Distress Watercolor: Pt. 1

CC3C 5??? Wow, these weeks are flying by, aren't they? So many amazing and inspiring entries, I am just humbled to be among all of you. Thanks for creating along with the Curiosity Crew!

Thanks to Inspiration Emporium, sponsor of this challenge. A lucky winner will receive a $50 gift certificate and, thus, be equipped to stock up for future challenges!!

And, as always, thanks to Tim & Mario for the incredible prize packages Curiosity Crew choices will win. Amazing! I try to imagine going to the mailbox and picking up THAT package. Wowser.

Just a note to all entrants: Be sure to read Linda Ledbetter's post and the FAQ for these challenges. It would be such a shame for a worthy entrant to not be eligible for lack of meeting the simple requirements:
You must not post the technique described in Tim's book.
You must use the product (such as a die or ink) upon which the challenge is based.
You must comment on all Curiosity Crew blogs.
Linda Ledbetter
Candy Colwell
Hels Sheridan
Yvonne Blair
Susan Mostek
Marjie Kemper
Annette Green
Anita Houston
and, of course, here.
You are all so incredible. We are cheering for you!!

And on to this weeks challenge..........

I absolutely love Distress Inks. I believe they have revolutionized the paper crafting and mixed media industry and I don't know how I'd manage without them. SO many things you can do with them. One thing you can do: watercolor.

You must have Tim's Compendium of Curiosities books. All of them, all three. But for this challenge in particular, you must have Volume 3. And you must turn to page 39.


This is my completed tag. The zinnia is from Wendy Vecchi's Framed Art Set. Lovely stamp for this technique. Its stamped on the smooth side of watercolor paper and watercolored using Tim's technique from Compendium of Curiosities, page 39.


I began using a technique I learned from Wendy, tho I tweaked it a bit. I use a Snow Cap Adirondack Pigment reinker and squirt a little onto my craft sheet. I use a blending tool and rub the Snow Cap reinker over the entire tag. Heat set and then repeat. This seals the tag and gives you a FABULOUS base for alcohol ink.


I applied Sailboat Blue and Caramel alcohol inks with a felt applicator, along with a little Ranger Blending Solution. I usually don't use metallics. Just not my preference, I'm not partial to shiny things. :-)


I masked the frame from Wendy's set and used her Honeycomb stencil. I LOVE using Ranger pigment reinker with stencils. They are less fluid than paints and more fluid than inks and work great. I stenciled in some Honeycomb over various areas of the tag.


I am seriously and dangerously infatuated with this stamp set. Also obsessed. I like to create borders with these stamps, alternating upside down and right side up. Here I used Dandelion Archival Ink.


I repeated the zinnia stamp in the top right corner to balance the weight of images on the right side of the tag.


My little signature B Line Designs bird. I never put him away, he lives on top of my desk. Sweet little guy, isn't he? The letters are Chip Block alphabet, a new obsession. Thank you, Marjie Kemper. Just what I needed, another obsession!

Hope you all are enjoying Tim's fabulous Distress Watercolor technique and will reach for it often. We've all got lots of Distress color, right, so how cool for another way to use it! Learn and grow. ;-)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Final Days!! #artistsfloodrelief

We are in the final 3 days the auction we are hosting to raise money for flood victims.  I hope you'll take a moment to visit the auction site and bid on your favorite pieces.   We've been humbled and amazed at the donations that have come in from:
Tim Holtz
Wendy Vecchi
Ronda Palazzari
Lisa Pace
Jim Hankins
Marjie Kemper
Linda Ledbetter
Yvonne Blair
Candy Colwell
Susan Mostek
Anita Houston
Richard Spinney

You still have a chance to own signed art and or books from these gifted and generous people.  Or, if you prefer, you can make a donation on the website that will go directly Crossroads Ministries Estes Valley Flood Relief.  Thanks to all of you for your care for the people still struggling to rebuild their lives and for considering a bid or a gift.

CC3C: Layered Stencils

Welcome to CC3C #4!!  I absolutely loved this challenge.  Tim's Layered Stencils are awesome, so convenient to bundle together with a binding ring and are perfect for all things grunge.  I hope all of you are enjoying following along the challenges and are engaging in a little creativity of your own.  We've had unbelievable entries, the talent level rises every week!

Each CC3C will award a winner in one of two ways:
(1) a gift certificate from one of our sponsors; this challenge is sponsored by Funkie Junkie Boutique.  That lucky winner will receive a $25 gift certificate, which is kind of cool to get stocked up on Tim goodies!! 
OR
(2) a vote from the Curiosity Crew.  That talented winner will receive a treasure trove of Tim Holtz signature products, donated by Tim & Mario.  That prize is a wowser, every challenge, so keep you eyes open for a sneak peak!!

I really loved this challenge because all the inspiration started with the Layered Stencil.  I love the Eye Chart stencil so I decided to use that one.  I also wanted to use Tim's new Wallflower Paper Stash.  I've been DYING to get my hands on it, so here was my chance.  With a "vision" theme from the stencil, a nature theme from the Wallflower paper, I was really inspired to use a sentiment that encouraged everyone to open their eyes and "see" because "beauty is everywhere".  It really is.

