Wendy Vecchi Stamp Book Covers

I have lots of stamps ... Stampin' Up!, Tim Holtz, Unity, Technique Tuesday, clear mounts, but some of my most favorite are my Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 stamps from Stampers Anonymous (who also makes Tim's stamps).  I love her stamps and products so much that I belong to the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group (click here to join), where we share our art, ideas, techniques, Wendy herself, games, prizes and more!  The list is run by Lori Hassler, who's a very talented, funny lady, and she's always coming up with challenges for us and different ways for us to get our hands on all this goodness.  As you can see from the pic, I'm quite a fan ... 35 sets, and I've got more on the way!  Ssssshh!  *blush*

I first met Wendy when I was going on my 2nd Tim Holtz cruise, which was to Mexico.  I remember that I was disappointed when he first announced that she'd be his guest designer on the cruise.  I'd never heard of her before, and I assumed we were getting gypped out of some classes with Tim.  WRONG!  We got almost double the classes we normally got, and I was introduced (I like to think I "saw the light") to an adorable, creative goddess!  Dare I say, I loved her projects even more than Tim's!  Shut up!  lol

So began my love affair with Wendy Vecchi.  Mario (Tim's partner & business manager) always had his little shop of goodness on the cruises, and he was selling Wendy's stamps and books too, so my addiction began.

Her stamps come mounted on long pages with scalloped edges (sooooo Wendy), and you can create binders for them by purchasing the clear acrylic covers that you can decorate yourself.  Well, clear acrylic kind of intimidates me--I'm too anal for them.  I'd always be worrying about seeing the back of what's adhered to the front, and I'd be trying to cover it up--I fear it'd be a creative nightmare for me.  Wendy ... how about some Arts Parts covers for your stamp sets?  Huh?!

I decided to make my own using chipboard.  The only problem is, the size.  Her pages are about 12-1/2" long, and it's hard to find chipboard bigger than 12x12.  I decorated the covers for my first book by stealing the back cover of a pad of 11x14 watercolor paper.

I found some SB paper someone gave me that had a slight texture to it, and Distressed away using my Distress Inks.

I wanted the insides to be different, so I used some more lightly textured paper to ink on.

I had some colored 2" binder rings, so I popped these yellow ones on and I could fit 7 pages in my new binder!  Only problem ... by the time I finished this book, I had about 9 more pages of stamps waiting.

I made that first book over 2 years ago, and my friend, Andrea, was sweet enough to rip off the back page of her 11x14 watercolor pad, so I was finally able to start working on book #2.

I love this one even more!  I made a base on the chipboard using some 7 Gypsies tissue paper.  I stamped & clear embossed the W (for Wendy, of course), and then inked away.  The clear embossing resisted the ink so the beautiful kraft color of the tissue remained.  After doing the W on this book, I went back to my first book and embossed the silver W on that one.

Sidenote--I have a HUGE jar of Stampin' Up! clear embossing powder that's got to be about 10 years old.  During a class one day, one of my students accidentally dumped some leftover white into the big jar of clear, so I get little white speckles in my clear.  I kind of like it, so I use it on my grungier projects.  I also wanted to draw around the W with a white gel pen, but none of the 8 I owned wanted to cooperate (which sparked a big discussion on my Yahoo groups, thanks to me).  I ended up using Tim's White Picket Fence Distress Marker ... looked very disappointing at first, but then the white just pops up after a few seconds ... it's amazing.

I used some SU cardstock for the bottom part and stamped the grungy stripes from the It's More Flower Art set and then embossed Make Art from the All About Art set with black embossing powder.  I inked the edges with one of my favorite colors, Vintage Photo.

For the inside, I just blended some Distress inks together, misted with water and crumpled.  After flattening it back out and drying, I hit the high points with more Vintage Photo and adhered by running it through my Xyron Creative Station.  The top is plain black SU cardstock with a washee tape border between them.

I'm nervous about putting any Art Parts, or metal on my books, because I worry about the items being knocked off when I pull the books on/off the shelf.  

