted to do a quick comparison between Distress Paint and Distress Oxides. I used the same colors of each and the same technique, but you can see that the Oxides react to the stain and they bleed and lighten, while the Distress Paint does not react and it in fact resist the stain so that the paint become prominant and maintains its bright color. That is the beauty of Distress Products. They have different properties and techniques that work with some products do not work with others.

Drop some of each paint color onto a Media Mat. Spray with water and then swipe Mixed Media Heavystock through it. Dry.

Once the paint is dry, spray it with Twisted Citron Distress Spray Stain.

When the stain is completely dry, stamp the balloon in Black Soot Archival Ink. Then fussy cut it oout. Stamp the balloon blue print onto a piece of White Heavystock and then pop the balloon up over the stamped image. 

For the sentiment, put a thin line of Distress Paint in Peacock Feathers, then roll a brayer through it. 

Once the brayer is coated, roll it over the long, thin label stamp and stamp it onto a piece of White Heavy Stock. Then stamp a sentiment into the center of it with Picked Raspberries. Color it with Twisted Citrosn Distress Stain and pat off the excess. Once dry cut out the labe, then cut a white and a black mat

Attach both the matted balloon and the matted sentiment to the front of the card.

The paint remained bright even thought it was sprayed with a dark Distress Stain. Distress Paint, once dry, is no longer water reactive so it really resists Inks, Stains and Oxides because they remain water reactive even when dry.

Of course I needed to finish it off with a little machine stitching.

Including a bit of messy stitching for texture.

Thank you so much for following along on the Distress Paint Resist tutorial today. 

 

If you would like to see the same technique with a completely different look, check out my tutorial here on the Ranger Ink blog.

Now let’s go shine brightly, and have a creative day! 😃

Tami  

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp, Ranger Ink, and Scrapbook.com. The links below send you to one of those stores. If you wish to purchase something and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog, the time, the ideas and tutorials I post here. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Shine Brightly Card

This curation release inspired me to get out my patriotic Americana decor and make things that could be cards or decor. 

For this card I used Americana Silhouettes and the sentiment is from Noteworthy. 

The background stamp was colored with Antique linen, Fired Brick, and Blue Print/Chipped Sapphire. I inked the stamp starting with the lightest color to the darkest, sprayed it with water and stamped. 

The Uncle Sam is stamped in Ground Espresso Archival.

I finished the card by spraying the whole thing with Distress Spritz Antique Linen. Then added the Idea-ology stars colored with Gold Alcohol Ink. 

Now let’s go shine brightly, and have a creative day! 😃

Tami  

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp, Ranger Ink, and Scrapbook.com. The links below send you to one of those stores. If you wish to purchase something and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog, the time, the ideas and tutorials I post here. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Happy Birthday - Tim Holtz Collection Summer Curation

 This fun little Happy Birthday card  made for the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Summer Travel Curation 2025. 

I used two of the Mixed Media sets from this curation. For the circular purple piece and the sentiment around the edge I used Noteworthy 2 - THMM162. To make the purple piece, I lightly colored a piece of Mixed Media Heavystock with Dusty Concord Distress Ink, and then I smooshed my inkpad on the circular part of the stencil, sprayed it with water and pressed it onto the inked paper using a paper towel. Then lifted it off the paper and let dry. I speckled it with drops of Peacock Feathers.

I made the teal grid paper the same way, but with part of the stencil from Snarky Cat THMM109 Mixed Media Set. I then stamped the cat, bow tie, sentiment and two balloons from that set, colored them and attached them to the center of the card.

Let's take a minute to talk about the background. I sprayed a piece of Mixed Media Heavystock with Distress Spray stain in Disty Concord, Crushed Olive, and Peacock Feathers. Then Let them dry. 

Instead of finisheing this card with a bit of sewing, I stamped the Best Day Ever sentiment all around the outside edge. It was fun to do! It's not perfectly spaced, but that really doesn't matter. It works fine being a little wonky.

This card came together much better than I had planned. These little Mixed Media sets have been so much fun to work with. Some of them need to be used in conjuction with other sets, as seen here, like Noteworthy 2 and Correspondence. But how great is it to have some sets with lots of sentiments to pull from as well?

Many thanks again for stopping by to check out this card. I hope it inspires some ideas for your own making session.

Now let’s go have a creative day! 😃

Tami  

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp, Ranger Ink, and Scrapbook.com. The links below send you to one of those stores. If you wish to purchase something and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog, the time, the ideas and tutorials I post here. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Alcohol Neons - Tim Holtz and Ranger Ink

 Welcome to the newest member of the Alcohol product line from Tim Holtz and Ranger Ink, Alcohol Neons! When I saw these colors I was taken right back to the awesome 80's. I do have some projects that were inspired entirely by my teenage years, but first I'm sharing some cards I made from my experimentation backgrounds. 

This card features some strips of backgrounds I made with Black Heavystock and the three alcohol ink colors. I used the same backgrounds for two cards. This one and the next card. For one of the backgrounds I used the Art Doodle 2 stencil THS142. I applied the Neons through the stencil for one version and then sprayed the stencil with alcohol and pressed it onto the black cardstock for the bottom background. 

The other two backgrounds were made by dropping Neons onto the black heavystock, and pouncing them with with a blending tool, and then a background with all three colors o a blending tool with felt and pouncing it all over the background,

 The sentiment is from Mini Motivation CMS292 from Tim Holtz and Stampers Anonymous.

 

 This version with the backgrounds features a larger piece of the Neons through the Art Doodle 2 Stencil onto the Black Heavystock. 

I really love the way these colors pop on the black. 

t

For the side panels on this one I just used the pounce method paper. 

The sentiment is again from Mini Motivation.

I spent entirely too much time this week trying to get this background to work. LOL I finally just went with Tim's advice, "You get hat your get..." Once I walked away and came back the next day, I decided they were fine...

...and that they fit this sentiment perfectly. The sentiment is from Just Thoughts CMS079 from Tim Holtz and Stampers Anonymous. I stamped it on Velum, then colored it with Neons and matted it with another piece of Vellum. I held it in place and then stiched it to the card. I got it a little crooked.

The background was made by squeezing a line of Neon Inks across the Black Alcohol Ink Cardstock at the bottom, then letting it drip. Once it is kind of dry, add another color, then another until you have a drippy paint background.

Thanks so much for stopping by to see my first attempts with the new Alcohol Neons. Now let’s go have a creative day! 😃

Tami  

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp, Ranger Ink, and Scrapbook.com. The links below send you to one of those stores. If you wish to purchase something and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog, the time, the ideas and tutorials I post here. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!