Tim Holtz Tattered Leaves

Tim Holtz Tattered Leaves die by Sizzix finally arrived in the shop this week and they have just been flying out the door. I knew I was going to love this die and figured that I should feature it in one of my projects as part of my commitment to Tim's design team. I love leaves anyway and as Autumn is fast approaching, this project was simply crying out for rich reds, copper, gold, green and brown. I started out with a blank canvas that I coloured with alcohol ink. I used Oregano but as you can see from the picture it is streaked with a touch of brown too. This was one of those happy accident things.

All of my leaves have been made from different coloured Ten Seconds Studio metal using my tape sandwich technique, put through the Big Shot again using Tim Holtz Texture fades and then I gently swiped the top of the embossed design with the alcohol ink, this of course picks up the coloured paint from the metal and mingles with the alcohol ink. When I came to colouring my canvas with alcohol ink, I forgot to change the felt, hence the contrast of colours.....don't you just love it when accidents enhance your work!!!!! At this point, I decided to add some of Tim's Tissue tape to the edges of the canvas for extra detail, this was also coloured with the alcohol ink.

Here's a selection of different leaves....I'm loving their shape, the colours and the fact that I can make a gazillion different types of leaves by using different Texture Fades.

Once I had a nice, big pile of assorted leaves, I started to arrange them on my canvas. Making a circle was not easy I can tell you so I needed some sort of a guideline. I grabbed a dinner plate from the kitchen cupboard and drew around it with a pencil, that helped me enormously in trying to keep my circle looking like a circle.

I stamped on the canvas using a selection of Tim's stamps and Jet Black Archival ink. When stamping over alcohol ink, it is important to use the correct ink, to ensure that the image does not bleed and feather. Ranger's Archival is my personal favourite, I always get a sharp, crisp image and no bleeding.

Once I was happy with the position of all my leaves, I stuck them down using red line tape and glued on some of Tim's Idea-o-logy treasures using Glossy Accents. Here are a few close ups, I'm hoping you'll be able to see the detail.

Some of the Idea-o-logy bits and bobs were attached to the leaves either with Trinket pins or jump rings.

I added some of Tim's Foundations....you know the little feet thingies......I'm using these all the time as hangers lately....they work a treat. I tied a variety of ribbons to each side to create the hanger and then dangled some of Tim's keys, Muse Tokens and a few other bits to add some final embellishments.

This is a really easy project....why don't you try it, you could make one in Christmas colours for a fabulous Christmas decoration.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, Lin.