Thanks to Tim Holtz

As you well know I have been an admirer of the professor of all things inky, Tim Holtz for over 10 years. I use his products on every single thing I make, even if it is just to distress ink the edges of a card. His creativity and enthusiasm for crafting is endless and he has continued to inspire me over the years through all his work; his annual tags he made, his amazing new products and I was even lucky enough to attend one of his workshops in the UK 3 years ago. If you missed that post you can see it here . During lockdown there was one good thing that happened in my inky world, the weekly Facebook Lives which he gave . He so generously gave up his time over 18 weeks to share tips and tricks, 8 of which were Q and As on products which were so useful.  They were a joy to watch and are still available on his Facebook page or website to view now. He also
encouraged everyone to be inspired by his techniques, to get creative and to upload makes to Instagram using the #timholtzdemo. I loved being involved and joined in with thousands of crafters world wide. I had heard Tim mention that each week he would choose 3 winners but that was not why I joined in. As you all well know being creative and getting inky is what makes me me. I needed no excuse to get involved.

What I didn't expect was to be chosen as winner in June. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I got a message from Tim telling me and also letting me chose a stamp set to go with my prize. I was so excited and although the mail during this awful pandemic was a while coming my wonderful prize arrived last week.

Just look at my goodies.

But best of all Tim also included one of the tags he had made during the Lives...and I could not believe that it was my favourite of all those he made. 

I have a " thing" about images of toadstools (as well as pigs, mermaids, the Man in the Moon, Father Christmas, snowmen, strawberries and sea shells, OK now you know all my secrets!). In fact when I saw Tim make this tag it inspired me to buy the gorgeous field notes ephemera pack to go with my field notes stamp set (one of my most used sets of this summer).

I will treasure it.

The stamp set I chose  for my prize was The Professor 2...for me it would be a reminder of such pleasant crafting times.

I decided that my first make with this set would be something I could keep and look back at.

I thought I would also blog and share a step by step for this make to give something creative back.
I chose to work with alcohol inks as they are such a fun medium and I managed to finally buy some more Yupo. WARNING; there are lots of photos so if you just want to see my finished project please scroll to the bottom of the page.

I have shared all my tags and makes over the summer on my Instagram page here. I don't blog everything I make as much as I love blogging it would occupy far too much of my creative time. So if you would like to see what I am up to I would love to see you join me over there.

So this is what I got up to.
I used red and blue alcohol inks on Yupo for my  background as I knew I would get some dark purple in there too. I wanted to challenge myself to do something very different.

I die cut myself a tag from this background and also a plain white cardstock tag. I used the fun lift ink technique (you can check the process out in Tim's videos.) I have always enjoyed this technique since Tim first shared it and the ink a few years back. I knew I would get a dark and light version of my stamping so this sparked my ideas for my pair of tags.

 They would be the "dark" and "light" versions of my crafting. I think Tim heads toward the "dark and grungy" and I head more toward the lighter side!  I got a "ghosted" image left on the alcohol ink background and then stamped the ink taken off onto  my white tag. I  I added a few distress inks to my "light" tag and some remnant rubs to both. My "dark" tag had the No 13 and the "light" had butterflies and the No 12.

 I wanted to add some of my entomology critters too. I have the stamps and dies for this set and it has provided endless fun for me this summer. As you well know I am girl who always loves adding details and stories to my crafting. 

 Once painted with some distress inks and glossed with glossy accents they really come to life. I also like adding some glitter pen to the butterfly wings before glossing them.

 We have also recently finished watching "Dark" on Netflix. We loved it but boy is the plot confusing until virtually the last episode of season 3! I give nothing away but I was inspired to add the concept of time travel so I added some cogs and clock hands.

  One butterfly was playing with the settings !

 The beetles and ants walked onto  my dark tag . I thought the "stamp here" was a fun pun.....but no I would never stamp on such a beautiful beetle, I am also a lover of spiders too!

I finished each off tag with a very apt tiny talk sticker. 

  Here are my finished tags.

My light tag has the butterflies and bee happily making time fly (the hands are movable) 

 However the beetle and ant are busy turning back time. I'm not sure which I prefer!

Here is one final shot of the pair. 