I created the background with my all-time favorite spritz & flick technique.  I stamped Tim's Fabulous Flourishes with Walnut Stain.  Then I used the Eye Chart Stencil and Wendy Vecchi  Embossing Paste in white.  I blended Vintage Photo ink over the dry embossing paste and spritzed and flicked again.  I can't decide what I like more, spritzing or flicking.  :-)

The little bit of Wallflower paper was adhered to a Regal Crest die cut bit of Grungeboard and the label was covered with the reverse side of the same page.  I am completely in love with this paper.  I want to eat it.  I added layers of Spring Greenery foliage, the remaining leaves from Regal Crest die, some linen burlap and a little, teeny, tiny daisy from Tattered Floral die on the banner.  I used my much loved Hero Arts alphabet for "beauty is everywhere".

If you haven't taken the plunge and entered your piece of art yet, I really hope you will.  The word "challenge" is perfect, but this does challenge you to do your best, get out of your comfort zone and create in ways you may not have tried before.  You'll want to get Tim Holtz's latest book Compendium of Curiosties III (which you can order here) to learn the techniques for all the challenges.  All the details are available on Linda Ledbetter's blog.  Happy creating!

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.

Location:Rocky Mountain Memories, Estes Park, CO

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

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?

Compendium of Curiosities III Challenge

We begin!  Welcome to CC3C!  I'm so excited to be going on this journey and I hope you'll play along.  You can get all the details on how this challenge works at the website of our fearless leader, the lovely Linda Ledbetter.  Linda is so gracious and invited the CC3C team to come together to host this challenge.  Check out the CC3C page.

Compendium of Curiosities III is Tim's best book yet.  I really love the techniques, all very doable and crazy awesome results!  You can get your copy at Rocky Mountain Memories or get a signed copy from Tim! 

Our first challenge is Paint Marbling.  The technique can be found on page 43 of Compendium of Curiosities III.  If you haven't used Distress Paints yet, you gotta get some!!  Yummy, rich, opaque color.  You can change the color of just about anything.  Color safe?  I don't think so.

Here's the tag I did using Paint Marbling on the background.

After creating my Paint Marble background with Crushed Olive, Spun Sugar and Broken China Distress Paint, I used Wendy Vecchi's Fancy Floral's background stamp in Dandelion Archival Ink.  I scratched the edges with a Paper Distresser and Vintage Photo all around the edges.
I stamped flowers from Wendy's Blooming Art set and from her Build-a-Blossom Stamp-It Stencil It set.  Build-a-Blossom has a coordinating stencil and stamp for the little sprig in Blooming Art.  The flowers are stamped onto the tag itself with Carnation Red Archival ink and in Jet Black onto Clearly for Art Whiteout.  More about that later.
I stenciled the leaves onto the tag with Wendy's white Embossing Paste, tinted with Fern Green Archival ink.  I stenciled a few more leaves onto a scrap of paper, let them dry and then cut out those stenciled leaves for a little layered dimension.

I used Wendy's Archival Alcohol technique (I just named it that, just this second!!) that she demoed at CHA this January.  Check out her technique by clicking here.  I used Blue Violet and Chrome Yellow Archival reinkers on Clearly for Art Whiteout.  CFA takes the ink in a very weird, awesome way, so you have to play with it a little, which I'm always happy to do!!  I stamped the flowers in Jet Black, cut them out and then heated and shaped them.  Apply the flowers with some Ranger Matte Medium and sandwich a little Grungeboard or Grungepaper behind them to get them to glue to the tag.

I added words from Wendy's Framed Art set.  (I LOVE this set.  Its got an awesome frame that could be used a bunch of ways.  Love.  It.)   I just wanted part of the words, so I cut and separated the words.  I could have just inked part of the words, but I like to do it this way.  I love cling stamps for many reasons, but one is that I easily cut them up and use parts of them and then put them back together.  When cutting away part of a stamp, if you cut an angle or a notch, its easy to fit the pieces back together on an acrylic block and use it and originally designed.  If you look at the left edge, you'll see the little notch I cut.

I added Wendy's Blossom Bucket door (SUPER cute!!) to the tag for a hopeful message to go along with the hopeful message in the Framed Art set.  I like hopeful things.  I added a little brad head embossed with Aged Taupe Embossing Enamel (the same on the smaller flower centers).  I hand wrote the word "open" with a fine tip Sharpie and detailed the letters a little.

I resisted putting a little bird on the top of the door.  Don't get used to it, I won't be able to resist often!

Make a comment on all of the CC3C host blogs for a chance to win prizes from our sponsors Inspiration Emporium,  Funkie Junkie Boutique, and from Tim Holtz!
Linda Ledbetter
Candy Colwell
Hels Sheridan
Yvonne Blair
Susan Mostek
Anita Houston
Annette Green
Marjie Kemper