Box of Dreams

 Hello Everybody!

Today I am sharing an altered box for the Monday Challenge at Simon Says Stamp: Not a Card.

I had a box/decoration from the Dollar Tree that I bought specifically to alter. 

The quote chip says Dream of Faraway Places and Daring Adventures. It was perfect for this scene. I love mushrooms right now. The mushrooms are from a die cut from Simon Says Stamp that I got at Christmas. I cut them from different pattern papers and then inked them with distress: scorched timber, salvaged patina and cracked pistachio. I used the various sizes and pop dotted a few. 

The paper dolls and wings are Tim Holtz. So is the quote chip. The Falling Stars die cut from Sizzix/Tim Holtz fit perfectly in the frame. I used distress sprays and oxides for the sky and grass on watercolor paper and then cut out the stars. I used a sparkly paper from DCWV for the background. Then I painted the paint chip and used grit paste. I added moss-I love a project using moss! :)

I used a yellow and a pink paint marker on each set of fairy wings.  I used Tim's thin tape trims around the edges of the box.

Here is the original frame. I took out hello. Then I painted it in black gesso. It measures 6.5 inches tall and 5 inches across.

Thank you for stopping by! :)

Halloween Party Pumpkin Terrarium

 Hello Friends!

October is just the best month! The weather is nicer and leaves are turning. Pumpkins and Halloween decorations are everywhere! 

Today I am happy to show you my pumpkin terrarium-where there is an awesome Halloween Party going on!  I am linking this to Simon Says Stamp challenge and that info is at the bottom of this post.

Here it is :)  I bought the pumpkin terrarium from Oriental Trading.  And I will be honest-I was scared at first LOL. I was afraid of having this cool pumpkin but not decorating it cool enough-silly I know. I got over myself LOL and once I started applying paint to the outside-it started to come together. 

I love Tim Holtz. And I compartmentalized made the costume party dies one night. I made three of each since I had the papers out and I know there is another project I want to do with the trio. This little dracula has a silver glitter outfit on because he's at this party :)  The skull and pumpkin in the middle are ideology and the gold witch hat is a charm from Prima I got last year.

I used purple reindeer moss and this brown moss to fill in the floor. There are a few of Tim rub-on's on the walls of the pumpkin.  Now let's talk about tomb stones--I cut these from the sizzix halloween vault series 2021 out of black cardstock. I used the grave texture paste from last year. Then I painted on empty tomb distress crayon (like wow it looked good) and then some peeled paint over some of the textured places. I got that idea from watching one of Tami Bastiaans you tube videos. 

I used a couple of paper dolls and I sometimes like to assign stories to things LOL. So the guy in the back with the face mask and bat wings isn't really supposed to be there. Hmmm....an imposter? 

Tiny lights for the win! I drilled a little hole so the battery pack is on the back and then I hot glued the lights to the ceiling for the pumpkin. Also in the top right corner there is a ghost bottom.  Also, I hot glued sewing thread and strung one of this year's ideology spiders.  I used a little lettuce alcohol ink on it's abdomen like Zoe from Tim's design team did (except she used pearls and I don't have those [yet])  :)

Here is the top of the ghost. :) He's hiding behind the leaves. These big metallic leaves are sort of bendable. I bought those a few years ago from a thrift store, and I'm so happy to finally use them!  Also I used some leaves you can get from either the dollar store or hobby store. And the sunflower is from dollar tree. 

This witch is from Tim's Toil and Trouble sizzix die cut set. I cut a second hat from orange glitter paper because---party!

And lastly an entomology adornment-I used cracked pistachio on him and now he is this cool green color.  I painted the outside of the pumpkin first with black paint that I blotted as I went. I didn't want all of the orange to go away. And then I painted finnabair's sparks unicorn hair paint over it-and wow. I love it. :) 

So I totally forgot to take a before picture. I know-I was like what? So here is the before and the link to this is here at Oriental Trading. 

So just a few notes-I used hot glue to glue everyone down. I held them up until the glue dried which seemed longer then normal. The pumpkin is sort of a foam material so that might be why. I didn't glue down the moss. I didn't think it needed it. I also used die cut elements from Frightful Things (ghosts and jack o lanter).

I am linking this up to the challenge at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge-Fall Mood Board.

Pumpkins and the lights are totally inspiring from the mood board and used in my project. All of a sudden I want some hot chocolate. :) 

Here is a video of my project. :) 

Thank you for reading to the end. Have a great day friends! :)

Happy First Day of School Card

 Hello Friends!

