Just thought I’d share kind of a “sentiment of the day” type of card. And it may just be the right sentiment for you, if you’re looking for some reflective card decorations this Lent.
Creative notes:
I sprayed my own background with Distress Spray Stain and Distress Oxide Spray, both by Tim holtz.
I matted a coloured card base with the background
I used the Artsy Stems die-set for the flowers, by Tim Holtz for Sizzix
I die-cut the flowers from some design paper
I coloured a chipboard sentiment piece and added it to the card
Design paper die-cuts on a handmade ink-sprayed backgroundThe sentiment of the day
In 2020 Tim Holtz started his so-called Colorize series of dies with Sizzix. These Colorize dies are meant for you to add layers of color to your diecut image, each layer being its own color.
It was quite the ingenious system, for each set of die parts comes with its own color code. For example, everything with code “1” should be dark brown, each “2” should be blue etc., helping you as a maker to put together the elaborately layered die-cut image designs.
I think the very first one of these was Arthur, the purple owl.
I have thus far crafted one owl-on-a-branch project, and I gave it my own twist of course: instead of using differently colored pieces of cardstock, I sprayed my own backgrounds on mixed media heavy stock and die-cut my pieces from those.
I actually made this project two years ago, in August 2020, but I just now realized I had never actually shared it on my blog! So, here we go, with a step-by-step semi-tutorial on how I made my card with Arthur, the purple marbled pink owl.
1. Made the building blocks: created enough inked/sprayed/painted backgrounds for the project, in the colors I wanted.
2. Embossed a wood pattern on the bark-colored one.
3.Die-cut the branches – which now also had some nice texture, thanks to the embossing.
4. Die-cut the owl pieces from the other papers, and sorted them according to the Sizzix color-coding. Although I made my own colors, the coding still helped me to know which pieces belonged together.
5. Chose some chipboard sentiment pieces and colored them.
6. Made a card background. It started as an abstract piece but then it became a moonlit landscape of sorts.
7. Following Sizzix’ color-coding, I glued each layer of the owl image to the background. Sizzix also has very clear video tutorial shorts on Youtube for each of their Colorize dies btw. I’ll embed the one for Arthur below these pictures.
8. Glued the piece to a black background, added the chipboard sentiment pieces and applied some liquid pearl along the edges.
Done!
I have to say it was a fun project, and the detail these dies provide by way of the ever-smaller layers is very cleverly designed. Look at those tiny claw pieces!
So yeah, I’ll have me some more of these Colorize dies by Tim Holtz for Sizzix and see what fun they’ll bring!
What about you, have you tried any of the Colorize die sets? Leave a comment and let me know!
In very busy times like these I don’t find much time to craft, let alone many hours continuously. Nevertheless, a girl still needs her cards to send to her friends & extended family! So, here’s six card ideas, all of which are very easy to make and which take up relatively little of your precious time.
Enjoy the video, and don’t forget to like this post and/or leave a comment! 😃
Double-sided design paper sheets are the perfect material to create a quick step card. The one I used is from the Summer Breeze collection by Studiolight.
You can either find a template online and print/draw, fold and cut it yourself, or you can use a step card die. With the card’s basic shape taken care of, the only thing left is to decorate!
For instance: cut an ATC card and stamp a sentiment. I also added some heat embossing to the sentiment, for some extra interest. Then apply some kind of glitter glue all along the edges and adhere as a center piece.
Use some hot glue or other heavy adhesive medium to adhere larger decorations, like these bulky roses.
Don’t forget the backside of the card! I know it’s just the back, but you can still add some nice little detail to surprise the careful examiner 😊
For instance, add some transparent texture paste through a stencil on part of the back!💡
Add some final diecuts and smaller decorative elements, and you’re done – quick & easy!
Recently I decided to put some paints onto some shirts, because why not. Plus, let’s face it, plain shirts look boring in their original state.
I can highly recommend the Tim Holtz Distress Paints to customize any fashion items you have, since they were designed with fabrics in mind. If you know of other brands that are suitable for both papercrafting/mixed media and fabric painting, then please let me know in the comments!
