12 Tags of 2014 – November

My goodness time flies

As always Tim Holtz had some great ideas and techniques for this months tag.

I am a huge fan of recycling or upcycling in my crafts so always love using boxes and their corrugated cardboard for projects

I could not find my stamping film so used some Mona Lisa variagated Gold Leaf instead

I love this tag. In case you do not know this already I really love butterflies they are a huge symbol in my life .

When I saw the tag I thought it would be so great to play with In fact I ended up with a few extra backgrounds just from what I had on my craft mat.

I was aiming for a sort of sunset sky look to my background, I really need to get one of the brighter orange distress paints for my collection.

I am so happy with how this turned out and have to say totally loving the Distress Stain Sprays just so totally awesome 🙂

12 Tags of 2014 – July

I know cutting it fine yet again….

I have had this almost finished for about a week but was stuck on what I wanted the finishing touches to be.

There were so many awesome techniques it was hard to decide what I wanted to do.

Click here to see the original and to learn the techniques

I used some plastic packaging, the Cracked embossing folder, Peacock feathers distress – ink, paint, stain and marker (I know), silver distress paint, A muse token, the paper twine in striped, rock candy crackle, milled lavender stain and paint, Worn Lipstick (I think) paint, Picked Raspberry Marker, Mini Gears and a wing from that Idea-ology set as well as grungeboard from a basics plain set (the heart and wing), film strip ribbon, and Linen ribbon (I know my how my stash has grown). I also used the Spritzer and my new fav go to must have tool wish I had had one sooner the Tiny Attatcher.

Here is my Tag

It is funny how things that look so simple can be so involved I used the paint and stain technique for the background tag, the embossed plastic, the stained crackle (although mine does not show as much), the outlining with a distress marker though I slightly blended it for the look I wanted). The only technique I have yet to try is the making of my own sand and that is on my list to try at some point I have an idea in mind for it actually.

So that is my Tag for July wonder what August will bring 🙂

A Quick Card.

I got a text message the other day, the kind every crafter dreads, you know the one just wondering if you could whip up a card for someone who is leaving.

Making my card stash null and void as there needed to be a lot of space to write in.

So here is what I came up with based on what was close to hand and in about 30mins

I automatically thought of the Tim Holtz Bird and Cage die as it looks good and is a quick way to take up a fair amount of room.

So I cut it out of some thin chipboard (recycled packaging). Inked the cage black and then embossed it with silver and used a technique we had learned in Creative Chemistry 102 to make it look a bit more tarnished and old (though I did not get to do it as much as I wanted to to get the look really happening)

I then inked the bird and it’s wing with some distress ink and set them aside, as you can see I was in such a hurry I did not even change my blending foam and some of the black got mottled into the other colour.

I grabbed one of my new hero arts background stamps inked it in one of my fav distress colours Peacock Feathers and spritzed the whole rubber stamp with water.

I stamped it (crookedly, but I will get to that in a moment)

and then blotted off the excess with a tissue.

I took I think it was worn paper or antique linen distress ink with my blending tool and covered the whole background with it as I felt the white was a bit to bright it also aged the Peacock feathers a little as well.

It took me a few minutes to figure out how I was going to get around the crooked background that did not quite cover the whole card, when my eyes caught sight of my tape container. So out came some Washi Style Tape and I used it around 3 of the edges to cover the crookedness and the blank space.

Glued on the bird added on the prima flowers and pearls and viola a card in under 30mins 🙂 I think some days I just get very lucky as a crafter as most of the stuff was pretty close to hand.

Denim Mini Album

For about a year or so now I have been totally enchanted by Donna Salazars work with reclaimed denim from her headbands and hand made flowers and embellishments.

Recently I found a 50c clothing section in one of my local op shops and scored 3 pairs of jeans. One was so lovely with embroidered pockets when I discovered they would fit a friend I told her they were hers until they fell appart then they were mine lol. It was a bit of a wrench to part with them because there is the most adorable little embroidered pocket on the front.

Anyway I have pulled appart and cut up one of the pairs and when I got my New Big Shot this week (thanks to an amazing and generous friend) I did some cutting out of the denim and played a bit with some embossing and Inking.

What I have learned is that Denim is a great canvas for ink, it embosses like a dream and is quite a versatile medium.

Steel rule dies are the best to cut through the fabric however as long as you do not mind having to do a little cutting, the thin metal dies work pretty well.