I'm currently working on book #3, and with this one comes a tutorial!  My first!  There's been some overnight drying time involved already, so I hope to finish by tonight, but definitely by tomorrow, so come back and check it out!

June Tim Tag

June 27th.  June twenty-seventh.  Wasn't I supposed to do something?  Hmmmm.  OK, July is next week.  July 1st new Tim tag ... OMG!  I never posted my June tag!  Whew!  Almost missed out on my chance of winning on Tim's blog!  What a shame that'd be, cause I just love, Love, LOVE this tag!  I don't know if it's the dragonfly again, or all the colors, but I love it!

My friend, Grace, came over again to create with me.  We just dumped the container of Tim's Distress Markers between us and went crazy.  I was sooo outside my comfort zone ..; I usually use the same colors.  I didn't even look at half the color names cause I was having so much fun!  And, the speckles were the perfect finishing touch.  You can see Tim's June tag here.

I love the look of torn paper, so I also tore the bottom edge of the tag.  Just thought it needed it.

Although Tim didn't put a ribbon on his tag, we colored some Crinkle Ribbon and added them to ours.  I used some Gold Distress Stain to mine, but it doesn't show up much in the pictures.

Each month, it's getting more & more fun to make these tags!  I'm so glad he changed them to monthly tags.  The last 3 months are my favorites.  I'm going to start hanging them around my classroom here so I can show them off as well as get inspired by them.

May 2013 Tim Tag

Well, thanks to my foot surgery (that's a whole other blog post for some other day), I'm finally getting to my May tag.  I'm doing Tim Holtz's Tags of 2013 and you can find them on his blog here with complete instructions and step-out photos.

The technique for the background was to apply some of his new Remnant Rubs on the tag first, and then add color using Distress Stains.  Then, you stamp a large image with Archival Ink.  If you want the Remnant Rub in the foreground, you wipe the ink off the top of the rub-on.  If you want it in the background, you just heat set it to dry the Archival Ink on top.

I wanted this clock image in the background, so I hit it with my heat gun to dry the Archival Ink on top.

Since I had more vertical space on my tag, I chose to use one of Tim's Custom Keys instead of using a Wordband.  I chose a sticker that went with my theme which was the Pappion (sp?) stamp set.

It was fun creating this little custom enamel tag.  I first applied Lake Mist Alcohol Ink, and then one of the Remnant Rubs.

My daughter, Kelly, who just came home from college, created the tag above.  This picture doesn't do the colors justice.  It looks more blue here, but it's more purple in real life.

I like how she added the wings around her ribbon hole.

She used some rather large Remnant Rubs on hers, and the one in the upper right resisted the ink and left a large un-inked area.  I like he way she placed her Filmstrip Ribbon at an angle over it--very cool.

She says she's a little "stamped out" right now, so we can't make another one.  I've got to come up with a good reason for her to make more with me while she's home for the summer!

So Much Fun!

 

As soon as I saw Tim's tag for this month, I couldn't wait to make it and knew it would be my favorite.  For those of you who live in a cave and don't know what I'm talking about, it's Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2013 and you can see his April tag and get all the instructions here.

I usually make the tags with my friend, Grace, but poor Gracie has been dealing with a lot of crap and overtime at her job this month, and we could never get together.  I realized it was the end of the month, so I had to make this one without her.  :-(

 

I started by making the background for the tag using Tim's Distress Paints with the new metallics.  So awesome!  I usually just wipe up any excess ink/paint on my craft sheet, but I wanted to save this goodness, so I swiped a 2nd tag in...

And a 3rd.  I had to stop myself at this point, cause now I was adding more paint, and was having so much fun, I could've kept covering until all my blank tags were done!

Since I was adding paint to finish covering this one, some of the paint was a little thick.  Tim suggested dabbing up excess paint with a towel, but I kept it.  The thick areas bubbled up when I used my heat gun and left some really cool textured areas.

I had to make a tough decision and choose one for my tag, and I'll save the other 2 for another day.

