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

Lift off time

For those of my lovely blog readers who are non papercrafters you might think that with the title of this post that I'm off to the moon. Not this week! Some of you may know what I am referring to..yes it's the amazing new Ranger Lift off ink. It lifts alcohol ink off from a porous to a non porous surface and opens up so many new crafting possibilities.  Tim Holtz has some brilliant videos on line and there is lots of inspiration around in blog land so do check it out.

 I was lucky enough to get my hands on some from Susan at Country View Crafts. (She offers free UK postage and packing too). 

I have been playing around with some backgrounds over the last few weeks and I have shared a couple on Facebook..Here is one of my first efforts.

I got this fab lift off image (on the left) using the seahorse and jelly fish from the Create you calm

and dare to swim sets. What remains on the right is a brilliant ghosted negative. I used that background to make my daughter and son in laws anniversary card which I shared here a few weeks back here if you would like to see it

For my Monday Visible Image DT project today I decided to make another "lift off" alcohol ink background. After adding various inks I used the time swirl from the ahead of our time stamp set to lift it off.

 Visible Image stamps work brilliantly with this technique. They lift off the ink perfectly as they are such an awesome thickness and quality. I love the effects you get. 

With the lifted ink I stamped this  multi coloured time swirl below, which I can use another time. It's 2 for the effort and price of one. That's all good in my books.

I then coloured up the White Rabbit 

using distress inks and added glossy accents to his fob watch and gold pen accents to his buttons and chain (you will see this in the finished card).

I also stamped and coloured a couple of other little elements. First the teapot from The Mad Hatter set. I added the heart from the  Own kind of beautiful set for this project as I didn't want to use the skull.

I cut it out and added festive berries distress glitter.
 I also stamped up the light bulb from the glimmer of light set to pull my design together.

I stamped and white embossed wake up and be awesome

onto acetate and then put my design together.

This is my finished card. 

Here are some close ups. 

and you can see the light bulb shedding some extra light on the scene...it must be winter for Mr Rabbit as it's 8.06 am and in his world it's still not light 😂

and one last shot

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

That's crafty 1/3 animal magic

Penny Black and More 1/3 I spy something beginning with B My Bs are bunny, bow tie, black (alcohol ink), bulb, buttons (on Mr Rabbit's jacket)

Craft stamper take it make it 1/3 August

Stamping sensations 3/3 use your current favourite stamp as I have said before I love all the new wonderland stamps but Mr Rabbit is another of my favourites. 

Pile it on 1/3 new technique my lift off is pretty hot off the press for new techniques!

Lil patch of crafting friends anything goes

All the Visible Image links can be found here;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group is here ...it would be lovely to see you. You can add work to the "Show and Tell" album where one randomly chosen winner each month wins a £25 coupon to spend on the website.

The main Visible Image Facebook page is here; there are weekly stamp giveaways...open world wide.

And the shop web site is here; where all these gorgeous stamps and stencils can be purchased. 

There is also a really generous  multi-buy offer here on the website if you buy all 7 stamps sets, but you need to hurry as it only lasts until 31 August.

You can also follow Visible Image via:

 Pinterest

Twitter

and

 Instagram

Thanks so much for stopping by and seeing my latest creation today. I really appreciate the kind comments you leave me.

  I hope that you may also have been inspired to have a go at this fun technique too.

5,4,3,2,1...................LIFT OFF!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x