I used a combination of Quickutz and M Press Dies for this album as well as one of the reclaimed denim pockets:

I decorated the pocket to match the Album cover with an M-Press Heart that had been embossed with a Cuttlebug Script folder.

The album is cut from the Quickutz Santa’s Workshop Die Set, I used part of the elastic stretch section of the Jeans as a sort of Handle, all the pages are embossed with an M Press Butterflies embossing folder and then inked over.

and from the back:

The Inside Pages: have spaces added for small photos with more quickutz dies, and random stickers and rub ons from my stash.(not sure of the stickers but the rub ons are from Kaiser Sweet Nothings and bon jour)

I also cut out two pieces of denim for each page though honestly it was quite a sturdy denim and would have been fine as indavidual pages. I used OK to wash it glue to stick it all together, MM Crystal brads to hold it all together

and thats it one Denim Mini Album stored in a Denim Pocket. I may end up cutting out a word from Denim and adding it to the pocket just to tie it all together a little better.

A Little Locker

By now you are all well and truly aware I am not only a budget scrapper but a bargain hunter as well.

Nearly all my craft supplies have been gotten on Sale, or at a discounted rate.

I recycle everything I can think of.

I also look for things to play with (though have to stop myself sometimes as I have been trying to use up the OTP stuff I have, needless to say I am almost out of MDF albums and fun stuff to play with)

Anyway the OP shop (opportunity or second hand shop for non Aussies) near my Councilor is a treasure trove of interesting items.

I recently Discovered that they have a section out the back with old jeans for just 50c ( perfect for crafting with at that price and no sadness at killing erm I mean upcycling a pair of jeans)

I have also scored many a good 30-50c book, a whole container with about 60 slide covers again 50c, a bag of dominoes for 2oc

and this little Locker which once upon a time came with a Mary Kate or Ashley Olsen Doll for 50c. It still had the faux magazines and books inside it.

This is just phase one of this project I have an idea for it but it will take some $$$ to get the things I want and a little inventiveness on my part.

Now because I like to pin my posts and I am not clever enough with photo editing to put the pics all Into one I will start with what I have done to it then show you what it looked like to begin with etc. Almost backwards but not quite.

So here is what I have so far (remember this is just a smidge bigger than a barbie type doll):

and here is what the locker looked like originally

and here is is covered in Foil Tape (I got a rather large 2″ wide roll from ebay by searching foil tape worldwide it was about $4 and it is well worth the money as it goes very far.) I was tempted to leave it like this cause its kind of fun and funky all silver but I really do have an idea for where I want to take it.

and again how it looks now.

I embossed the foil tape by tearing it into strips the length of my Cuttlebug embossing folder. I embossed about 4 strips at a time as they are thin and it is much quicker this way. I also did the strips in different sections of the folder so I could mix up the looks.

I then took each strip and used alcohol inks in Lettuce, rust and another colour. Painted it with Black Ranger Paint dabber, left it to dry overnight and then lightly sanded off some of the black paint. I find the steel wool technique does not seem to work very well for me and flattens the embossing a bit to much for my liking.
The best part about the foil tape is that it is very forgiving and easy to add more where needed.

Butterfly Garden Matchbox

This matchbox had been sitting partially finished in my stash since last year. Ever have that thing where you start something, it doesn’t fit the swap or person it’s intended for and you kind of loose the flow of what you are doing so it sits around waiting for you to discover how to finish it?

I had created the matchbox and wee book prior to knowing who my swap partner was (look back to the faux grimoire matchbox to see what I did for the swap) and of course it was completely unsuitable for that person.

So recently I found some wee rub ons I had bought from my local spotlight on sale. They worked so well with the wee book I thought why not and finally finished the matchbox (always a good feeling when you finish a project that has been waiting a while)

So here it is (I am so pleased with how this turned out I just love the butterfly garden papers by Pink Paisley hard to get now but so glad I have them in my stash. This is an ordinary matchbox I recycled.

and that’s it there isn’t any more.

Another take on Tattered Florals

An idea popped into my head last night and would not leave.
Based on my very first blog tutorial here. Variagated recycled book flowers.

So here is the tutorial should you wish to watch the youtube video:

or if you preffer step by step instructions complete with pics go here

So being me and it being almost the 11th hour I had to try this with the tattered florals.

I had an ornament I never quite knew how I wanted to finish that I had experimented with clear gallery glass and pearl ex powder on the inside of.

I added some white paper twine around the top with some magic tape and a loop to hang the ornament.

