Merry Christmas!

From all of us at Scrap Shotz,we wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Here is an easy Christmas tag for a hostess gift!

To make the tag, cut 4 window die cuts with the Taylored Expressions window die. This tag can be made with any window die and there is a fine selection in the store.  Adhere the window die cuts to one another to strength the cardstock but also to add depth to the window.

At this point, I applied Tim Holtz distress inks and a quick spray of Tsukineko irRESISTible spray to the window die cut but if you are in a hurry, you can bypass this step. Then back the window with a piece of pattern paper; add a ribbon and accent accordingly.

What is fantastic about this tag is that it can easily be adapted to any occasion by changing the pattern paper beneath the window. For a birthday, add a fun sweet print.

The sentiment is handwritten with the Tsukineko Pico Embellisher.

The sentiment on this tag is written with the Tsukineko Pico Embellisher through the Tim Holtz Layering Stencil of phrases.

Merry Christmas!

Fabulous Find: Tim Holtz Layering Stencil Festive and Wendy Vecchi Crackle Paste

Want to create a beautiful and unique card to adorn your Christmas present? Consider the card below.

For the background, I used the Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Festive along with the Wendy Vecchi crackle paste. Apply the crackle paste through the stencil - allow to dry thoroughly. Yes, you can speed up the drying process with your heat gun! As the paste begins to dry, you will see the gorgeous cracks form.

Once the paste is dry, you can apply Tim Holtz distress inks with an applicator directly onto the crackle paste or you can reposition the stencil and apply the distress inks through the stencil. I like both looks. For those tighter, smaller areas, apply the distress inks using the Tsukineko Fantastix colouring tool.

I found with a heavier application of ink, the crackles became more pronounced. Personally I find the crackle look gorgeous and unique. Once I was happy colouring the paste, I added colour to the edges of the stencilled card front.

For the sentiment, I used the Tim Holtz Shadow Press embossing folders. After I embossed the paper, I applied various distress inks to the front and around the embossing. Then I adhered it to the card front.

To create a colour coordinated ribbon, stamp the colours of the distress inks you used. Spray with Rangers Perfect Pearls onto the distress inks. Dip your ribbon into the pearlized ink water and let the ribbon absorb the colours. Let ribbon dry and tie onto the card.

Hope to see your cards too!

Fabulous Find: Taylored Expressions Jingle all the Way

Taylored Expressions makes beautiful dies. With each release, I am amazed at their continued creativity and of course their great quality.

The Jingle all the Way cutting plate is smaller than their other cutting plates. The die cut image is beautifully bordered by the card base. Additionally the elegance of the script made me initially worried about how easy it would be to cut from paper, stiffened fabric or light foil. Let me share that I was pleasantly surprised as the image was easily cut from a variety of materials.

This card background was created with Tim Holtz Distress Inks. Once the inks dried, I sprayed some Tsukineko irRESISTIBLE spray on the background. The heat gun helped speed up the drying process. Then I added more distress inks to the background. As you can see, the irRESISTIBLE spray easily resisted the additional distress inks. Once the background was dried I adhered the Jingle all the Way die cut. This was a fast and easy card to create - plus its unique and gorgeous too!

Supplies:  Bazzill (cardstock); Taylored Expressions (Jingle all the Way cutting plate); Tim Holtz distress inks, Tsukineko irRESISTIBLE spray

A close up of the irRESISTIBLE spray ...

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the die and spray!

Fabulous Find: Sizzix Tim Holtz Layered Butterfly

Scrap Shotz has had a very busy fall with the Scrapbook Carnival at Spruce Meadows and the fall Scrap Shotz crop. The best news is that I will be back posting regularly on the blog - thank you for being a loyal reader.

Over the next few posts, I would like to share some projects created for the Carnival and the crop using many of the wonderful mixed media products on the market. The card below showcases the very versatile and beautiful Sizzix Tim Holtz Layered Butterfly Die and Embossing Folder. From experience, I can tell you that the Sizzix die and embossing folder work like a dream. It easily cuts cardstock, chipboard and even starched fabric. Each of the die cut butterflies, were embossed without difficulty and with defined definition. The starched fabric required a few extra passes on my Big Shot but it still looked beautiful.

