Birds & Words

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Faux Tea Roses

I hope you're all having fun following and, hopefully, playing along with us for the Compendium of Curiosities III challenges (CC3C). If you haven't entered yet, this is a great challenge to jump in. Tim's Faux Tea Roses can be found on page 65 of Compendium of Curiosities III. Just make up a few and begin creating! All the guidelines for the challenge can be found here. Make up your project, enter it on Linda Ledbetter's blog, comment on the host blogs and you've got a shot. TWO shots, actually. One winner is chosen by vote of the Curiosity Crew and will find a boat load of prizes (generously donated by Tim and Mario) raining down on their head. Another winner will be selected at random and will receive a $50 gift certificate from Inspiration Emporium.

This challenge was a blast!! I love LOVE these pretty roses, made with Tim Holtz Alterations Tattered Pinecone die. We've had the pinecones made with this die in our shop (Rocky Mountain Memories) for some time. I knew you could also do roses with it, but had never done it. Oh my gosh, its really easy and gorgeous result!!

I created my roses with Sticky Back Canvas adhered to a piece of scrapbook papers. I colored one of them with Mustard Seed Distress Stain and the other two with Mustard Seed Distress Paint. I wanted to use both mediums to get an idea of the difference in texture & color. They both worked really well, but the stain seemed to be a little brighter.
 I picked up a bit of Mustard Seed Distress Stain and touched up the roses in places where you could see the white core of the paper.  I touched up the edges of the petals with some Vintage Photo Distress Stain. I had so much fun making this little mini book with a Maya Road linen 4x6 book. I covered the pages with tissue paper from an old dress pattern, adhering with Ranger Matte Medium. I'll give you a look at the inner pages, just for fun.....

My theme came from the yellow roses, which always makes me sing a little tune, being a good Texan. The theme started there and carried through.
 The letters on the cover are painted with Chipped Sapphire Distress Paint which, it turns out, is just the color of the Texas state flower, bluebonnets. The white dots are done with Liquid Pearls and are a nod to the touches of white in these pretty flowers. Mustard Seed and Chipped Sapphire are a fabulous color theme, I'm sure I'll be using those two a lot!
 My bestie came to visit me this month with her husband and took this shot of a longhorn in the bluebonnets on the way. How do you get more iconic Texan than that? Well, maybe Bluebell ice cream as a bluebonnet container. Yummmmm, best ice cream ever. Just a few of my favorite things. ;-)
 The center spread has a foundation of Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste through a Dyan Reavely stencil. I layered on Tim's Flying Bird from Stamper's Anonymous on the left, symbolizing the Texas state bird, the mockingbird. Tim's "life is good" stamp, a silhouette of the state and a sway of yellow roses completes it!
 I rode horses as a girl growing up in Texas so I included a shot of me barrel racing. Tim's Picture Wheel die by Sizzix is the perfect frame for letters, numbers, small pictures or any small pieces.
My favorite thing about this picture is how my legs weren't long enough to reach the stirrups. I shared the saddle with my daddy that night and his legs were a lot longer than mine!!
Well, that's enough of my little indulgence. It sure was fun for me and I hope it was fun for you, too.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

CC3C Distress Glitter!!

Welcome to the 2nd CC3C!!  Challenge... Yeah.  Good word for it.

Glitter?  Me?  Not really a glitter girl.  BUT!!!  I did have fun with Tim's Distress Glitter!  It really is different!  When I do use glitter or stickles (and its not often) I like to use just a little, as an accent and so it is on my Distress Glitter project.


I started with my background using Wendy Vecchi's Alcohol Archival technique on Specialty Stamping paper.  LUV (luv luv luv) this stuff.   Nothing takes ink like this paper.  I used Hydrangea and Tree Branch reinkers for the technique and then stamped a little Fancy Florals with Hydrangea ink. 


I embossed a panel of black cardstock using Tim's Eiffel Tower Texture Fade.  I rubbed over the raised areas with a Butterscotch Adirondack Pigment ink pad.  I used a blending foam and hit some of the raised area with Ranger Matte Medium and then sprinkled Antique Linen Distress Glitter over the panel.


I inked some strips of Specialty Stamping paper with alcohol and Hydrangea Archival Reinker (using the video technique linked above) and cut out flowers with Tim's Tattered Flower Garland decorative strip die.  I layered the flowers and affixed them with a brad, embossed with Ranger Queen's Gold embossing powder.  LOVE Queen's Gold, its my go-to EP.

I dragged the flowers and the edges of the leaves through Ranger Matte Medium and then sprinkled with Antique Linen Distress Powder.

I cut letters from Tim's Typeset Decorative Strip die.  This is a really great die.  Full upper and lower case alphabet, plus letters and symbols.  ALL in one die!  Nicely sized.  Sadly, there's no apostrophe, which I needed for the French phrase "Je t'aime".  No worries, I just used the letter "2" and snipped off the top curve for my apostrophe.


I can't wait to see what you all will do with Distress Glitter and your own ideas & techniques.  Amazing the grungy look the Duke of Distress has given us with his unique glitter.  Amazing!!  Comment on this blog, on all the Curiosity Crew blogs and enter your your art for a chance to win this week's CC3C.  All the details you need to enter are here.  The talent we're seeing is just blowing us all away!!  The winners will certainly deserve the amazing prize packages, generously (GENEROUSLY) donated by Tim Holtz, Inspiration Emporium and Funkie Junkie Boutique.  But the first thing you'll need to play along is Compendium of Curiosities III, where all the techniques are taught.  Want a signed copy?  Just click!!

AND!!  Here's a thing.  Tim Holtz has added a CC3C board to his Pinterest page!!  Click here to go straight to the CC3C board.  Woo hoo!  Follow Tim to see CC3C entries and maybe have a chance to have YOUR work added.  How cool is that???

Location:Cherokee Dr,Estes Park,United States

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Not too mean to get sick....

When I was a kid in Texas, I used to hear the expression "too mean to get sick".  We'll I guess I'm NOT too mean to get sick!!

Despite all my best intentions to respond to all of your kind comments, a wicked cold has waylayed me for about a week now.  So I'll reply here by saying "thank you, thank you" for all your kind words!!  I want to wish you all the very best of luck in winning one of the first CC3C challenge prizes.  I hope you'll continue to play along this Saturday and on all our succeeding challenges.  There's a staggering amount of talent posted on the CC3C page and I can't wait to see what's coming down the pike!

BTW, there's sort of a Fort Knox of prizes waiting to be given to our winners.  Why shouldn't that be YOU?