I also played around with my green screen, and it all went a little overboard, so apologies for the ridiculousness of it all – but I had great fun trying 😁
Recently I bought two of the Sydney Grace x Temptalia eyeshadow palettes, and found the packaging so lovely that I couldn’t bring myself to simply get rid of those wondrous sleeves, never to be seen again.
So, I turned them into a tea gift booklet, that I sent out to my friend. And let me tell you, that re-purposing was far more satisfying than simply throwing them out. 🙂
I didn’t use any design paper this time, just the two sleeves. For the inside and the two tiny booklets, I made my own mixed media background, using Tim Holtz’s spray and oxide inks.
In the below video I’m sharing this tea gift project, and the steps to create it. Enjoy!
The eyeshadow palettes of which I used the packaging: Sydney Grace x Temptalia
Did you know that you can use Tim Holtz’s Distress Paint as a resist? To create a mixed media tag, I used this specific technique. I also used clear embossing powder to add a glossy accent – and here are all of the steps to do it!
Step by step
1. STAMP with Distress Paint and/or use a stencil, to add an image or some random patterns. I did both. Use a light color of paint, like white, cream or a very soft pink. Let the paint dry.
Btw, be careful and immediately clean your stamp, for this paint dries quickly and once it dries you won’t be able to get it off your stamp anymore…
2. Color your tag (or any other piece of mixed media cardstock) by blending with different colors of ink. I used both Distress Inks (translucent) and Distress Oxides (opaque). Simply blend right over your patterns – for the paint will act as a resist!
3. Optional: add some extra, subtle background effects by blending through a different stencil.
4. Spray some kind of metal spray to add some sparkle. I used Distress Mica Spray in the color Tarnished Brass.
5. Once everything has properly dried, add a different layer: time for some stamping. Choose one or more images and/or patterns and stamp on top of all the previous layers. First I used a background color of Distress Oxide to add still more interest to the background, this was a script stamp. You can see it on the right side of the tag, on the upper half.
I then stamped the main image in black Archival Ink. This is an oil-based ink, which therefore does not react with or bleed into all of the water-based inks underneath.
6. Pick one or more pieces of your main image that you want to highlight. Cover those fragments with embossing ink – ideally, if you can, use an embossing pen, which gives you maximum control of where you place the embossing ink.
Then take a clear embossing powder and emboss your accent of choice.
Glossy highlight
7. Take some chipboard sentiment pieces and use the same inks to colorize them. Then stick them to your tag.
8. Die-cut a decorative element from metallic paper and add it to the tag. I used Metallic Confections paper by Tim Holtz, but any metallic (or holographic!) paper would do.
Done! Now all that’s left is to tie a piece of string to your tag 🙂
Hope this little step-by-step was helpful! Now go, experiment to your heart’s desire and play with all of the stuff in your stash 🙂 Let me know in the comments if you’re going to try some of the techniques I used here!
If you want still more inspiration, here’s an earlier post where I also used Distress Paint as a resist.
If you want to learn how to work with alcohol inks, I can highly recommend watching Tim Holtz’s demos on his blog. After which: start practising!
A great starter kit would be a pack of Yupo papers, at least 2 colors of alcohol ink, and a high percentage alcohol. If your budget allows it: add Ranger’s Blending Solution too, for it will offer you some more options when working with the inks.
I have to say these inks are fun to work with, the colors are vibrant and their fluidity is quite different from dye inks or spray inks; it seems a lot thinner and it ‘flows’ differently. You can use a hairdryer to move them around on your paper, or some kind of hand air pump like Ranger‘s Alcohol Ink Air Blower or JoyCrafts’ Ink Blower.
JoyCrafts Air blower for alcohol inks
Personally, I use Tim Holtz’s Distress Marker Spritzer Tool – remember that one? It was designed for something different but it’s also a great alcohol ink blower!
