Compendium Finale

I can't believe that we have completed all 35 of the technique challenges from Tim Holtz' Compendium of Curiosities Book and I actually kept up with all of the challenges. Do I hear shouting and clapping? This weeks's challenge is Design Details from p. 67.  I started with the cowboy image -- one of the new sets of stamps. I stamped it on tag stock and tore around the edges. I used walnut stain distress inks around the torn edges and colored the image with Copics. The letters were cut using my new (to me) Vintage alphabet die. The background paper is from last month's Club Scrap kit. The funny thing is that I thought I hated the paper when I first saw it. Now I love it. It makes such an interesting background and the colors are so vintage. I stamped over the paper with several of Tim's stamps for even more visual texture. Along the left edge I used Tim's brad detail idea. Hmmm, I may need to refill my stock of brads. I used the wire sewing idea on the letters. As I've stated many times before, sewing is not my cup of tea. Sewing with wire is even harder. Well, it's a good thing that the idea is distress. I'm so glad I participated in this series of challenges. I've stepped outside my box several times. Linda Ledbetter, our challenge mom, hints of new challenges to come. Bring them on...I can't wait.

Dimensional Collage Fragments

This week the Compendium of Curiosities challenge was Dimensional Collage Fragments from p.63 of Tim's book. This challenge works hand in hand with Simon Says Stamp and Show some ephemera. I chose to use the large circle fragment to work with. I dug into my stash of ephemera to create the collage behind the fragment. I included things such as a canceled stamp, monopoly money, a beverage label, a cigar band, a raffle ticket, a part of a bingo card, an ice coupon, and a glossy paper sample with the mardi gras mask.  They are collaged on a piece of paper from the Chemistry handbook. The card panel was colored with distress ink. I waterstamped over the distress ink, but that didn't scan too well. The Curiosity definition stamp is one of Tim's new stamps. The flourishes are also from Tim's collection. I love it when distress is so colorful.

CCC33

This week the Compendium of Curiosities challenge was Altered Metal Alcohol Inks from p.56 of Tim's book. I used Tim's On the Edge Townscape to cut my metal sheet. the background is a piece of designer paper. I stamped over the paper with the large flourish 1 stamp and also a background stamp from Stamp Zia. The sentiment is from the TH collection. I adhered one of the townscape houses over the building in the sentiment stamp to coordinate with the bottom of the card. Each of the houses was colored with a different alcohol ink. I even colored the brick walk. The windows are actually transparent in real life. I used sepia accents to give them some color and gloss. I used one of Tim's keys and highlighted the "ART" of heart with pearl alcohol ink to go with the sentiment. I was in a kind of playful mood today. I sure had fun putting this card together.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 32

The weeks are flying by, We have almost completed all of the techniques in Tim Holtz' book for the Compendium of Curiosities challenges. This week we tried the inking and stamping masks technique. I had to improvise a little, since I didnt have the masking material. I ended up using a transparency and a spray tempoary glue. It worked well, although I had to rub off some residue glue after I finished. I used a technique learned during the 12 tags of Christmas. I made a stamp using a sheet of foam and a die. I used the die to make the mask also. The background was made using distress inks: dusty concord, peeled paint, broken china, and worn lipstick. The card was edged in walnut stain. Antique linen was layered over the entire card and then various stamps were used. I thought that the sentiment "Live in the moment..." was appropriate for a snowman image.

Queen of Hearts Tim Style

Of course Valentines Day brings the idea of hearts and love to the forefront. Today's card does work with several challenges. The Compendium of Curiosities challenge is to use the technique Rusted Enamel from p. 41 of Tim's book. I love this technique and it's easy to do. My large heart, wings, and crown all use the technique. I think next time I will try to knock off more embossing powder to give a more rusted look. They certainly look like enamel pieces. The Created by Hand challenge is the Queen of Hearts. A special Queen of Hearts challenge for Valentine's Day can be found at the Quietfire Blog. Hels Sunday Challenge at Ink on My Fingers is Love, and I believe that nothing says Love like hearts.
The background was embossed twice with a Cuttlebug folder. The first time I did it on white cardstock. The second time it was done using red mirror cardstock. I cut off the edges and adhered the red over the white. The heart, wings and crown were created using the Rusted Enamel technique and then die cut using the winged heart die from Tim Holtz' line. The white heart buttons are from my stash.
Happy St. Valentine's Day from the Red Queen herself.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 30

This week the Compendium of Curiosities challenge is Altered Metal with Paint from p.48 of Tim's book. Well, there's a lot of love in the air at this time of year, so my card reflects that feeling. Hel's Challenge at Ink on my Fingers was sentiments.

