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This was the third card submitted by me for the Club Posh Birthday Card Contest. The third time was the charm, as this card was one of the four winners!

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Allegra

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For Allegra, I made a background using Tim Holtz Distress Inks, colors Tattered Rose, Weathered Wood and Fired Brick. The camera stamp and the flower stamp (Posh Impressions) were stamped and cut out, Allegra's pictures mounted under it, and stuck to the background. Finishing touches were the eyelets and the *MEOW* ribbon.

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Junior

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These are images that use Posh Impressions frame stamps. Over at Club Posh, they have Member Galleries. They have a section where members can submit pictures of their pets...but they MUST be in a Posh Impressions frame! These frame stamps are so cool, and have so many uses. I can't wait to get more of them!

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This is the front of a little tiny scrapbook that I made from tags. I got the idea from the Tim Holtz DVD. This uses Tim's Distress Inks as well as his techniques.

For further details, and to see the rest of this project, please go HERE.

This was very easy and fun to do. Even if you don't care for the distressed look, it's a lot of fun to do stuff with tags, and I will have some more ideas up here very soon!

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Another project featuring the wonderful Tim Holtz Distress Inks. This one uses the colors of Weathered Wood and Vintage Photo. The Weathered Wood ink color has a nautical feel to me, and I wanted to use it for a Maine theme. So here it is!

The lighthouse photos were taken by me. I used Paint Shop Pro to convert them to black & white, and then printed them out on photo paper on my home printer. Using a color duster brush, I applied both the Weathered Wood and Vintage Photo inks to the pictures to give them that "oldified" (as Mike called it) look.

I remember old photo albums, where the pictures always had borders and sort of a deckle-edged cut, and I tried to re-create that here.

All paper used here is the same light grey cardstock. I started by making the actual card, and then stamped it with a series of Maine-related stamps that I own, using the Weathered Wood distress ink. I then used the color duster brush to add a little more ink, in both the Weathered Wood and Vintage photo.

For the blue panel on the left-hand side, I simply applied the distress inks directly to some of the grey cardstock. I then ran it through my newest toy, a paper crimper, both horizontally and vertically. I cut it to size, tore it on one side, and stuck it onto the card.

The tag is made of vellum. I have wondered what it would look like, to print a photograph onto vellum, and I finally found out. I selected this picture that I took of Spring Point Lighthouse, and used Paint Shop Pro to convert it to sepia tone. I then used Gamma Correction to lighten it a bit. I copied and pasted this to a new image that was about the size of the tag template, added the text, and printed it onto the vellum. I used the tag template for the Fiskars Shape Cutter to cut out the tag...this template also includes circles for the tag holes. This circle was cut froom a scrap of distressed grey cardstock that did not go through the crimper. I added the string bow, ran the whole thing through the Xyron®, and attached it to the card last, after the photos.

I got this idea from the current (Feb/March) issue of "The Stampers' Sampler". They did a spread on Andy Warhol-ish work. The original image from the magazine can be seen HERE (will open in a separate browser window).

This is just SO easy to do, and so very cool. Just stamp the image on whatever colors of cardstock you want...I used black pigment ink and clear embossing powder to heat-emboss them all. The original artist in Stampers' Sampler used the Fiskars Shape Cutter to cut out part of some of the stamped images, and so did I. Just line up the cut-out parts to the whole images, glue into place, cut into squares, and adhere to the card.

I did a series of cards based on this idea. If you would like to see them, they are HERE, on my personal stamping site.

...I like the Tin Man! :-)



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This is my second effort using Tim Holtz' Distress Inks™. The "Wizard of Oz" stamp (Stamping Ground) is based on illustrations from the original books, so I thought it was a good choice for the vintage look that the inks provide. The actual card is not as yellowy as this scanned-in image is.

First I cut some cream-colored cardstock to the size of the front of a plain card. I distressed it using the crumpled paper technique, as described in this post, using the Distress Ink in Mustard Seed. This was attached to the front of the card.

I distressed some of the same cream cardstock by just rubbing the inkpads onto the paper...I used several colors here...Walnut Stain, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo and Mustard Seed. These were torn to use as backing for the image and the main text. I think the effect is cooler if you tear the paper towards you rather than away, as the un-inked layer underneath will be exposed.

The "Wizard of Oz" people were stamped onto cream cardstock with the Walnut Stain ink, and then I used a color duster to apply a little Mustard Seed and Vintage Photo inks. This was mounted onto the distressed backing as shown. "FOLLOW the yellow brick road" was computer-generated onto vellum and stuck to the other distressed backings.

Before I attached it all together, I just laid the pices onto the card and thought that it needed something more. I liked the idea of background text, so I typed out the words to "We're Off To See The Wizard/Follow The Yellow Brick Road", copied and pasted to repeat, and printed it onto a sheet of vellum larger than the card. I then cut it to the size of the card and used a Xyron® machine to attach it to the distressed yellow card. All of the other stuff was then attached, ending with the inage, where I used gold eyelets as both an attaching means and an embellishment.

BTW, I bought that stamp a long time ago, when I first started stamping. This is the first time that I have used it. I always say that if you see a stamp that you really love ("The Wizard of Oz" is my favorite movie), buy it, even if you have no immediate use for it. Someday you WILL use it! :-)

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Lots of birthdays coming up, which means lots of card making! A stamper's work is never done! :-)

This card was easy to make and only required two stamps...the kitty (Catslife Press), and "happy birthday" (from the "Spunky Greetings" set by Close To My Heart®).

First, I brayered red, yellow and blue ink onto the front of a white card. I stamped the kitty in six different colors onto white cardstock, trimmed, and then made mats our of the same colors. This was done by either brayering or just applying the stamp pad directly to the white cardstock. I stamped "happy birthday" in red and matted that the same color as well. I then cut a white panel a little smaller than the card, and randomly stamped "happy birthday" in all six of the colors.

