12 Tags of 2014 - March + Easter Card

Hello Crafters and Happy Spring!!! I sure hope you are getting some warmer weather where you live. I know it was one heck of a winter for a lot of you! To celebrate the new beautiful season, I've completed my March tag for Tim's 12 Tags of 2014.  It was great to learn and do a new technique with Tim's Smudge Stamping, which is also in his new book Compendium of Curiosities III. And, I thought I'd show you some Easter cards I've made as well using Ranger's Melt Pot to make the eggs you also see on the March tag.

I love the new Tim Holtz Sizzix Garden Greens Bigz Die with the Bird Branch Die....they are perfect together!

 

 

For the cards, I've used the same Tim Holtz  stamp sets, Stamper's Anonymous Nature Walk, Bird Feather, and Classic #17.  To make the eggs and nest seen here and on the tags, I've gotten the old Melt Pot out.

 

I stamped the small eggs on Shrink Plastic and cut them out.

I warmed up the Melt Pot with Clear UTEE, and put real grass into the pot to coat the blades. Then I added a few drops of Heat It Ink in Sapphire. I added the Shrink Plastic eggs and watched them shrivel down and turn blue.

Clean up is a breeze, and I'll save the hardened blue UTEE for another project. I just love using the Melt Pot!

I die cut the Sizzix  Bird Branch and Garden Greens with Tim's Distress Cardstock from Core-dinations. I didn't use the birds, so I'll save them for later. I sanded and inked all the pieces.

I stamped the birds and nest, cut them out and colored them with Distress Markers, and used Enamel Accents for the eyes.

I used a #12 Manila Giant Tag as a base for the card, stamped on it with Archival Inks, then inked it with Distress Ink, and gave it a few drops of water for a molted look. Finally, I layered all the pieces on and adhered them, and followed up with a Denim Blue spray from the new Distress Marker Spritzer.

Supplies:

Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink	Tea Dye Distress Ink	Tumbled Glass Distress Ink	Rusty Hinge Distress Ink	Black Soot Distress Ink
Ink Blending Tool	Ranger Inkssentials Mister	Distress Markers Set	Enamel Accents	Tim Holtz Distress Marker Spritzer
Ranger Inkssentials Kraft Cardstock In 12x12	Tim Holtz Sizzix Bigz Die In Bird Branch	Core′dinations Tim Holtz Distress Paper	Idea-ology Word Bands	Idea-ology Seasonal Chit Chat Stickers
Idea-ology Jute String	Idea-ology Crinkle Ribbon	UTEE - Clear	Ranger Melt Art Melting Pot	Ranger Melt Art Heat It Inks In Brilliant Gems
Ranger Inkssentials Shrink Plastic	Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink	Sepia Archival Ink	Stamper′s Anonymous Tim Holtz Nature Walk Stamp Set	Stamper′s Anonymous Tim Holtz Bird Feather Stamp Set
Stamper′s Anonymous Classics #17 Stamp Set	Ranger Inkssentials #10 Jumbo Manila Tags	Ranger Surfaces Manila Tag #12 Giant	Tim Holtz Dot Fade Stencil

I hope your hands get creatively dirty soon!

Spring Classes

Hello Crafty People! It's almost Spring, and although I love the winter and cold weather, I love the mild Spring days and especially  the new blooms all around. Spring always brings a stunning array of gorgeous flowers as well as beautiful Art from so many of you! Aside from Christmas time I love visiting blogs this time of year! The season always inspires my art as well, and I've made a few things for upcoming classes at The Crafty Scrapper and Scrapbook N' More. If you are in the area check out my calendar page for details.

This is the Spring Queen Altered Paintbrush. I've made many variations of her for participants to be inspired by.

This is the Flowers & Miracles Trinity Resist Tag (m coined phrase). I've made several variations using this technique as well.

 I hope your hands get creatively dirty soon!