Next, I chose some Idea-ology and a plastic number to do faux patina on.  While drying these with the heat gun, I realized the metal gets HOT!  Yikes!

Like I said, I loved Tim's tag so much, I wanted to do everything he did.  But, I decided to use a 3 instead of a 4 so I'd be a little different.  lol

Edges were distressed and inked with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.  I really love this tag, and I had the most fun creating it!  Here are some close-ups ...

I used Tim's Texture Hammer to bang up the brads in the centers of the gears.

Wendy Vecchi's Clearly For Art is so much fun to play with and mold.  Very easy too!  It just takes a little patience and practice.

I rubbed some Broken China paint in the crevices of all the text and wiped off with a towel before adding the other colors of paint to the top & edges.

And, those pen nibs are really sharp!  I like the little touch this added to the tag, and I'll be using more of these in my projects in the future.  And, my plastic number 3 came out better than expected.  Love it!

A Little Bit of Whimsy

Pics and details for my Happy Art Flag entries for Beautiful Impressions in CT this weekend.

I was inspired by the challenge on the EWV group (Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group) to use Wendy's Metallic Paste over some spray ink so the color is picked up by the paste.

I knew I wanted to enter this in the Happy Art Flag contest at Beautiful Impressions in CT this Friday in honor of Tim Holtz's classes this weekend, so I decided to work on a 4" x 6" (dimensions required for each flag entry) piece of chipboard.

I started with heavy applications of Ranger's Adirondack Color Washes in the colors of denim, Lettuce & Stream.  I then lightly sprayed some White Linen Dylusions Spray Ink.

Then, the fun part ... using Wendy's Polka Dotty Stencil For Art, I schmeared some of her Metallic Paste on (carefully remove stencil, and wash immediately).  When it was dry (I gave it about 2 hours to be safe), I thought it was screaming for some alien spaceships!

I hit Michaels in search of a spaceship stamp with no luck.  Then, I realized I was going to the Heirloom Rubber Stamp Festival in Allentown, PA over the weekend, so I figured I'd find one there.  No luck ... not one alien, spaceship or rocket.  None, nada, nil.

I was hosting my scrapbooking club at the local library on Tuesday, and I decided to demo how to make some fun, layered embellishments with the Cricut, and guess what I found by accident?  Yes!

I made a few ships in different sizes, and this is what I came up with ...

I typed the words on my computer and hand-drew the thought bubble; cut it out & popped it up.

Here's the background so you can see how the metallic paste picked up the color ...

I think I'm going to enter this in the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge which is "backgrounds" this week.

This is my other entry for the Happy Art Flag challenge ...

I saw on someone's blog (I can't remember who for the life of me!) about using Distress Ink as a background and covering with a layer of Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint.  I thought that would make for a cool underwater background.

I finally used one of the many jars of Mudd Puddles I've been hoarding for the ocean floor.  I also glued on some teeny tiny shells I got in a jar when I went on the Tim Holtz Caribbean Cruise.

I cut up some pieces of Wendy Vecchi's Clearly For Art and colored them with Alcohol Inks; I heated each of them one section at a time and gave it a little twist.

I needed a great Tim Holtz sentiment ... after all, he'll be judging the entries.  tee hee

I wanted some fishing net, but I didn't have any small enough ... then, I remembered about this piece Tim gave us in one of the classes on the cruise.

I just realized I should have put a little rhinestone for the eye.  Oh well, it's long gone since I mailed it to the store last week.

I used more of Wendy's Clearly for Art in white to stamp this beautiful seahorse.  I was able to heat it and mold it so it could hang out in the middle of my kelp bed.

I'm soooo psyched for the classes this weekend with Tim!  I'll be on my way to CT in the morning!

Shrink Plastic Tattered Florals

Just some quick pics of some shrink plastic flowers I made using the Tattered Florals die for Tim's challenge.  I quickly made these using Shrink Plastic, Adirondack Alcohol Inks, and a Viva Pearl Pen.  These would make adorable little embellishments for a scrapbook page or greeting card.  When my head's not so stuffy, I'm going to make more in different colors!