This card was heavily inspired by the uber creative scrapper, Tammy Tutterow. From reading her blog and stalking her pinterest boards, I have learned so much about the various mixed media products and how to effectively use the diverse Tim Holtz products. I will be honest with you and tell that up until the beginning of October, I owned maybe 3 Tim Holtz products and had convinced myself I was unable to create these mixed media projects. Well, today I own almost every set of distress inks, lots of paints, a gaggle of stamps and several dies!

Now a bit about this card...the background was created using distress inks through the layered honeycomb stencil.  Then I applied another layer of distress inks through a stencil I made using the Taylored Expressions Ray of Sunshine cutting plate. Using the Joggles Shooting Stars stencil (it is sold out in the store), I added a contrasting layer of distress inks.

Supplies: Bazzill (cardstock); Tim Holtz (Layered honeycomb stencil, Layered Christmas words stencil, distress inks, Sizzix Layered Butterfly die); Dina Wakely (gel medium, gold embossing paste); Prima Art Ingredients (glass beads, glass glitter); Close to my Heart (organza ribbon)

For the butterfly,  I sponged distress inks to the raised embossed areas and then heat set clear embossing powder to make the butterfly shine. The clear embossing powder really showcased the distress inks on the butterfly. Using a sturdy medium bristle paint brush, I applied gel medium around the outer edges of the butterfly. The glass beads were applied first. Then gel medium was applied just inside the beads so that the glass glitter could be adhered. A close-up of the butterfly wings can be seen below in the close-up photo.

The die cut butterfly was adhered to the card front with pop dots under the wings so the wings appeared to be "fluttering". Lastly, I applied gold embossing paste through the Tim Holtz Christmas words stencil to make the card sentiment.

I hope I have inspired you to try the various mixed media products available in the store. If you have any questions, please let me know. I will try to answer them the best I can - I have spent many hours educating myself on the various products as well as experimenting with them...and I love them all!!!

Fabulous Find: Teresa Collins Moulding Paste

In continuation of my sharing post on the Faber-Castell Mixed Media Mini Journal, I wanted to pause and share my love of Teresa Collins Moulding Paste. I just love love love this product. Firstly, its smooth texture and consistency makes its application easy peasy...especially with a palette knife. (Contact Sandy for one wonderful palette knife - it makes using gelatos and moulding paste wonderfully easy!)

Secondly, I love that the moulding paste yields slightly different results if you allow it to air dry or if you dry it using your heat gun. (Now you may already know this but I was rather thrilled with my ingenuity drying the moulding paste with my heat gun!!!) When I let the moulding paste air dry, it had a texture similar to clothes drying on a clothes line - a bit stiff. When I dried the moulding paste with my heat gun, the moulding paste puffed up a bit and then flattened when cooled; the cooled moulding paste had a slightly smoother texture. You might inquire why I would mention this?? Well, both textures are fabulous but alter my application of an after product like Art Anthology glazes or   more gelatos or Viva Decor Ferror Metal Textures.

For this card, I smooshed on some gelatos and smudged it with my fingers to create the background. With an older stencil from The Crafters Workshop, I applied the Teresa Collins moulding paste and let it air dry.

Supplies:  Bazzill (cardstock); October Afternoon (pattern paper); Hemptique (hemp twine); Maya Road (chipboard heart); Elizabeth Craft (sentiment sticker); Faber-Castell (gelatos); Teresa Collins (moulding paste); The Crafters Workshop (stencil)

For this card, I was dried the moulding paste with my heat gun. Not sure if you can see the surface of the moulding paste but it dried slightly smoother than the air dried version.

Supplies:  Bazzill (cardstock); Dina Wakely (white gesso); Tim Holtz Layering Stencil Latticework; Faber-Castell (gelatos); Elizabeth Craft (butterfly die and overlay)

For this page in my mini journal, I used the Studio Calico chevron stencil with Teresa Collins' moulding paste. After letting it airdry, I "water coloured" a gelato and water mixture onto the moulding paste. The moulding paste absorbed the gelato and water mixture beautifully. 

