Creativation 2017 Card Samples Part 1

I had so much fun creating some cards for the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Stamps at CHA Creativation 2017.  Today I'm posting two of the cards I made with a quick photo tutorial on how I made each one.

First, I gathered a whole bunch of my Distress supplies so that whatever idea or vision took hold, I would be ready.

For the first card, I was taken with the florals in the Illustrated Garden CMS295 and wanted to do something soft and vintagey.

I started by making a soft Spun Sugar background using the Vines and Roses CMS298 background stamp. I inked the stamp with Spun Sugar Distress Ink, then spritzed it lightly with water, and stamped it on Distress Mixed Media Heavystock 

I dried it with a heat tool and lightly colored in the rest of the background with Spun Sugar Distress Ink and a Blending Tool. I added a tiny bit of Pumice Stone Distress Ink in a few places just lightly and edged with Ground Espresso Distress Ink. The lighter spots are just from spritzing drops of water on the background using the Distress Sprayer. 

The next few steps I'm going to show you with different colors than the ones I used on the card, but the technique is the same.

I wanted to stamp on linen, so I cut a piece of linen from the Ideaology Textile Surfaces and chose to use Ground Espresso Distress Paint to stamp the image. 

You want to use a brayer to get the paint evenly spread onto the stamp, then just press the stamp onto the linen. You will want to wash your stamp right away. I use water and a Rub-it Scrub-it pad from Ranger and my stamps clean right up.

Once the paint is dry, then I picked some Distress Crayon colors that I liked for the project.

Scribble the Distress Crayons onto the Non-stick Craft Sheet, and using a Tim Holtz Water Brush, begin to water color the image. I dried mine often so I could see the color when the linen was dry. Water coloring with the Distress Crayons gives something a completely different look than with the inks or markers because the color has an opacity to it.

Here is a close up of the completed piece.  The texture of the linen goes perfectly with this stamp to give it a very vintage fabric feel. 

Here is a close-up of the pink floral.

For this second card the technique is fairly simple, it just takes a little patience, but it's worth it! This card is one of my favorites!

Again, with the technique pictures I'm going to show you with different colors so you can see how it looks, but the technique is the same.

Gather Distress Watercolor Cardstock, I used the vine background from the Vines & Roses CMS298 stamp set, and Distress Markers in various colors.

First you need to make a light background color. For this sample I decided to try an orange background. Using Distress Ink pads, pounce some color onto a Craft Sheet.

Spritz the ink with water until it beads up.

Swipe the smooth side of the Distress Watercolor Paper through the wet ink once, dry, then repeat. Remember not to do it too much for this technique since we want to keep the background light. Dab off any areas where it pools with a dry paper towel or flour sack towel.

Once it is dry you will see that some areas are a little darker than others and that's ok. We like that!

Now you get to color! Using your Distress Markers, color directly onto the stamp. Don't worry about the ink drying, just color the flowers, leaves and vines, flower centers, etc until you have the entire

stamp colored.

Next spritz the stamp a couple of times with water from the Distress Sprayer to reactivate the ink and also to make the stamp look like you watercolored the image.

 Stamp directly onto the background and dry immediately.  Voila!

I really love the soft beauty of the image with this technique.  I could just keep making pretty backgrounds all day with this stamp!

That ends Day 1 of my Creativation Card Samples. I'll be back on tomorrow with more.

CHA Creativation Project Sneak Peeks

Hi everyone!
I have a bunch of great projects from last fall to post but those can wait a little longer! The last few weeks I have had such a great time designing some sample cards for Tim Holtz's Stampers Anonymous Winter 2017 Release for CHA- Creativation 2017.

To see the live Facebook release and images of all the stamps, be sure to visit Tim's blog. You really don't want to miss it! And the Day 2 stencil releases can be seen here.

I'll be posting my cards once CHA actually begins with technique info, stamp and stencil names, but for now I can at least share sneak peeks with you.  Enjoy!

New Kit for Sale!

This festive mini winter shadow box kit comes ready to assemble. 

It is full of glittery, sparkly goodness from Tim Holtz Ideaology, Sizzix Alterations, and Ranger Distress. Perfect for a desk, bookcase or mantle decoration, this little wintery vignette can be displayed through January.

Three words are included: Christmas, Wishes and Believe. You can use any one of them that will best fit your holiday decor.

Honoring All Who Serve - Disneyland Flag Retreat

This was a sample layout for a Disney Scrapper's July Red White and Blue Challenge.
For this challenge, we were to use the following Pinterest inspiration board to get some ideas for scrapping a Disney photo.

 
Using the inspiration, scrap a photo for Canada, France, UK, USA, the Fab 5 in their Disneyland 60th or just something with red and white and blue. Or we could leave out the blue since is usually sky in the photos even of Canada, a light sky blue could be included.
One additional part of the challenge was to include stripes. Striped paper, ribbon, embellishments, whatever, just something striped.

For my layout I cut strips of paper (some of it striped) to form paper stripes to make a border my layout. Then I sewed across them to add texture. I got this idea from the quilt in the inspiration collage above. The rest of the layout is based on Sketch Savvy #152

I scrapped pictures from Disneyland's Flag Retreat Ceremony held every day just before sundown. Disneyland's Flag Retreat is a very stirring ceremony that respectfully lowers and folds the flag at the end of the day, but it is also a time that the DLR sets aside to salute and honor our nation and those who faithfully serve it. Flag Retreat is one of my favorite Disneyland Traditions. If you haven't been a part of one yet, put it on your list for the next time you visit.