The challenge at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is Back to School. So when I was looking at my Tim Holtz dies the smaller house in ghost town 2 jumped out at me. Crazy right? But I was able to turn this little haunted house into a respectable place of education :)

I cut the house twice-red and black cardstock and then cut the roof to fit over the red house. I swiped chrome yellow archival ink from Ranger on white cardstock and fit it to the back of the house. The background paper and world is from a Prima paper collection called Engraver. I added two smaller paper dolls and she is sitting on a box of blank index tabs (from snippets tim holtz). I used vintage photo oxide ink and black soot distress ink in various places. 

Here's the haunted house versus the school house.

Here is how I made the sentiment and why the letters aren't perfect. I didn't have word stamps for happy first day. So I made my own words using this little stamp set from my husband awhile back :)

Thank you for stopping by! :)

Mini Journal

 Hello Everybody!

I made this little journal for the Moving Parts Challenge at TFJB Challenge Blog.  When I saw moving parts of thought the page has to move to see the next page. I made it mini because I have lots of little paper dolls and snippets from Tim Holtz and this is a great way to use them. :) 

The base of the pages are from Silhouette in the Design Studio (Silhouette brand 295181).  It originally had a match book style to it but because I embellish a little extra I just had to make it without a wrap around paper piece.

Here's the front:

This journal measures length almost 2.75 inches and 3 inches wide. I used brads to bind it together. The front is a Tim Holtz snippet, clay frame with mica powder and finnabair gold vintage wax and the back ground paper is a from Tim also.

When I put the clay in the mold-I dusted it with the mica powder first so it looks coppery. Then on the right side you can see the difference the wax makes.

The first 2 pages. Snippets, heart punch, gears from sizzix gearhead and Tim's metallic paper, Tim Rub-on and both have paper dolls.  

I made this background with a script stamp from Tim and distress oxides and inks and water.

Here is a close up of this page.

Here is the next two pages:

Both of these used Tim's abandoned papers for backgrounds. 

Tim's paper dolls, rub-ons and a piece of lace and flower found in my stash.

This is a cool Tim stamp but I felt it got lost in the background. The picture makes it look better than it really is LOL. So I added some things:

A Tim Holtz bird and a sizzix Tim green -So the stamp is part of the cool background now.

Here's the next to pages-Moving right along....(see what I did there?)

Both of these background pages are from Abandoned. 

This butterfly is a transparency that I added glitter glue and then white paint. There are some sparkles there I promise :) And an old dream ticket because I still have those :) And Snippets. Oh and a clipping sticker.

Snippet, washi tape, a sticker from 7 gypsies and the heart I think came from The Funky and Frilly Boutique in one of those cute envelopes. (and if not then it was in my stash LOL)

Here is the next set:

This was a tan paper that I used rustic wilderness distress oxide on. I cut out the sizzix mixed media piece and colored the smaller kid's outfit with prism markers. More clippings stickers.

I used kitsch flamingo embossing powder on this cool lady. A clippings sticker. The background is pattern paper I had floating around and I don't know the brand. If it's not Tim's I would say 7 gypsies.

This is the last set.

This background paper was also sort of beige and I used speckled egg oxide. More snippets and a paper doll and a gear to help tie in from the 2nd page.

And this is the inside of the back cover. I used gathered twigs distress ink and a little black soot over the raised edges. The embossing folder is an old Tim one from Halloween (I think).  I loved this clippings sticker as a sort of the end. :)

So above is the debossed side. And below is the embossed side. I used walnut stain, villianous potion and prized ribbon and water. I think the stain was ink the other two were oxides. Also, I bent the brads because they were long which was good to go through the book but then they hung over. Thankfully, the "arms" were easy enough to bend.  And I used vintage gold wax from finnabair over the raised edges.

Thank you so much for stopping by and then moving again ;) (lol I laugh at my jokes even if no one else does) lolol :)

First Place At the World Fair

 Hello Everybody!

I am super excited that I am the Guest Designer for the 2nd time in a row at The Funky Junky Challenge! I am so honored that they chose my project.  :)  

This challenge's theme is Industrial Grunge. Did they say GEARS?!? Yes Please! :)  Here is my project and then I will break it down. :)

The story is that this fella won first place at the World's Fair :) 

Here is a closer look of the inside of the vignette box.  I used the corner die cut from Sizzix Gearhead on the outside of the vignette box and then there are clay gears and one wood gear on the inside.