Everything was glued together as you can see here, and a finishing touch was the two red eyelets.

That kitty stamp looks so much like my Little Mitty! As soon as I saw it at the store, I had to have it.

I've been watching that Tim Holtz DVD a lot lately, and I had already bought a few colors of his Distress Inks...right now I have Walnut Stain, Tea Dye, and Vintage Photo. Finally, I decided to try some of his techniques for using these inks, and you're looking at my first effort! I used Walnut Stain for this card.

First, I made a card from cream-colored cardstock, and cut it to fit a 5 1/4" x 7 1/8 clear envelope. The card needs to be cut slightly smaller, because it gets thicker with all of the layers, and you want to make sure that it will fit into the envelope!

I cut another piece of the same color cardstock a little bigger than the front of the card. To distress it, Tim says to first slightly bend the cardstock, and sort of pinch it *to break the tension*. Then it will be much easier to crumple it in your hand.

I didn't have the non-stick craft thingy that Tim used, but I did have parchment paper, the type used for cooking and baking. It's nonstick and can take the heat, and you can buy it at the supermarket. So I uncrumpled the cardstock, put it on the parchment, and spritzed it with water (in this house, we call it The Squirt Bottle of Justice™ , and it serves double duty by keeping naughty kitties off of the craft table!).

Then, I ironed it. Although my policy on clothing is that if I have to iron it, I don't wear it, I DO own an iron with a nonstick surface. I dug it out just for this project. Tim used a smaller *craft iron*, but advised that if you do use a regular iron, make sure to clean it before using it on your clothes. I set my iron for a low setting (mine was set halfway between Silk/Rayon and Permanent Press), and no steam is needed...the paper is already wet enough.

Once this distressed cardstock was ironed and dry, it was cut to the exact size of the front of the card, and adhered to it.

On more of the same cream cardstock, I stamped the baseball player (Stampin' Up!®) and the baseball collage stamp (Paper Inspirations™), with the Walnut Stain. Tim uses a stipple brush over the image after stamping to help create an aged effect, but I don't have one, and was not about to go to the craft store to get one, what with three feet of snow on the ground. A makeup sponge, such as those wedge-shaped ones, works just as well. The stamped images were then cut/torn as you can see here.

The tag was cut out of the cream cardstock, using the Fiskars Shape Cutter & a tag template. The mat behind the baseball player was also from the same cardstock. To *distress* these, I just rubbed the ink pad directly to the paper...no crumpling or ironing needed for this part.

Finishing touches: two corners made from the same distressed cardstock as the tag...some gold brads and some tan-colored hemp (both from Close To My Heart®). The text was computer-generated onto vellum and attached with a Xyron® machine. In fact, just about everything was attached with a Xyron® machine!

The text is part of the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, "Centerfield", by John Fogerty.

This was fun, and now I want to buy all of the colors of this cool ink! :-)

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This is all part of my gift for my Red Hat Society® chapter's holiday party, which takes place tomorrow. It is going to be a basic rubber stamping kit. This card, the other RHS card in the post below this one, and the bookmark are intended to be samples that the recipient can get ideas from. I am also including a few items purchased especially for this...a RHS rubber stamp, red & purple markers, and a couple of stamp pads. Finally, there will be a small selection of papers, cardstocks and ribbon from my vast personal stash, as well as a hand-made instruction booklet.

The card here started with plain white cardstock, the striped paper (Designs By Reminisce, an excellent source of Red Hat Society scrapbooking supplies) was cut to size, torn, and adhered to the card. "Uptown Girl" (Close To My Heart®) was stamped onto white cardstock, as in the previous card, and was cut into a circle and matted onto a red and then a purple circle. I didn't have any pirple cardstock, so I just applied ink directly from a stamp pad onto the largest white circle. Finally, I stamped "for you" (also from Close To My Heart®).

The easiest way to make a bookmark is to go to a craft store and buy pre-cut plain bookmarks which you can decorate. But I found myself with a strip of the striped paper that was about the right size. I adhered this to a piece of white cardstock, to give it extra strength, and trimmed it to shape. I stamped the hats on more white cardstock, cut that to size, and matted it onto a scrap of purple paper. This was then glued onto the striped bookmark. I punched out two small red circles, and attached one to either side of the top of the bookmark, to provide extra strength to the hole that I then punched into that.

For the tassel, I cut 5-6 strands of red yarn into about 12-inch lengths. I only had red yarn, but if I'd had any purple, I would have used some of that, too. Take all the strands, put them together, and make a loop. Stick the looped end into the hole so that it sticks out by maybe 1/2 inch or so. Thread all of the non-looped ends through this, and pull. Finally, finish by making a knot near the non-looped ends. You can also buy pre-made tassels, but this is less expensive, especially if you knit or crochet and have a lot of odds and ends of yarn laying around.

If you have a Xyron® machine with a lamination refill, you can certainly laminate the bookmark before punching the hole and attaching the tassel. But I am assuming that the recipient of this gift does not have one, so I didn't bother with that step.

To make the box...I took a recycled box with a flip-top lid. This box orignally contained a Christmas gift from Marsha...thanks, Marsha (for the gifts and for the box)! It's about the size of a cigar box, but a little deeper.

I only covered the top, as the rest of it is just plain white. I used a template to cut out a white tag, stamped it with the hat and the letters, and used the edge of a red stamp pad to color it around the edges. Finishing touches were a couple of red star-shaped eyelets and some red & purple ribbon.

I hope that whoever ends up getting this will enjoy using it, as much as I enjoyed making it! :-)