Then used some glue dots to adhere the handmade scrunched tattered floral flowers around the outside of the glass bauble.

and from a slightly different angle

I had an idea when I was about to sort the flowers and dry them. I took out two pieces of white cs and placed the flowers over them. I misted the flowers and dabbed them off with paper towel pushing them down onto the cs

this is the results:

and:

the best thing is I now have two pretty handmade background or even card bases and thus wasted less distress reinker 🙂

Budget Crafters Essentials

There are a few things that are either free or minimal cost that every budget crafter should have in their stash

So here are some of mine

• Tissue paper in white (I get 5-10 sheets at a local cheapie shop for $1)- this can be used to make everything from grass to water. To add texture, to create clothing and pretty much a whole heap of other things you will find a myriad of uses for it once you start experimenting.

• Food Colouring- which I get at my local supermarket for 99c a bottle in 5 different colours. If you mix it with a little salt and water in a misting bottle you get a very cheap way to make your own Mists. You can blend them for your own custom colours or experiment with adding a drop or two of a black re inker to darken/deepen the colour

• Thin Chipboard- the type that comes as packaging on cereal, crackers, and other such things. Is great for die cutting and saves a fortune on buying actual chipboard. You can also stick layers of it together to create thicker chipboard items. Good for the enviroment and your bank balance

• Plastic Packaging- of the sort dies come in. It is perfect to alcahol ink over. You can use it in place of Acetate. You can die cut it to create your own custome stencils/ stencil elements and you can use it to cut out small patterns. Which I do with some of my smaller bears. You can also use soft drink bottles, milk bottles and icecream containers for the same sorts of things. Milk bottles are great cause they are opaque and give you a different colour to work with.

• Old Sheet Music/Music Book- I managed to pick up an old book of music for $1.50 at my local Vinnies (for non Aussies St Vincent De Pauls a second hand or op shop). It pays when looking at things like this to look for the thickest book you can find. So you get the most bang for your buck so to speak after all for a budget crafter ever cent counts

• Old Books- from old paper backs to coffee table books. You can use them to die cut and create pretty flowers, create funky embelishments, use the pages to create a background, cut out the pictures, and also re purpose them into mixed media journals or boxes. There are so many things you can do with books never throw one that is falling appart away.

• Aluminium Cans- Which can be cut up (carefully) and used to emboss and die cut for funky metal embellishments for your projects.

• Textas, pencils, crayons and chalks- of the cheap variety all can be used to colour, do resist techniques and other such things for your projects. You can get them cheap and still get some wonderful effects colouring with them.

• Corrugated cardboard boxes- if you wet one side with a mister or paintbrush you can remove the top layer and use the corrugated card to create albums, embellishments and other such things.

• A Roll of Brown Paper – great for giftwrapping for both genders, great to die cut and make flowers from, and also for creating cutsom pp.

• Butchers paper- I often recycled the outer piece and use it in my crafting, it is great inked, stamped, misted, crumpled etc and its another free item you can get multiple uses out of.

These are some of the things that have not only helped me ‘pad’ out my stash for little or no money. But that are things I use regularly.

With a little creativity and imagination you can create wonderful things without feeling like your stash is lacking.

It is sometimes hard to watch others use tons and tons of pretty products and embellishments on their work, especially when you just can not afford to follow suit. However there is something to be said of the imagination required when you have a limited stash and are on a budget.

Don’t look at it as lack look at it as an opportunity to stretch your Imagination, and to create your way!

12 Tags of 2013 (or my take 12 mixed media journal pages)

I Hi everyone.

I know cutting it fine, but life has been a bit of a roller coaster of late to say the least.

I have spent the last two days working on my version of Tims March Tag.

I will post the pic then break it down for you all 🙂

my idea started with cutting some tissue paper into strips (I just folded it over a few times so it made really long strips), and then using some of the left over mist I had made for my bear (a mix of stream colour wash and mowed lawn re inker) and misted it, tossing it around as I went to get a semi even coating. I then misted over it again with a pearl mist that I made using perfect pearls ‘pearl’ and water.

I dried my ‘grass’ and then painted my journaling page with Stormy Sky and Mowed lawn distress stains.

Used some multi medium over the mowed lawn and started laying down my ‘grass’ strips.  I also added extra at the top I did little V shapes and at first pasted them with the V point facing up then did them facing down, did another layer of strips, and added in some scrunched up along the top to create a morefluffy grass like texture.

