Guest Designer - Jan Hobbins

Please say hello and give a warm welcome to the Guest Designer for our Letter Perfect challenge, Jan Hobbins. Jan was the Design Team's top pick from the Neutral Point of View challenge and can be found with her fabulous creations on her blog, In My Own Imagination.

Hello everyone! I’m so excited and honored to be a guest designer for the latest challenge, Letter Perfect. I’ve been an avid crafter, sewer and artist my whole life, but discovered scrapbooking when I went to work in my sister’s scrapbook store 13 years ago. I’ve been addicted ever since! Creating for Sizzix’s Design Team and Tim Holtz has developed a love for using metal dies in most of my paper crafting projects. I’ve used a few of my favourites in this project. My style is mostly vintage, love that distressed look! Hope you enjoy my “Letter Perfect” project!

Letter or word dies are my go to dies for layouts, cards, or just about any creation. I love the idea that I can create the exact word or phrase in any colour or texture to match my project. The Tim Holtz Daily Words Block Thinlits Die (61180) is perfect for creating an interesting background. I’ve used acrylic paint to add depth and a vintage feel to my die-cut background. Using a lightly painted Tim Holtz Mini Framed Panel for my base, I added the background, and embellishments.

To create my background, I used a piece of thin chipboard or something to withstand painting with acrylic paints. My chosen words were placed to fit within my border and taped temporarily for die-cutting. The large negative piece is used, along with the little centers of the D, B, A and R’s. This piece was glued on top of another solid piece of chipboard of the same size. To get that vintage painted look, I started off painting the whole piece with black gesso, then adding a layer of colour, lightly wiping it with a baby wipe a few minutes later before it dried. Repeat for each colour. A more detailed look at this procedure is on my blog.

My hearts were die-cut using Sizzix’s Heartfelt Bigz die and thick chipboard. There’s 11 different sizes on this die. I covered a larger one with Clipping Stickers, one with a photo cut out from a Found Relatives card, and the backside of the same card, the rest were painted. Remnant Rubs were added to the red heart. Distress the edges with ink or paint.

To finish off my frame, I added in die-cut foliage (Sizzix Wildflowers 660233) and a postage stamp (Sizzix Labels 660060) using patterned paper that was tinted with Distress Sprays. Tim Holtz Mini Gears and a Gadget gear, Ephemera clock, game spinner were added also. My quote is a Tim Holtz Small Talk Occasion sticker with a piece of chipboard cut to fit, adhered to the back.

For more details and photos of my project, pop over to my blog! Hope I’ve inspired you to use those word or letter dies for a creative background!

Jan

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As Jan indicated, there are more details about her fabulous project on her blog, so pop on over and check them out. Be sure to come back and share your Letter Perfect creation. You can find the challenge HERE and you have lots of time to enter as the challenge runs until 11:55 pm EST on Tuesday, June 19th.

This Saturday one of our designers will have an inspiring Saturday Showcase for you so be sure to check that out, and then next Wednesday the rest of the Design Team will be here with their 'Letter Perfect' creations so you won't want to miss that.

Saturday Showcase - Floral Frenzy

Hi!  Suzz here.  For my Saturday Showcase I was inspired by the current Layers of Lace Challenge.  I started with a bunch of leftovers from my design for the challenge and decided to showcase a floral frenzy of backgrounds from a variety of floral stencils and die cuts.

How does one get inspired to create so many different backgrounds?  When I start on a new challenge I usually will pull from my stash anything that I think works for the challenge.  I then will start playing with backgrounds or techniques.  This usually leaves me with a healthy stash of leftovers.

For the lace challenge I had pulled out doily inspired stencils and die cuts.  This left me with a pile of die cut images, stenciled backgrounds and inspiration waiting to happen!

I created a variety of tags and card bases that I can add embellishments and sentiments to finish them when needed.

The doily layering stencil was my first inspiration:

1. Lay the doily stencil  on cardstock and spray the pretty worn lipstick distress stain spray through the stencil onto the cardstock.
2. Lay white cardstock on top of the inky stencil. 
2. After the image dries, cut it up and turn into a tag. 

