Tim Holtz 12 tags of 2014 May

With 1st Semester exams underway for my students, my time has finally freed up a little for me to devote some much craved for time to make my “tag” entry for the May 2014 edition of the Tim Holtz challenge. Over there on the left was what the talented Tim challenged us with.The focus was on using all those ideology trinkets that we all love to collect and framing them on little paper tiles.  He also showcased the new shadow embossing folders there on the bottom right.  Those haven’t arrived in my part of the global woods yet so I had to change it up a little.


For this month’s “tag” – I decided that I wanted to make something more functional than a tag. Father’s day is coming up and that requires an awesome card for Dad.  I put tons of work into this piece inspired by the TH May because I have a brilliant dad who deserves every bit of detail and attention and coolness.


I also got inspired for the design of this tag by how much I loved the effect of the pipes in my previous post (Click the grey text to go there -the rosey pipe-line for Linda Ledbetter's CC3 Challenge).  I decided to mess around some more with pipe configurations and I really love how this card turned out.  I think my dad is going to like it too.


For the background of the card I used the diamond plate from the diamond plate and riveted metal texture fade set by sizzix and the Brick wall stencil from Enmarc. 

Making the glazed brick texture was one of those salted UTEE experiments.  I inked through the Brick Wall stencil with Archival Ink first in Monarch Orange and then lightly in Plum and then with my salted UTEE heat embossed. 

The effect it created was a lovely, rough and sandy looking glazing.  I have to remember this trick for later. Over that I layered the riveted metal piece that I painted with distress paint.  I wanted to create the effect of an industrial basement in a building with some exposed face-brick wall and valves and gauges and pipes.






To make the pipes – I did the old drinking straw trick again – you can find out how I did that in the post that precedes this by clicking here: http://tincanhandmade.blogspot.com/2014/05/everything-is-coming-up-roses.html












I used a variety of Ideology tinkets and the Gears Die to embellish the tiles.  The tiles are cut from a variety of Tim Holtz papers and I stamped on some of them with some industrial blueprint looking stamps from the Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Collection.



So I think I kept the theme of the May challenge – don’t you?  I’m entering it as my version.  It is all about what those tag challenges inspire right?  Hope Mr Tim doesn’t mind that I didn’t make a tag.  More importantly – I love that this is going to be dad’s father’s day card – getting all those straws etc. to glue and stay glued at the proper angles was a proper mission, I fiddles with the details for hours.  Dad is the only guy who can be trusted to treasure and appreciate all the work and of course all those lovely ideology trinkets!

Everything is coming up roses

 

I have had really good intentions to enter Linda Ledbetter’s Compendium of Curiosities 3 challenge.  I just never managed to find the time to sit down and make something.  However – when I saw Challenge 3 – I knew that I had to do this one atleast.  If you dont know about the challenge, here’s a little link to the rules of  engagement http://lindaledbetter.com/compendium-of-curiosities-3-challenge-faq 

The current challenge is to use the faux tea-rose technique on page 65 of Volume 3 of Tim Holtz’ Compendium of Curiosities.  I had loads of those left over when I did the April Tag for the Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2014 challenge and I have been dying to try out an idea I have had in my head for a while. 

I saw these metallic drinking straws on Amazon and in my head, I saw metal pipes. I wanted to make an industrial type looking thing with pipes and gears and taps (faucets)  When I saw what the CC3 challenge was about this time – I immediately had a vision of a rose pipe-line.  And the idea gave birth to this piece above.  I love how it turned out – I really want to explore the pipe-potential in different configurations now.

To make the pipes – I just took ordinary drinking straws and painted them with distress paint and then I cut them to the sizes that I wanted. The faux tea-roses ofcourse are cut with the die mentioned in the book.  A cool thing I have been doing recently is cutting off the last few petals on the spiral – that gives me control over the size of the roses.  

The background is just a piece of cereal box board that I painted with gesso and then distress paint and the goldleafed a little.  I accidentally discovered a DIY way to make goldleafing – will write a post on that sometime soon.  I drew the black- lines in real hard to create the effect indentation with the aim of making it look like shingled planks.  I know this challenge is really about the faux tea-roses but all I am obsessing about right now are those cool pipes – the industrial/grunge/steampunk loving crafters will understand that.  I am going to have to make many more pipe-lines in the future just to get it out of my system. I think I am going to pipe-out my tag entry for  the 2014 12 Tags May Tim Holtz challenge as well.