Lastly, you can even blow through a straw – but be careful, for you’ll get dizzy extra quickly due to the alcohol vapors…
Next to blowing your inks around, you can also use an ink blending tool (with a felt piece instead of a foam piece) and dab-dab-dab – either with inks, or blending solution, or a mixture of both. Add some high percentage alcohol to the mix to get even more effects.
Ink blending tools can be bought from several companies, Ranger among others.
Speaking of substrates: always use a non-porous surface. I used Yupo (a plastic ‘paper’) and also a gessoed craft tag. Ranger‘s Alcohol Ink papers are of course also very suitable. Whatever substrate you use, each will have its own unique properties so it’s useful – and fun – to experiment a lot!
Below you’ll find my first set of such experiments:
Craft tag (cardstock) – gesso – alcohol inks – pearl mixative – blending solution – 99% isopropyl alcohol:
What about you? Have you tried alcohol inks yet? Or perhaps you’re an advanced alcohol ink artist? Let me know and share your story in the comments below!
This week I wanted to show you how to create a mixed media card, using inks, grit paste and embossing glaze. So, I set out and created one on camera – or so I thought… As it turns out, my camera wasn’t recording at all during most of the proces! 🤬
So I started over and did another one, with the camera actually rolling this time.
Step-by-stepproces
Card 1 – This is the one I intended to film but didn’t. I painted a background in three shades of purple. Added ink through both stamping and stencilling, then took a second stencil and added a translucent texture paste (in this case Ranger’s Distress Grit Paste). Then I colored the grit paste while it was still wet, by covering it with a transparent embossing powder (in this case Ranger’s Distress Embossing Glaze). When the grit paste had dried, I heat-embossed it to melt the Glaze. Heat-embossing is a great way to color your texture pastes btw. You can check out one of my previous posts to see more of that technique.
Card 2 – same steps but with different colors. (This is the one I actually create in the video.) Some small differences: I used some ink sprays (from Ranger’s Dylusions line) instead of paint to color the background, and I used two colors of Embossing Glaze instead of just one. I also finished it as an actual card, so I added a decorative die-cut and a chipboard sentiment and sent it off as a birthday card 🎉.
Enjoy the process video, hope you’ll find it helpful!
In one of my previous blog posts I showed you some backgrounds with Ranger’s Texture Paste, which dries white and matte, and is porous like paper. Ranger also has a Transparent Texture Paste, which has some significantly different properties.
By the way, both of these pastes have now been rebranded as a Tim Holtz Distress Texture Paste, in case you’d like to go shop for them.
Properties of Transparent Texture Paste (Ranger/Distress)
This paste has a lower viscosity (it’s thinner and not as ‘pasty’ as the regular texture paste) and though it’s semi-opaque when you apply it, it will dry completely clear. Also, it will dry glossy, and is not porous at all. So in fact it will act as a resist, instead of taking color like the regular paste does.
This gives you the opportunity to apply texture but with different techniques, compared to the regular Texture Paste by Ranger.
Technique: Transparent Texture Pasteas a color sealer
I created an Indian summer-themed background with this transparent glossy paste, using the following steps:
Ink up the entire tag with four different colors of Distress Stain – I did use the dabbers this time, instead of spraying the Stains by pouring them into spray bottles;
Place the tag upright and spray generously with water, almost drenching it, to get a heavy flow of color going from top to bottom. Then heat dry.
3. Apply Transparent Texture Paste through a stencil, and let air-dry for a couple of hours (drying time could probably be shorter but I wanted to make sure).
4. Since everything underneath the Transparent Texture Paste was now sealed, I could spray anything over it. So I sprayed it with two of the same colors of my palette, but this time with Distress Oxide Sprays: Oxides always dominate dye inks – except where the dyes have been sealed.
Using a splatter box whenever you spray a color medium prevents a lot of cleaning duty…
5. So I removed the Oxide from the textured leaf pattern with a damp cloth, revealing the leaves in bright dye colors, in the midst of a now more chalky colored background.
