Imagine that!

Hello everyone!  I'm delighted to be here (for the second time today... if you're looking for my Artistic Outpost bloghop contribution, it's here!) with my Design Team contribution for the challenge at the new look Our Creative Corner this month: Anything Goes.

You saw half the team in action at the beginning of the month, and now the rest of us are here to nudge you with a little more inspiration!

And this really was an Anything Goes kind of tag (sorry, I seem to be on a bit of a "tag jag" at the moment)...  It came about quite by accident, and without any planning of any kind, and it has a bit of anything and everything on it, so it seems appropriate for the challenge theme!

We had a couple of Dutch friends, Irmel and Bep, come to help out for a week with our dollshouse museum preparations, and they were also really interested in what I was getting up to craftily.

They particularly wanted to see the BigShot in action.  So I was showing them a bit of cutting and embossing one evening (after a hard day's graft in the museum), and explaining a bit about the inks and stamps, and I could see that Bep was itching to have a go.

So we did!



I grabbed a tag, and gave her one, asked what her favourite colours were (you'll see that they lined up nicely with some of my preferences), and off we went.

I really wanted to show her as much as I could of what's possible, and share my love of all things Tim Holtz...

So we started with clear embossing the sentiment - always magical as it changes under the heating
tool.




Then we did some ink blending - seeing the colours merge and grow in depth is another magical thing.  A bit of spritzing and flicking for added texture, and to show the water-reactive nature of the Distress Inks...

Then it was on to some stamping - and we had a look at the differences between stamping with different inks.

First, stamping with Distress - the floral flourish - still vulnerable to water if we were to add any, and also resisted by the sentiment so that you can wipe it away, leaving the stamped image "behind" the embossed one.







Then we stamped with Archival - the beautiful script from the Apothecary set - for a slightly sharper image, as well as one that will hold its own if you want to add any other moisture later on.











We also did some rolling of a stamp on and off for a partial random textural effect (the dots).








Next for the die-cutting... We did a bit of wrinkle-free distress technique using Distress Stains on another tag, and then used that to cut four butterflies (two for her and two for me) with the Movers and Shapers die.  

A little inking on the reverse, and then they got stapled down with the dinky staples from Tim's Tiny Attacher.

We used the Paper Distresser too, to get the delicious texture along the edges and then, using the almost only non-Tim ingredient of the session, we punched a doily edging along the bottom (it's a Martha Stewart punch, in case you need to know).

To give that a bit more punch - so to speak - I used a combination of Wow Vanilla White and Antique Linen Distress embossing powder along the doily... it just makes it pop really nicely, I think.

And the Distress Stains came out to dye some crinkle ribbon, and then I used paper ribbon to tie it together.  When you spread out the crinkled paper, you get a lovely diaphanous effect.














So there you go: a tag I had no intention of making, and I really love how it turned out...  And, in addition, I'm pretty sure I've created a brand new crafty addict. 

Bep went back off to the Netherlands with a list of crafty blogs to visit and another list of crafty suppliers to check out!  Sadly, I didn't get a picture of her tag... sorry.

The response over at Our Creative Corner has already been phenomenal, but it would be great to see you there, if you've not already come to play... but a maximum of three entries per person, please.  Check out the challenge details and rules here.  

And while you're there, do take a moment to check out what my amazing team-mates have been up to - you won't regret it, I promise!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll hope to see you very soon.






I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Albert Einstein

Everything you can imagine is real.
Pablo Picasso