I got a new stamp this week an Imaginisce snag em stamp of a Chick and I could not resist using it on my page. So using inspiration from Dyan Reaverly I could not resist stamping the wee chick onto my page and also stamping them onto some plain white cardstock and painting them in Distress ink 🙂 I did however also grab my trusty prima craft knife and cut out the wing so that it looked like they could also flap away, I added a little glitter to the flowers on them with some glue gloss, and could not resist finishing one off with a smidge of Brown paper twine so it looked a little like it had a worm in its beak. I also added a little extra grass so it looked like my birdie was resting in the grass.

I then felt like getting a little bit more background texture so used a spotty piece of grungeboard that I have as a stencil and added some spots in Malted Milk paint dabber, then used Cool perri paint dabber to over Tattered Angels glimmer screen of a butterfly, and then also misted over it with Purple Twilight Colour wash. I did a simmilar thing on the other side with a flourish stencil, however I misted and then painted so it gave a more muted effect.

I added in my addage ticket. For me easter is a time of hope. Used some seasonal chit chat words in my grass.

Then used a grungeboard circle to create my sun. The Sun is  coloured with terracotta paint dabber and then I melted lemon fantasy film over the top to create my Sun.

Then It was time for my butterflies, I don’t own the bunny die. I do however own the silver tinsel twine however I chose not to use it. Not because I did not think the technique Tim showed us with the melting and the alcohol ink was not awesome but because it is an easter page and I really loved the idea of using easter egg foil instead. So I did. It appeals to me in a few ways its a free resource, its recycling and its always pretty colours and so shiny. I also inked around the edges of the Almanac Paper with some vintage photo and did the same for the butterflies I used later.

I cut my butterflies out of Almanac paper from Prima just to add a little of an old world look to match the Hope tag and because  I have to be honest and say I really love the complete mish mash of the Distress/old look mixed with the pastels and brighter flowers.

I then cut out some tattered florals flowers from white cardstock, Used distress stains over them, misted over them with my trusty home made pearl mist and dried them.

I then layered them and moulded them a little adding in a button to their centers that had some of the lime and white paper twine through the holes in the buttons.

I then added some rhinestones to the positive butterfly images and added them to the page

Lastly I doodled in with a white paint sharpie the stems and leaves of my flowers painted over a coat of distress stain dabbing it off to keep it light and then used a Zig writer to go around the edges so the would pop a little more.

And there you have it my journey to my Mixed Media page for March. I know its Autumn in Australia I just really love the pastels and easter colours.

Happy Creating everyone.

12 Journaling Pages Febuary (AKA my version of 12 tags of 2013)

I had so much fun creating my journaling pages for this month. I was a bit worried because I only have two of the Distress Markers at present though I did use my worn lipstick one which we will get to in a minute.

Click here for Tim’s Tag

I am so happy with how this months turned out here is the pic:

I know the technique for this month was about colouring with distress markers but as I said my stash is seriously lacking in them. So instead I created a background using ranger paint dabbers (both ranger and Jenni Bowlin ones I am absolutely addicted to her Malted Milk dabber such a great colour to play with)

I first took my lightest pink (shell pink) and rubbed it over both pages, dried it with my heat gun then went over it with Malted Milk the idea is to leave some blank spaces and spots where the white shows through the pink to be filled in by the malted milk and some where the pink shows through stronger. I then used a paint brush and dipped it into the lids of Raspberry, Chewing gum and snow cap and flicked it one by one over the pages (I dried between colours so they each popped more) and that is the background finished.

Next I used some thin chipboard from a cereal packed and Quickutz’s branch die (I altered this slightly by cutting off a branch and placing it elsewhere to give a more even flow to the branches). I painted it in malted milk, then dabbed over some expresso and a little sunshine yellow then cut it to fit my pages and stuck it down with glossy accents.

I then used sizzix and cuttlebug dies for the hearts and cut them out of white cs. They were coloured with worn lipstick distress stain, splattered with some tarnished brass stain and then edged in worn lipstick distress marker. (told you I got the marker in there somewhere) before being glued onto the branches. Then it was a matter of using some glue gloss (am totally addicted to it) and sprinkling with some Ranger Dry stickles to make the hearts sparkly. I lastly chose words from Tim’s Chit Chat stickers (in seasonal and everyday?) and used a little glossy to stick them in place.

I used one of His tags that I stained in picked raspberry distress stain and snow cap stain. Added in a cs cupid cut from another quickutz die.

Then used some tissue tape to form the bottom and some pretty circle embellishments and a button from Tattered Inspirations and viola another mixed media journal page is done 🙂