To say that the first collection of Tim Holtz Mixed Media Thinlits was popular is a bit of an understatement so it was only a matter of time before we were treated to to the second instalment (which will be quickly followed by the third next month!)......
Before I start, I wanted to give you a little update on my Trip to Maribor in the beautiful country of Slovenia. I spent a couple of days teaching workshops and I hope we learned some cool new techniques while having a bit of fun at the same time. It was my sixth time in Slovenia so it was lovely to catch up with people I have met before and make some new friends at the same time.
The workshops take place on the concourse of the Europark shopping centre, a unique concept which really works well. The various tutors made up a truly international field and the classes were very diverse including felting, painting, papercrafts and jewellery making. If you every fancy a trip to Maribor then this is the week to go.
Here is a picture of me and the gang with our pirate cards which I showed last week, if you hadn't guessed, I'm the one in the middle making the pirate face!!
So a big thank you to Mihaela, Primoz and their wonderful team of dedicated staff including Maya who was such a great help over the three days, it's so good for the soul to be immersed in such a fun and creative environment.
So, let's get busy!!!
This week I'm keeping it simple and graphic, next week we will be using the dies as originally intended and I'll be breaking out the pastes, inks and acrylics!
The set contains three dies and you can click on the link below to find out more.....
You can see the three dies in the collection above and I started with the flower die, some pink and grey card and some of my favourite sentiment stamps (Heidi Swapp). I cut a 12 x 12cm square of pink card and rounded the corners using my Crop-a-Dile Corner Chomper. after positioning the die against the pink card I die-cut the aperture. The idea of these dies is to use the negative image as above or as a stencil. I stamped the sentiment using dark grey ink which is a little softer than black and this makes all the difference to me at least.
As you can see I mounted the square onto the base card using adhesive foam pads so that the play of light and shadow becomes a factor in the finished design.
Next, I cut a rectangle of grey card and rounded off the corners with my punch before adding the die-cut detail in the top left hand corner.
I attached the grey rectangle to the base card again using the 3D foam pads before adding my stamped sentiment. so simple!
I folded a 10 x 15 cm grey base card and used this gorgeous swirl die to create the detail after which I backed the base card with a rectangle of pink card before rounding off the top right and bottom left hand corners with my punch.
The phrase was stamped onto grey card before being cropped with a Framelits circle die which was then matted onto a die-cut pink circle and added to the card using a 3D foam pad.
I have said on many occasions in the past how inspiration can come from anywhere and everywhere at any time. I was walking with my wife through a shop the other day when I spotted the dress shown below so I stopped and took a quick photo (I get the funniest looks!)
As soon as I saw the dress I knew what to do as I had been thinking about my next blog all that week (and you thought I just made it up on the spot!)
I have numbered the photos above to make it a little easier to understand the steps.
- I die-cut the flower roughly in the centre of a 9 x 18 cm white rectangle and the centre of a larger black rectangle.
- I cut the white rectangle in half retaining the bottom half.
- I die-cut further detail in the top of the black rectangle and bottom of the white rectangle.
- I attached the white rectangle to its black counterpart by matching up the centre die-cuts.
- Finally I placed black card behind the white and vice versa before cropping to size (18 x 9 cm)
After rounding off the corners I mounted it onto a pink base card, also with rounded corners. I stamped the word 'smile' onto white card and cropped with a Framelits circle die before matting onto a die-cut silver circle.
All the cards are very simple to create and make a bold graphic statement. Next week i will use the same dies but in a very different way!
Thanks for stopping by, see you all next Wednesday.
2 thoughts on "Media Savvy!"