I would like to enter my tags into the following challenges

Simon says stamp Monday grunge it up

A vintage journey tag you're it
Creative artiste anything mixed media

So huge thanks to Tim for his kindness, creativity and generosity and to Mario for all he does behind the scenes. Thank you guys, you really do rock. 2020 will certainly be a year to remember.

Thanks to everyone who read through to the end of this rather long post!

Take care, stay safe.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Zoom crafting with Daisy

Over the last 4 months I have  Zoom crafted at least once a week with my sweet 6 year old granddaughter Daisy. Thank goodness for modern technology. I miss her so much, it's not the same as being with her but it is a good 2nd best. We have made sooo many things that I thought I would share a few here in Jane's Journal.

She has a doll called Sydney which is similar to the American doll sold in the USA, a sort of "grown up doll" and she loves to make things for her. During one of our early zoom session Daisy asked if we could make some "food" for Sydney. Now I am a crafter who never throws things away and a few years ago I bought some fimo type clay for my jewellery class. I got a really good deal at the time on a mixed colours pack so even though I only used 1 packet I kept all the other colours. I realized I could use these to show Daisy using them my end and if I bought her some air dry clay we could work together.

I ordered her some via Amazon which were delivered to her house. I used my ancient packs, they were a little tough to roll out but worked fine.

We have had such fun.  My colours are limited by the ones I had so when I had used some up I had to resort to magical blue cookies and even a pink banana!

Here are some photos I took quickly before I sent my versions to her.

You can see I had to make green cookies, with purple choc chips!!

Green and purple spaghetti bolognase, purple sausages and even blue bread for the sandwiches.

The pizza colours though weren't too bad

I made rubber ducks so that Sydney had similar ones to Daisy and Jack's in their bath.

and then Daisy decided they needed a pond....

so I had to quickly make that.

We have also upcycled tomato tins, made cards and today we will me making some more artist trading cards and coins (ATCs). We have also been doing a Nanna and Daisy lockdown ATC swap. Our themes have ranged from garden, to butterflies and the seaside.

Here are a few that she sent me.

and I thought I would share the latest few I have made for her.
By the way I have been sharing a lots of my crafting makes over on Instagram, I could not possibly write a blog post for every one as there are literally dozens. If you would like to see them you can find me as jane.tyrrell on IG or via this link. I also have the address in my blog side bar.

What I have noticed is what a competent stamper Daisy has become. I can't be with her to stamp so she has been doing this completely unaided, as my crafting genes skipped a generation and her darling Mummy's eyes roll in their sockets when Daisy mentions the word "crafting!"

Below is a Thank you card for her teacher she made, she use her Visible Image Alice stamp which she then coloured. The only help her Mummy gave her was to spell the word "teacher" 

As my daughter is a doctor and both her and her husband Key workers so Daisy has been attending school throughout lock down. They are so grateful to them. I am sure her teacher will be thrilled with this. School finishes this week for everyone.

I am also really hoping that in the next few weeks I will be seeing my grandbabies again...there is a plan we are working on!

My own card challenge share today is one of my makes during lock down.This has been shared on social media but not entered into any challenges or seen on my blog.
Daisy lives at the seaside and we usually go over to the beach to collect shells whenever the weather is good. So that was my inspiration.
I made an alcohol ink background on silver sparkle card

 I altered some die cut acetate shells with alcohol inks.

and made this,
 It's very hard to photograph as the sparkle is so reflective. I love the words, they are from my small talk Tim Holtz stickers book and felt just right for my project.

I will be giving it to my sweet Daisy when I next see her.

I would like my seashells canvas into the following challenges;

Time out 1/3 peaceful
As you like it 1/3 summer or autumn definitely  summer for me as I can go to the beach and be warm!
A bit more time to craft 2/3 anything goes

Crafters' castle 2/3 anything goes

Crafty friends 2/3 anything goes

A gem of a challenge 2/3 anything goes

Try it on Tuesday 1/3 summertime

Crafty sentiments 1/3 anything goes

Through the dark room door 1/2 anything goes

 I want to look back at this post in years to come and try to remember the good things which happened during the Lock down to me. Zoom crafting with Daisy will be one of them.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope that life continues to treat you all as well as it can during this dreadful pandemic.