The background of my card is from one of Tim's paper stacks. It is overstamped using cool peri with one of Tim's flourish stamps. I used victorian velvet distress ink on the edges. The heart (Club Scrap) is stamped with fired brick distress ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. There is a keyhole on the heart stamp, so I put one of Tim's keyholes from the Idea-ology line over it and altered it with my white paint dabber.. The key and frame also have been altered using the white paint dabber. I stamped the main sentiment and used an oval fragment over it. It fit into the frame. (Not tightly, I did glue it with glossy accents). I stamped the other words using jet black ink.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 29

This week the Compendium of Curiosities challenge comes from p. 50 of Tim's book. We are doing weathered wood grunge. Ever since Tim used the rickety house during the 12 Tags of Christmas, I have looked at it in a very different way. I no longer see it as only a haunted house. For this challenge I used the rickety house. I reversed the cut. It's embossed with the brick texture fade. I painted it with a white dabber and once it was sanded, I used Vintage photo distress ink. The art in the windows comes from Suze Weinberg and I used fragments over the art. The background is from Tim's paper stack.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 28

This week the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge was Colorful Layered Fragments from p.57 of Tim's book. I decided to go with a French post card theme this week. Ok, I wanted to use my Moulin Rouge stamp from the set of Tim's stamps that are autographed. I've been wanting to use this stamp for quite a while and it seemed the perfect one for this week. I used the very large oval fragment and stamped the Eiffel Tower. I used copper, pearl, stonewashed, and latte alcohol inks on my fragment. The background was done with denim and fired brick distress ink. I love the way everything came together.

Masking challenges

The Compendium of Curiosities challenge this week is  Distress Misting Masks from p. 60 of Tim's book. By coincidence, Simon says Stamp and Show masking. Stampotique also has the challenge of masking.The masks I used are the music mask from Tim Holtz and the butterflies from Heidi Swapp. The distress mist is a combination of shabby shutters and pine needles distress inks and sparkle perfect pearls. Over the masked butterflies I added outline stickers which i distressed with black soot alcohol ink. I added rock candy and antique linen stickles inside the butterflies and antique linen distress ink for the flower centers. The sentiment is a See-D stamp and roughly translated means best wishes.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 26

This week the challenge at Compendium of Curiosities was rusted grunge from p. 45 of Tim's book. There are so many of Tim's die cuts that would look good in rusted grunge. I went with the shield and combined it with stamps from the  Artistic Outpost My Knight stamp set. The background is done with  Wild Honey and Broken China distress inks mixed with copper Perfect Pearls spray and then embossed with a texture fade. Wow! what a look.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 25

I haven't been posting as much lately, but I'm back for the New Year.
I have two exciting announcements. I am  now a Design Team member for Artistic Outpost stamps. I am so happy since I love AO stamps so much. And I am a Guest Designer for Kitchen Sink Stamps for the month of January. The KSS stamps are also some of my favorites.
Here's today's blog image.

The Compendium of Curiosities challenge this week is Scribble Stain Distress from p. 34 of Tim's book. I thought that I would use some brighter ink for the background, so I went with Fired Brick along with Tattered Rose and Dried Marigold. The background was stamped with stamps from Tim's regal findings and slight alterations sets. The bird cage and bird were die cut. The ticket and sentiment are stamped from odds and ends. It feels good to be back doing challenges.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 24 Rock Candy Distress Stickles

 This Compendium of Curiosities challenge was the Rock Candy Distress Stickles technique from p. 47 of Tim's book. I absolutely love Rock Candy Distress Stickles. I'm on my third bottle (and stickles go a long way). I decided that for my collage background I would use papers from the seasonal paper stack (and a little from Vintage Shabby) The background distress color is Victorian Velvet and the edges are trimmed with Aged Mahogany and Walnut Stain. I used a favorite Santa image from Tim's line. I hope Santa has an easy and safe trip.

Double Distress

The Compendium of Curiosities challenge this week was Double Distress from p. 40 of Tim's book. This challenge matched perfectly with the challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show which was distress inks. I've been wanting to use my postcard embossing folder for a while. This was the perfect opportunity.  I used crushed olive and pine needle with a touch of frayed burlap and black soot. The script and sentiment are TH stamps. The pencil is from Club Scrap. The oval , postmark, and stamp are stickers from my stash. Memo pins hold the stamp and postmark. This was fun.

