Martha edge punches

Martha Martha Martha...that lady sure can design some amazing punches...my newest one is the Hydrangea border...swooooon..of course I had to have the regular Hydrangea punch to go with it. I created a background with Distress Inks(Concord grape, lipstick pink and tumbled glass)I trimmed a few inches off the cardstock so i could punch some individual blooms from the inked part. The stamp is from Penny Black.
And an old favorite is the Valentine Lace edge, here I just punched a small section and I used the little hearts to add to the upper part and some on the strings.The stamp is from Dawn Houser.

Painted Upholstery

I had this stained and faded old chair in the basement, I tried shampooing it, it wouldn't come clean. So it sat down there, I thought maybe someday I'd learn to reupholster it. Yeah right.
One day I got to thinking about painting it...painting an upholstered chair? Was it possible? What kind of paint? Would the paint crack off if you sat on it? Would it be all stiff and weird?
I knew that Lumiere fabric paint dried soft when you used it on fabric so i thought I'd give it a try...if it didn't work then chalk it up to experience right? Well it WORKED! I thinned down the paint 1:1 with water so it was very thin and I just started laying in down..the fabric is textured and interestingly enough the paint took differently to different parts. I used Silver metallic which was scary but I thought the metallic sheen might distract from any imperfections in the fabric and not show streaks. I was right-love when that happens.
The chair turned out a silvery sage color...very subtle bit of sage. I painted the legs white and dry brushed some silver onto them. The fabric is a little stiff but this isn't the kind of chair you're going to sit in every day, it is more of an accent chair that looks cute sitting by the fireplace in my bedroom. I think it needs a cute little shabby pillow...I'm going to work on that this weekend(keep in mind I can't sew so this should be interesting). Love when I can turn a "what if" into a completed project that I am proud of.

Colorwashed Lace

I played with some Adirondack Colorwash Sprays the other day....fun stuff! I sprayed some pieces of lace, really saturated them, then laid some tags down on top of them and brayered over it transferring the lace pattern to the tag....LOVE! I was surprised how long the ink stayed wet and continued to transfer color-I did at least a dozen tags and a couple full sheets of card stock.

Dawn Houser Beauty Tag

I adore Dawn Houser's images from Inkadinkado-for this one i used her infamous dress image(a smaller version from a set of cling mounts) I created the background for the tag with Distress Inks and stamped the images in Adirondack Stream ink, I went over the lines of dress with a damp paintbrush to blur the edges. I added some fun chunky glitter to finish it off.

playing

I have been messing around with the new Distress Stains from Tim Holtz/Ranger-on this tag I used Broken China and Weather Wood and used a technique that my pal Carolyn Knapp shared with me...I guess we call it the "Splat Technique" LOL- because the stains come with a spongey dabber top you can splat them down onto your tag (or card stock) and they make a fabulous splattered mark, do this over and over and you get a pretty cool back ground! I then went in(after the splats had dried completely) with an ink blending tool and added some color in between the splats with Spiced Marmalade and Barn Door distress inks. I dried it with my heat tool then stamped over it with a background stamp from Prima, stamped the Umbrella man onto some scrap paper that had some distress inks on it and cut him out(this is from a clear set of Tim's stamps-have to admit I am not a fan, I MUCH prefer his red rubber images and will invest my money in those from now on. I also took a quote stamp of his from the Good Thoughts collection and inked only the word DISCOVERIES from one of the stamps. Lastly I added some Stardust Stickles to the umbrella man-which wasn't dry when I photographed this, it won't look quite so clumpy once it dries completely. I used memento tuxedo black ink for all the stamping.
You can check out the link in the sidebar for my Ebay store where you can find the Memento Ink, some Distress Stains, some Distress Ink pads, some Tim Holtz stamp sets, the ink blending tool and tons of other fun stuff. I am always happy to order anything else you might be in need of also!

Tim Holtz shows us even more using Ranger’s Distress Stains!

Tim Holtz shows us even more using Ranger’s Distress Stains!

check out this video for ideas using the new Distress Stains.

Tutorial

Ok here is a quick tutorial on the technique featured in Take Ten magazine.
Start with a pile of Tim Holtz's Distress Inks(I used a white paint pen to mark the colors on the sides so I can find what I need faster), a non stick craft sheet, a small spritz bottle filled with plain water(I got my bottle at Walmart for 50 cents-the Ranger Misters work well also) and some plain white cardstock-you can experiemnt with different types of cardstock, some are more absorbent than others.




Rub a Distress pad over your craft sheet,just a smallish area-maybe 3"X5"?
Spritz it lightly with water until the ink beads up like this.
Lay a piece of cardstock down onto the ink-do not move it around, just straight down and back up. Notice there will still be some ink on the craft sheet, you can use that on another piece of paper.Sometimes you get speckles and sometimes you get more of a watercolor effect-depends on the amount of water.
Let the ink dry completely-you can use a heat gun to speed that up. Then repeat the process with a 2nd color.
Coming up with color combos is half the fun-some are better than others,this yellow(wild honey) looks like pee to me..ewww,but if I had used it with something like rusty hinge or another warm color it would look nice.
This technique is fun to use on tags also-this one has Olive and Mahogany.
and look at the paper towel when I finished...that's awfully cool, I will have to keep that for a future project.
If you have any questions just shout and if you need any of these products I will gladly order them for you. OK-go make a mess!