Here it is!

Here it is in all it's glory, my latest Tim Holtz Design Team project. Remember the pile of stuff that I showed you yesterday, the mini canvases and the Distress reinkers, well this is the idea got that got me started on this project.

Tim had sent a fabulous box of goodies for me to use and I wanted to make one of my framed pieces with Tim's products on mini canvases. That got me thinking, how cool would it be if my frame was painted with Distress colours to match the Distress colours that I wanted to use on my canvases. First of all I tried mixing Distress re-inkers in a bit of gesso so that I could simply paint it on the frame. The consistency of the paint was great and although I liked the colours I made, the white base changed the look of the Distress colours. Plan B: Paint the frame with gesso first, then with some Cut'n'dry, apply the Faded Jeans reinker over the gesso. The colour was quite intense at first but then I softened it with a baby wipe and really like the look.

I dried it with a heat gun and added some Vintage Photo and ended up with a shabby blue which I really love.

Next up, I took one of the pages from Tim's 12x12 Lost and Found paper stack which was just perfect for a quick and easy background.

I glued some book pages to my mini canvases and painted over them with a watered down gesso. This acts as a primer. Some canvases come with gesso already on them but it is not always the best quality. My favourite gesso is Claudine Hellmuths one which is made by Ranger.

Once the gesso is dry, I applied the reinker using the cut'n'dry again. So I can hear you thinking
why didn't she just sponge the colour straight from the ink pad. Believe me, I tried it and it takes a lot of sponging and a lot longer, this way, I got instant colour and I'm just loving this technique and the results it gave me.

Of course you can add as many colours as you want but I just kept it simple with two colours.

Once I was happy with all my canvases, I arranged them in my frame and started to fill it up with all sorts of goodies.

Lot's of Tim Holtz Ideaology embellishments.

I sprayed some of Tim's new Lavish Trimming (will be available soon) with some watered down Faded Jeans reinker. It was just a hint of colour, very delicate.

Then I die cut some of Tim's Sizzix dies using my copper metal tape sandwich. This bookplate made a great frame for the shrink plastic die cut bird that I coloured with alcohol ink.

Here's a few close ups of some of the other canvases.

Finally, I die cut some metal letters spelling out Yours Artfully, stuck them on top and bottom of my frame and thought I was finished. I kept staring at it thinking that the top of the frame looked really bare and so I added a couple more spinners to the top. Knowing when to stop can sometimes be difficult but at this point it felt finished.

Hope you will try this, it's a lot of fun.

Lin