CCC22 with Snowman

Alcohol Ink Splatter is one of my favorite techniques and it is this week's Compendium of Curiosities Challenge theme. (See p52) in Tim's book for the how-to. Since I wanted to use the snowman die with my card, I used somewhat lighter alcohol inks and silver for my metallic. Oops, more silver came out than was supposed to, but I really like how this turned out. Lucky accident! Another bit of luck was the theme for Created Byhand--Snowmen! I have every version of Tim's snowman. I think he's so cool.  The movers and shapers die (LOVE) really adds a great touch to my friend the snowman.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 21 and Simon Says Stamp & Show

The Compendium of Curiosities Challenge was to use the Perfect Distress technique from p. 38 of Tim's book. Simon Says Stamp & Show wanted us to use our favorite Tim stamp.This was a match made in heaven. The only difficult thing was to choose a favorite. My favorite Tim Holtz stamp is whichever one I am using at the time. Okay, so I decided on the flowers and bird stamps from Nature's Moments. I really do love these and use them often. I think these stamps worked well with the technique.

Industrial Grunge Goes Christmas Nostalgic

The Compendium of Curiosities challenge this week is Industrial Grunge from p. 54 of Tim's book. Of course there's a story as to how this card came about. I was looking through my TH Bigz dies to decide which die I wanted to use with this technique. Tim used the gear die for his example which is very industrial. When I saw the ornaments, I knew these were the perfect images to use. The combination of the technique and the vintage ornaments brought back memories of childhood. Remember the metal lined old glass ornaments that Grandma used to put on her tree every year. And every year these ornaments showed a little more wear. That's what the combination of this technique and the ornaments reminded me of. As my background I used the antique wallpaper technique (from June/July 2010 TJ newsletter), again a reminder of Grandma's house when I was young. I added a few pearls to complete the nostalgic trip down memory lane. This week the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge is Shabby. I think this card fits perfectly with this theme. As my card turned into a Christmas card, I realized that Christmas was the challenge at Critter Sketch this week. How perfect.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 19 -- Extreme Masking

This week the Compendium of Curiosities challenge is Extreme Masking from p. 81 of Tim's book. I'm amazed that I was able to finish my card. I just moved my entire studio from the 2nd floor to the basement room. I'm lucky I was able to find what I needed to complete this challenge. All of the stamps, inks, masks and background papers are from my Tim Holtz stash. Can't wait to see what next week's challenge is.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 18

The Compendium of Curiosities challenge was to create something using the Dabber Resist technique from p.37 of Tim's book. I really love this technique. I also really love the image stamp and the sentiment stamp I used for the technique both of which are from Tim's collection. For the background I used all new distress inks--chipped sapphire, bundled sage, and Victorian Velvet. The flower in the corner is made from the Idea-ology Foliage collection and painted with Creative Inspirations paints. Normally I might have grunged it up somewhat, but that pretty and graceful stamp just wouldn't let me, so I left it simple. Although you can't see it very well on the scan, the heart sparkles from rock candy stickles.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 17

This week in the Compendium of Curiosities challenge we went to p. 64 of Tim's book to make Fragment Charms. As you can see I had a ball creating charms in different sizes for my Diva tree. The images in my charms are from Suze Weinberg and from Artchix. Of course there is the usual scan story. The charms hang loose so laying them on the scanner bed caused them to move a little. And of course the dimensional aspect of the charms causes the images to be slightly less clear. I had fun with this card and love how it actually looks.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 16 and Simon says Stamp and Show

 The latest Compendium of Curiosities challenge is to create a piece of art using the Wrinkle Free Distress technique from page 33 of Tim's book. I have to admit that this was not a new technique for me to do. I love it because it's such an easy technique and very effective for making distressed backgrounds. In the spirit of Halloween I chose spiced marmalade and dusty concord for this card. I embossed the background with the numbers cuttlebug folder and highlighted the 31 (for Halloween). On the torn panel I used the script, raven, and skull/crossbones stamps from Tim's collection and the bats from the Artistic Outpost Haunted Halloween sheet. Around the edge of the base card I used the Halloween tissue tape from Tim Holtz. (Love that tissue tape!)
The challenge theme at Simon Says Stamp and Show was numbers. Actually this card is the direct result of that challenge. When I saw the 3 and 1 in such a perfect place on the background, I knew that I was going with the Halloween motif.