Patchwork Pandemonium

I took a class from Tim Holtz in Buffalo this past weekend. It was fabulous! He taught his very last class called Patchwork Pandemonium to 90 women in an empty store. It was fast paced, lively, and loads of fun. We used his Grunge Paper to try out all kinds of techniques with his Distress inks, crackle paints, paint dabbers, Distress Stickles, alcohol inks, etc. We just used the inks randomly, and when all the little pieces were done we put them together into a patchwork. Then we had fun attaching all kinds of metal findings, game pieces, buttons, etc. to the front of it. We finished it off with some stitching to tie in with the patchwork theme. This was a great introduction to many of Ranger's products, especially the Grunge Paper, which I had not yet tried.

The little buffalo tied on to the bottom of the piece was not part of the kit. But we took the class at Buffalo Stamps & Stuff, and the owner had these cute buffaloes made up, stamped with "Enjoy he Journey", Tim's signature saying. So I thought it only appropriate that the buffalo get added to my work. (The store owner even passed around buffalo cut-out cookies during the class. Yum!)

http://www.buffalostamps.com/

http://timholtz.typepad.com/

http://www.timholtz.com/ranger.htm

Bird in a Cage

Here's a fun card I made. It took far too long for a single card, but I like it. Yesterday I took a class with Tim Holtz and it inspired me to do something a little different. I bought his bird and birdcage die. I pretty much copied his bird from the package; I found some music ephemera and inked it with two Ranger distress inks - Broken China, Spiced Marmalade; I adhered the paper to Grunge paper, die cut the bird, inked around the edges of the bird and wing, and that's about it. I used Stampin' Up Groovy Guava paper for the card base, a K&Co. patterned paper for the next layer, white from my stash which I ran through an embossing folder and swished a Distress ink pad over (Shabby Shutters) to ink the raised dots. I used some snippets of SU ribbon tied onto the bottom of the birdcage. I put a crystal dot at the top of the bird cage. I applied a light application of Distress Stickles (Faded Jeans) along the wires of the birdcage. I think that's it.

Graduation

I made a graduation present and card for a young woman in our church. She has sung with the adult choir for several years, and is graduating from high school this month. The choir director wanted to give her a present from the choir, something combining music and religion. We had shopped around a bit, but couldn't find quite what we wanted (at a reasonable price!) After some discussion I offered to make a 12x12 shadow box, using scrapbook papers and embellishments. This is what I came up with. I made the graduation card that everyone in the choir could sign, and the card incorporates a few elements from the shadow box.