Because I used the same color palette in Oxide, the effect was subtle. You can imagine completely different effects if you use more contrasting colors, or even black!
All in all I like the ‘seal-in’ effect this transparent paste brings; however, if you were to apply it to uncolored paper, you’d never be able to color it afterward, since it’s a resist. Something to think about, and especially: play around with!
The two backgrounds I’m sharing today I created with one technique, but with different color schemes, generating a completely different atmosphere.
I added some texture paste through a stencil and let it air-dry for about an hour to make sure it was dry. Then I sprayed with Distress Stains and heat-dried. The next layer consisted of several droplets of Distress Oxide, since I knew Oxide would always dominate dye ink – which I learned from the Tim Holtz demos I watched recently.
What I really like about Ranger’s Texture Paste is that when it’s dry, it reacts to color mediums the same way as paper: it takes color really well, and gives it up when you want to lift it off with a damp paper towel.
I chose a warm autumn palette for the first tag, with Peeled Paint, Twisted Citron and Wild Honey, with some splats of Cracked Pistachio on top.
For the second tag I aimed at a vintage look, using Old Paper, Frayed Burlap, Bundled Sage, and Hickory Smoke, with some drops of Tim Holtz’s latest color Speckled Egg on top. I also sprayed some Brushed Pewter Distress Mica Spray, which is the silver color, over the entire tag once everything else had dried.
The stencils were both by Tim Holtz, one small and one large.
All in all I really liked this technique: it was easy, relatively quick and ideal to create some great looking backgrounds.
So yesterday I kicked off my new blog category, Mixed Media. Many of those will be blog exclusive, so no video. But, you will get clear pictures and descriptions of what I did and which products I used.
These two art backgrounds are Distress Tags by Tim Holtz (for Ranger), a mixed media heavy stock. For the first, I started with one of Tim Holtz’s stencils and gently dabbed some Distress Micro glaze through it in two spots, quite randomly. Micro glaze will work as a resist. So when I sprayed three colors of distress stain (the first three in the picture) over it, the stencil’s dotted pattern showed up white.
By the way, you may notice that there are hardly any actual spray bottles in the picture; that is because my main stash of Stains consists of the earlier Distress Stains, which were dabber bottles. So I removed the dabbers and poured some of the Stain in small empty spray bottles I had bought at the dollar store – turning them into Distress Spray Stains quite easily 🙂
So I went along and I placed a second stencil (the smaller one on the right) and sprayed the blue Distress Stain, some purple and the Distress Oxide spray through it. This gave a subtle floral effect. Micro Glaze will take a bit of color after you heat(-dry) it, which is why several of the dots in the end were colored after all.
For the second tag I used the same technique, but with only one stencil and with slightly different colors.
That concluded round 1, leaving me with two nice base tags. On to round 2 below!
Round 2, resist spray: To prepare for what I’m calling a ‘stencil reverse’ technique, I sprayed both tags with Distress Resist Spray entirely and let them dry.
Round 3, paints: for this ‘stencil reverse’ technique – which I learned by watching one of Tim Holtz’s demos – I covered an area of each tag with Distress Paint. I then placed a stencil over each (wet) area and removed thepaint through the stencil with a damp paper towel – leaving the thin blue lines you see on both tags. With a normal stencil technique these of course would have been masked on your project, but now they are the only lines showing. A great and unexpected technique which may resemble a monoprint but isn’t one!
To add an extra color accent I added some Maya Gold metallic paint in a gorgeous dark purple called Aubergine, using a different stencil for each tag.
I was now ready to declare my two backgrounds finished, but then I noticed a small uncolored spot on the right edge of the left tag, which bugged me to no end. It seemed I had apparently touched the tag there with some Micro Glaze still on my fingers – adding a resist.
So as kind of a PS, I took a Distress Ink pad and blended a whole lot of ink over it so as to force-cover it up. It only partially succeeded of course, because of the resist, but at least the spot didn’t bug me anymore 🙂
Now my backgrounds were truly finished – and ready to be used in some creative way in a future moment!