I cut out all of these gears-LOL. I got this for Christmas and this is my first time using it so yay! This is Tim's gold foil cardstock.

On the left is silver Tim cardstock and on the right is Ranger's/Tim foil adhesive sheets. There's a difference in that the one on the right has a texture where the cardstock is smooth. I used both but I thought this was a cool observation.

I used black gesso and painted the biggest vignette box. On the bottom I missed a few spots-but turns out this added to the charm of this little display.

On both pieces I used these alcohol ink colors and pounced with the felt tool. (rust, mushroom, slate, caramel, pitch black, latte)  I used the mini foundry embossing folder.

The foil tape was the longest of the two so I applied it to the top and the foil cardstock pieces to the sides.

I cut out green tim foil cardstock and embossed it with circuit. I tried to put black alcohol ink on the raised part-fail. LOL its on the center left because I didn't start over. I just went with it. I used a gold prisma color marker and highlighted random lines. I was thinking this guy was into clean energy-so the gears aren't full of oily gunk ;) lol

The gears were fun. I had previously made them with clay and Finnabair moulds (mechanica and large gears). I have a whole collection of clay pieces because it's just fun to make them LOL.  It is more fun to use them in projects :) So I painted them with this gold paint (no gesso or anything), and then I used slate and pitch black alcohol ink to lightly go over the gears.  Clean energy still needs a little bit of grease ;)

The bottles!! So fun to make. I was looking around Pinterest trying to figure out how exactly I was going to do this box with grungy goodness. And then I saw this pin/post from Emma Williams-Toxique.  Her project is awesome and she tells how she made these bottles which I did here.

The bigger bottles are from the dollar tree and the small one is from the miniatures section at hobby lobby. I painted collage medium on them and put some hot glue drips. These bottles are small by the way.  I also added some rock candy crackle to them.

Emma uses greens and blues on her bottoles and I thought that was really cool. Like maybe I would have just used brown. I like the pop of color these give.  Then I added gold and silver alloy to the tops of the hot glue drips. I also find a tiny label in my snippets and add a skull rub on from this years Halloween rub on sheet. I also use another rub on directly to the bottle from the same Halloween rub on sheet.

I was watching Tim's Easter crafting video (from Sat.) while I was making this on Sunday. And that is where I thought coloring the baubles was a good idea. It's possible something else influenced that but I can't remember where. I used red pepper, currant, and pitch black. Again the little pops of color are fun.

Here's a close up of the finished bottles and baubles.

In looking for tiny bottle labels I found this geometry equation looking ephemera in this year's Halloween pack. I hot glued it to the box and you can see some of the hot glue.

I took black paint and Tim's grit paste and mixed them creating a gray mixture that I used to hide the hot glue and I put it on the "seams." To me this is just a nice finishing touch to the project. I went back and painted black paint on top of the grit paste to make it darker and more grimy. 

It makes me nervous to color the paper dolls LOL. And he seems really good already and I didn't have another guy like this so all I did was color his flower yellow with a prisma color marker. It's a very little thing but it's there LOL :)

This is going back a little bit-I put single gears on both of the insides (left and right) of the box. The clay gears are hot glued in. There is also one wooden gear that fit the size I needed (it has less detail that the clay ones and is partially hidden with the corner gears.

Here's a close up of him standing on a gear. This is a sizzix die cut gear.

Here's a closeup-there is a light bulb from Tim (a loooong time ago) that I used sunshine yellow alcohol ink and hot glued to the top. I love light bulbs-which is why I still have a pack of unused Tim lightbulbs. They are for special occasions LOL.  The exhibit a strip has fossilized amber distress crayon to make the letters pop. It is also hot glued in so it stands. I have wire on the sides through the holes. I took a little black paint and went over the top. And there is the gray grit paste to help cover the hot glue.  I also put a few spots of grit paste in the bottom of the box.

Here is a one side view of the vignette box.

Here's the other side view. Here you can see his blue ribbon :) This is an ideology piece that I used sailboat blue alcohol ink to color. Oh-I also used an ideology hardware piece that screws into the vignette box and then I used a jump ring to connect the ribbon charm to the piece that screwed into the box.

And that's all I did. LOL.  This was super fun to make. I am so happy that I was able to be a Guest Designer of The Funky Junky Boutique Challenge. I hope you will the challenge! :) (you could be a guest designer or winner of a $25 gift certificate!)

Thank you for stopping! :)