Stay safe,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

PS Jane's Journal is 10 (gulp) on Sunday and I have a giveaway open to EVERYONE worldwide. You don't have to jump through any hoops to enter, just stop by and leave a comment. All the details of what you can win will be in Sunday's post but here is a sneak peek.

See you on Sunday, Jx

Sharing creativity the Tim Holtz way

During lockdown I have had plenty of  extra time at home and have spent many hours in my studio getting inky. As you all well know getting inky is my first love and the creative muse for all of this is Tim Holtz. I fell in love with his distress inks many, many moons ago and was even lucky enough to attend one of his workshops in the UK a few years back. 

During lockdown Tim has given 10 yes 10 weeks of  2 hour+ Facebook lives where he has been demoing many of his awesome techniques and products. His enthusiasm even after all these years is so infectious.  He just adds them to his blog if you want to watch them on catch up.  I have loved every single one. 

2 Saturday's ago he started a "Question and answer" format and started off with my first love, original distress ink pads. The one thing Tim keeps saying is to "just play". With his voice ringing in my ears, as I am not able to sell my cards at moment as Dotty's is of course shut for now, that is exactly what I have been doing. Instead of making cards I have gone back to making some tags...just for fun.

And wow what fun it has been. I also belong to another Tim inspired Facebook page and the lovely Zoe who runs it ( she and I met and became great friends at the same Tim UK workshop a few years back) challenged us to use just ONE distress ink colour and make something in advance to the new colours coming out on Wednesday.

I embraced this and have shared a few tags over the last few days and everyone both on Facebook and Instagram have been so kind and left such wonderful feedback. Even Tim kindly commented on one of my IG posts. I also shared them on another stamping group I am a member of which sparked the same challenge. A lot of people have been asking how I made them and I had lots of messages too.

So today I thought that I should pay back some of the amazing inspiration and kindness that Tim has shown over the last 10 weeks and rather than just make I would take some process photos and share a step by step of how I made the backgrounds for my recent one colour tags. I found a very simple format that worked very well for me and I could make a tag from start to finish in about 40 minutes. This is just me, there is no right or wrong way but this is how I made them. 

OK first choose your colour  (I have already shared makes with Dried Marigold and Mermaid lagoon) so today I went with Abandoned coral.

I used these heavystock mixed media tags but I often make my own using his tag die. I use everything from white card, watercolour, black, kraft, glossy etc. I used these heavy stock tags for these particular techniques as there is a lot of water involved and some papers collapse at the thought of getting so wet.

My makes use 2 types of background, the first using the age old wrinkle free technique which Tim resurrected in the FB live. I have not used this this for sooo long it was such fun to get out my old travel iron again. This is my version.

Scrunch the tag then flatten it out again roughly and rub over the surface using the ink pad direct to paper.

Spritz on some water and allow it to wick for a moment. It's fun seeing the ink move.

With a hot iron smooth out the tag again, ironing on both sides.

Make sure you iron on a heat proof surface and DO NOT use your best iron unless you want to distress your clothes too!

For the 2nd background I just pushed some ink onto my craft mat, spritzed with water and then picked up layers of ink, drying with my heat gun between layers. 

Just look at how old my heat gun is..it is an original Ranger one and is at least 20 years old! It is so well loved and used nearly every day.

Then for the rest of the process I did the same for both tags.

I added a layer of stencilling, using my rose stencil.

I added some background text stamping, mine is from my Lady Rose stamp set.

Here are my 2 finished backgrounds.

I then die cut and embossed my dragonfly and butterflies cut using Tim's Bigz dies and added some ink either direct from pad or by watercolouring. 

 And last but most important for me I chose some words from my small talk set....I just love these tiny stickers as for me they finish everything off.

So here they are completed

with a couple of close ups;

 and one final shot.

So there you have it. Please note that no one has asked me to do step by step and I am not in any way at all being sponsored by Tim or his manufacturers. I genuinely love my inks and products and use them nearly every day of my crafting life.

As Tim has been so very generous with his time over 10 weeks I thought this was the very least I could offer back to the many crafters who also love what he does. 

I hope this has been of some help and if there are any questions please fire away. Please remember that this is my very individual take on making these 1 colour distress tags. There are so many ways you can do this......just go on, have a play and have fun.

and in Tim's small talk words; 

Live simply, give generously and practice kindness.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Stay safe and stay creative,

Jane x