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Supplies:  Faber-Castell (mixed media mini journal, gelatos); Dina Wakely (white gesso); Studio Calico (chevron stencil, Mr. Huey); Making Memories (mini alphas); Tim Holtz Ideology stickers; Glitz Design (mini alphas); Elizabeth Craft (butterfly and overlay dies); Prima (gems)

I hope I have inspired you to try gelatos with moulding paste! Let me know your thoughts!

Fabulous Find: Faber-Castell Mixed Media Mini Journal

I have really been having fun with the Faber-Castell Gelatos Set as well as the Faber-Castell Mixed Media Mini Journal. Below are the first 3 pages of my journal. The primary goals of my journal was to capture quotes that inspired me, to try various techniques with the gelatos and experiment with the various products which complemented the gelatos in my journal.

When I created the title page of my journal, I was very very green with gelatos. I watched countless YouTube videos by the Faber-Castell design team and Donna Downey. What stood out the most to me was how creatively liberating working with gelatos could be. You can pair as many or any combination of colours together. You can blend the colours in any manner you choose or you can let each colour stand on their own. Honestly the possibilities are endless!

For this title page, I gingerly attempted Donna Downey's drip technique by adding swatches of colour throughout my page, misting liberally and tipping it upright, letting the watered colours dribble down the page. I let the drips dry...well, I helped it with my heat gun too. Then I had some fun!

With my Kaisercraft grid stamp, I coloured the stamp with a gelato, lightly misted the coloured stamp and then stamped the edges of my title page. Then I spritzed a quarter sized amount of Mr. Huey onto my Tim Holtz Non-Stick Craft Sheet. Using the cap of the mist, I stamped circles on the front and tapped off the excess mist from the cap to create splotches. After the colours dried, I adhered the chipboard fern leaf, alphas, wood veneer and butterfly.

Supplies:  Faber-Castell Mixed Media Mini Journal, Faber-Castell gelatos, Prima (alphas, fabric butterfly); Claudine Helmutt (acrylic paint); Studio Calico (wood veneer, Mr. Huey mist); Pink Paislee (chipboard fern leaf)

For this page, I became a bit bolder witht he gelatos and was very inspired by the many Mixed Media pinners on Pinterest. To create the background, I coloured the gelatos directly onto the page and heavily misted the coloured areas. I left the water saturated page to dry fully. The circles were created by stamping Mr. Huey mists with the cap of the mist. Using scraps of October Afternoon typography paper, I loosely arranged them into houses, coloured with gelatos and drew directly on them with the American Crafts Project Life markers. The clouds were die cut with Taylored Expressions cloud duo dies, were sponged with dye inks and outlined with American Crafts Project Life markers. The quote was pieced together with mini alphas and sticker words and then lightly sponged with dye ink.

Supplies:  Faber-Castell Mixed Media Mini Journal, Faber-Castell gelatos, October Afternoon (pattern paper); Glitz Design (alphas); Making Memories (mini alphas); Tim Holtz Ideology word phrases sticker book; Close to my Heart (dye ink); Mr. Huey mists

For the third page, I tried a technique from the Faber-Castell blog. Using a palette knife I roughly applied Dina Wakely black gesso to the journal page. Using my heat gun, I dried the gesso and then coloured on top of the gesso (in places) and the rest of the journal page with a gelato. Then applied Teresa Collins Moulding Paste to a Tim Holtz Stripe stencil to create the white irregular dimensional lines. Then I added my quote using alphas from Chatterbox, Tim Holtz Ideology word phrase booklet and Making Memories. To age the quote, I dry brushed dye ink onto the alphas.

Supplies:  Faber-Castell Mixed Media Mini Journal, Faber-Castell gelatos, Chatterbox (alphas); Tim Holtz Ideology word phrase sticker booklet; Making Memories (mini alphas); Teresa Collins (moulding paste); Tim Holtz stencil; Dina Wakely black gesso

I hope I have inspired you with my journal book. There will be a few more posts on the other pages of my journal. 

Happy July 4th!!!

From all of us at Scrap Shotz, we wish all our American friends and family a wonderful 4th of July!