Keeping It Real

Happy Friday my friends, I'm sharing the "keeping it real" card I made with one of the Alcohol Ink backgrounds inspired by the Tim Holtz YouTube Live demo last Saturday and it doesn't matter how long you've been doing this craft stuff, it doesn't always go according to plan but hey, you can always fall back on Plan B and keep your fingers crossed or perhaps rely on Tim Holtz/Sizzix The Gent coming to your rescue.

I created the background on a panel of  5" x7" Distress White Yupo, dragged it through a puddle of Pitch Black, Mushroom and Slate Alcohol inks diluted with drops of Blending Solution and tapped the panel back into the inks to pick up the remaining inks. I inked the images from Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Distinguished with Alcohol Lift Ink and was pretty happy with the result apart from the umbrella which had lost most of it's detail and looked like a white blob in the middle of the card, my fault, wrong choice of stamp perhaps. While I contemplated a solution I inked the script from Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Entomology with Barn Door Distress Archival and that turned out too faint, so it was fast turning into one of those days.

So it was time for Plan B. I inked the image from Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Faded Type with Crackling Campfire Distress Oxide ink and stamped randomly over the background. Distress Oxide ink won't dry on a non-porous surface unless you heat emboss it, so a sprinkle of Campfire Distress Embossing Glaze and hey presto, we're back on track.

I decided to cover up the umbrella with die-cuts and who better to save the day than a dapper chap aka Tim Holtz/Sizzix The Gent. I coloured 2 panels of A2 Distress Watercolor card using Speckled Egg, Frayed Burlap and Black Soot Distress Oxide inks on one and Crackling Campfire, Frayed Burlap and Black Soot on the second and guess what, at this stage of the proceedings, the battery in my camera died. So before I gave in to the urge to give up and chuck the background in the bin, I die-cut and assembled The Gent and his umbrella,

with the help of Tim Holtz/Sizzix Reverse Action Tweezers or Squeezers from the new Shaping Kit which are just the ticket for picking up and positioning all those itty bitty fiddly diddly bits.

I tapped Distress Embossing ink pad lightly over and around the edges of an Idea-ology Quote Chip and sprinkled with Speckled Egg and Crackling Campfire Distress Embossing Glazes, tapping the back of the quote with my fingers to mix the powders, heat set and fixed in place with Distress Collage Medium Matte.

To finish I added Idea-ology Hardware Heads to the quote and background

I trimmed the panel to 4.3/4" x 6.3/4", fixed to a slightly bigger panel of white card and matted on to a 5" x 7" white card blank covered with Idea-ology BlackOut CardStock.

Have a great weekend whatever you have planned. I'll be back tomorrow at 1.00pm to share a special project and then I'm looking forward to heading over to Tim and Mario's at 9.00am PST 12.00pm EST or 5.00pm if, like me, you are in the UK for the exciting YouTube Live Saturday night party to reveal the NEW IDEA-OLOGY PRODUCTS, hope to see you there.

Hugs Kath xxx