First project as DT member for Tim Holtz

I had to stay at home today and wait for my new bed to arrive, so what do you do when you have many hours to kill.....you make stuff!!! Luckily, my box of stash arrived from Tim yesterday so I had really new stuff to play, so new that we don't have them available in the shop yet but rest assured as soon as we get the new items, you'll be the first to know.

Here's what I made, it's a shabby canvas, hangy thingy. I wanted to keep the vintage look but I also wanted to use all the inky/painty/metal things that I love so much so I came up with the idea of swapping black for white. I normally cover all my metal embellishments with black paint dabbers, wipe of the excess with a paper towel and you get a vintage look but this time, with the white and sometimes aqua, it still looks vintage but delicate and shabby instead of grungy.....I'm really quite liking it


I started by painting my canvas with Aqua paint dabber. Dried it thoroughly and then applied Mushroom paint dabber over Tim's alphabet masks.

When the Mushroom was thoroughly dry, I felt the Aqua was a tad bright so I gently sponged a bit more mushroom over the top.

Then I forgot to take a photo of the next step...doh!! To create a really shabby canvas, I watered down some gesso and brushed it over the whole canvas, it's a great way to make things look shabby.

Now for the stuff on the canvas. If you follow my blog, you will know that I love metal and when I work with it, I quite often make a tape sandwich. This is a layer of cardstock, humungo sticky adhesive and metal. The reason for this is to give stability to the metal if you are cutting it out either by hand or die cutting

This tape sandwich was using Dark Chocolate metal....one of my favourites. After making up my sandwich, I die cut my bird from Tim Holtz Caged Bird die and then popped it in his brand new sheet music embossing folder.

I put some Aqua alcohol ink on an applicator tool and VERY GENTLY swiped it over the surface of my embossed bird to remove the brown paint from the high points of the embossed image. The contrast against the Dark Chocolate is amazing.

My other metal embellishments (made from Gold Nugget tape sandwiches) are die cut from Tim Holtz Regal Crest die and the brand new Movers and Shaper Tag and Bookplate. I just know the Tag & Bookplate will be my favourite die from now on.....it's very cool!

I used just the banner part from the Regal Crest die, this makes a great embellishment when it has been edged with an embossing wheel.

I felt I had left it a bit plain, so I did my scribbly, scribbly thing with my pointy tool to give it some decoration.

I also edged my bookplate in the same way ....oops, another photo omission...sorry. Don't forget, if it's all looking a bit bright and shiny, wash over it with a watery gesso for that shabby look, it works well on metal too. If you then feel that it doesn't have a defined edge and doesn't jump off the page, just a teeny tiny bit of black Archival ink (dried with a heat gun) will just give it a little edge.

N0w for my tag. I took a sheet of paper from Tim Holtz Lost and Found paper stack, stuck it to some cardstock for stability and die cut it . Added some Forest Moss Distress ink.

Sponged some gesso over it for a shabby look.Stamped some images for a background.

Made a Rosette out of Tissue Tape.

Then assembled it all together on my tag with a few of Tim's other new items, Baubles and Charm Clips.

I painted two of Tim's foundations with Aqua and Mushroom paint dabber and stuck them to the top of my canvas to give me somewhere to tie the ribbon that I'm using to hang the canvas. Glossy Accents works a treat for these adhering these metal items.

Oh, now you can see my bookplate!! And here's a close up of my bird.

Hanging from my bookplate are a couple of the brand new Facets with pictures glued behind them. Again, Glossy Accents is my preferred glue for this and if you look at the bottom of this picture, you will see that I have used Tissue Tape again, this time it is across the canvas. I just love how this stuff seems to melt into the background regardless of the background colour.

When I started this post, I hadn't intended to make it a step by step instruction post but as I had taken a reasonable amount of photos, I thought you might enjoy seeing how it all came together and I hope it will inspire you enough to try and make a canvas of your own.

Until next time.

Lin