Next was a softer doily effect:

1. Lay the doily stencil on a 5" x 5" white cardstock.
2. Sponge the stencil with pink distress oxide ink.
3. Shift stencil and repeat.

After I used the pink spray I decided to try it in a tarnished brass: 

1. Lay the stencil down and spray the stencil with gold.
2. Lay cardstock onto inky stencil and pick up ink.
3. If the stencil is too dry you can spritz it with water to add a bit more moisture.

I loved how the gold looked and decided to take a different approach with my next card.

1. Lay the stencil onto white cardstock.
2. Using translucent embossing paste spread over stencil.
3. Let embossing paste dry.
4. Rub on metallique wax - vintage gold over the entire surface.
5. Repeat until you get the gold finish you desire.
6. Buff off any excessive gold on the embossed areas with a dry paper towel.

After I had fun playing with the doily stencil, I pulled out the blossom stencil and created a background. 

1. Lay the blossom stencil on the white cardstock. Apply white embossing paste over stencil.
2. Let dry.
3. Spray purple stain spray from left side of embossed area and pink spray from right.
4. While ink is wet spritz with water and tilt paper to blend colors.

After I finished with the stencils I had on my desk a piece of cardstock that I had die cut with the blossoms from the mixed media stencils. I decided to use this as a stencil.

First I wanted some background interest.

1. Stamp the background of the cardstock using an embossing ink.
2. Heat emboss with clear embossing powder.
3. (My stamp had some leftover black ink which caused a soft gray image. I liked the effect and left it instead of starting again)

1. Lay the die cut cardstock in the corner of the stamped background.
2. Sponge on antique linen distress ink or use embossing ink depending on the embossing powder you are going to use.

3. Sprinkle the sponged ink with vintage pearl embossing powder. Shake off excess.
4. Heat the embossing powder to melt.

I repeated the process multiple times to use the backgrounds in a variety of ways.

First I misted over the embossed images:

1. Spray from an angle brown ink and added a spritz of water to help it blend and spread.

That ended up looking like this:

On another background I left the background after embossing the flowers:

Finally I sprayed the background completely brown and sponged on more brown dye ink.  After that I decided to cut the image in half and create two small tags to put on gifts:

After I finished with the stenciled version of the cards, I used the masks to create two more card bases.

I sprinkled the mask with vintage pearl embossing powder and  heated up the die cut piece. I cut it down to fit on a mini card.

Finally I took the original mask with the sponged background and added a bit of text and mounted it on a card base.

After a little embellishing:

I hope you are inspired to play with your floral dies and stencils!

Don't forget that the current Layers of Lace Challenge is open until June 4th and to come back on the 5th for a brand new challenge!

Suzz

Products used:

Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Layering Stencils - Blossom	Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Layering Stencils - Doily	Sizzix Thinlits Die Set - Mixed Media #2 by Tim Holtz	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Worn Lipstick	(February Pre-order) Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Pad - Worn Lipstick
Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Tarnished Brass	(February Pre-order) Prima Art Alchemy by Finnabair -Metallique Wax-Vintage Gold	Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Spray Stain - Wilted Violet	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Picked Raspberry	Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste - White
Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste - Translucent	Ranger Tim Holtz Ground Espresso Distress Spray Stain	Ranger Tim Holtz Ground Espresso Distress Ink Pad	Ranger Embossing Powder - Clear	Ranger Embossing Powder - Vintage Pearl
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Rubber Stamps - Entomology	Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Rubber Stamps - Stuff to Say	Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Pad - Antique Linen	Ranger Tim Holtz Mini Distress Ink Pad - Antique Linen	Miniature Ivory Sweetheart Blossom Flowers SAA-440
Deep Ivory Mulberry Paper Aster Daisy Stem Flowers SAA-378	Rayon Seam Binding	May Arts 1/2 inch Solid/Wrinkled Ribbon White	Tim Holtz Idea-ology Typed Tokens, Christmas	KAISERCRAFT Pearls - Self Adhesive - Snow