On this particular day, I had gone to Disneyland to meet up with some college friends I hadn't seen in 20+ years.  My friend Paul is a commander in the US Navy and serves on submarines, so I included the submarine and military word stickers. His amazing wife, Courtney, holds down the fort at home while he is is at sea sometimes for six months at a time. They have five terrific kids and in these pictures he is in the white shirt standing at attention around the Disneyland flag pole and the rest of the family is behind him, supporting him, as they always do. I carefully picked the elements from the Authentique Freedom line that helped me tell the story of their family and this special Flag Retreat Ceremony.  

 

Thank you for your service CDR Paul, and thank you Courtney and kids for the sacrifices you make that allow him to serve.  We salute all of you.

DCA Food and Wine Festival

Another Sample layout for the Disney Scrappers NSD challenge week back in May.  I just realized I never posted them here.  I have a backlog of things to post.

Here is the challenge:
Much like the Disneyland Challenge, this challenge is simply to scrap anything within the 15 year old Disney California Adventure Park.
Seeing as this is a park about California, your layout must include at least two of the following:

• sun
• sunglasses
• seashells
• palm tree
• stars
• film/camera/spotlights
• redwood trees
• bear

**Extra Points if you scrap something from the original DCA park**

We just went to the DCA Food and Wine Festival!

Due to construction it has been absent from the park for the last 5 years.  I'm so very happy they brought it back.  Unlike the Epcot F&W Festival, the booths are themed to the different areas or influences on California Cuisine, all with a modern twist.  The food was incredibly good and I have a lot to scrap from just the one day. 

This is just kind of an intro page to my F&W pages. I included the sun and sunglasses from the challenge. The paper is Authentique Radiant.

Unforgettable Disney - Two Layouts

For National Scrapbook day in May, Disney Scrappers hosted our annual week of Disney scrapping with challenges.  These were two of my challenge layouts.

“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.” 

                                                                                   --Peter Pan

This challenge may cause you to shed a tear or two.  The challenge includes two elements:

1. Scrap a retired Disney something: attraction, parade, character, show, item, etc 
2. Scrap it with a retired line of paper or scrapbook items from a company that is no longer in business.

With all the changes happening in so many parks, I'm sure we all have pictures of things that are no longer part of the Disney parks.

********************
This layout features paper and embellishments by Basic Grey, and photos from Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree (RIP) which was one of my favorite parts of Disneyland park.  It was such a great get-away! These pictures were from one of the many special character events they hosted back there.
Layout based on Sketch Savvy Sketch #156

And this is my second layout and challenge:
Almost 61 years ago, Walt Disney opened his beloved Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California.
This challenge is simple, scrap anything in Disneyland Park, however, since we are still celebrating Disneyland's diamond anniversary, you must include at least one of the following on your layout:

• a rhombus (diamond) shape
• rhinestones or bling
• something Mickey Mouse

**Extra points** if you scrap a Disneyland original attraction or something with historical Disney significance.

My layout was inspired by one Susan at Creatively Savvy did for Christmas.  I loved her use of the rhombus shape and kind of fiddled around with it a few months ago but didn't get anywhere with it. I pulled it back out for this challenge, and all the Basic Grey embellishment bits that I thought I was going to throw away ended up being perfect for the pictures!

This is a sight you see either from the Mark Twain River Boat, the Sailing Ship Columbia, or the Davey Crockett Explorer Canoes.  We were in the DCE Canoes on the day I took these pictures.  Chief Waves-a-lot has been there in various forms since 1956 I believe.  Since he waves, a LOT, I thought all the hi and hello  embellishments were funny.  The chief was an important part of the original Rivers of America story in that directly across from him is the settler's cabin which has gone through several storylines itself. Now it is home to the River King, Mike Fink. All that to say that the canoes and the chief are both historically part of Disneyland's ROA since 1955-56.

Freedom Mini Shadow Box

I was inspired by a Valentine shadow box project I saw on Pinterest by Emma Williams and wanted to make some spring shadow box kits but got sidetracked and never got it done. You can see her box here.
Then I decided I wanted to make a patriotic one and have it say "A New Birth of Freedom" using the bird and egg theme.  No matter what I did I could not get the little banner saying "A New Birth of" to look right, so I ended up just nixing that and I like it just as much without it. 

The knobs came in three styles, two were clear and one was cream. So I made two variations of the kits. Pearl and Crystal.

For this project I used lots of Sizzix Alterations dies by Tim Holtz. 

• Bird Silhouette
• Crescent Moon and Stars
• Mini Feather and Inkwell
• Postage Stamp Frame
• Sized Rectangles
• Stacked Stars
• Typeset Alphabet Strip

This is a quick video explaining the kit 

with some tips about how to put it together.

Patriotic Spool

 

This was a fun decor piece I made for a class.  It uses the Authentique Freedom line of paper and three Tim Holtz Sizzix Alterations dies, Tattered Pinecone (small rose) Jumbo Tattered Pinecone (lg rose) and Star Bright (3-D "poofy" stars).  

For the people who purchased the kit and couldn't attend class here is a video to explain how to put the spool together and how to make the stars.  

I put the roses together for those who were unable to attend the class, but if you are interested in seeing how to do it or how to make a pinecone from the pinecone die, this video by the designer, Tim Holtz will be the most beneficial. 

Thanks for taking the class or purchasing the kit and I hope you enjoy your little patriotic spool decoration.