My First Distress Card aka Tim Holtz.

As it's holiday week still I was having a play yesterday - made quite a mess actually and distressed myself with the ink too, (it's only just washed off) and this is the result!! It's a large 8x8 card which I am sending to a young lady in the USA who has MS. I've had all the 'stuff ' for making this type of card for ages but have never really had a proper go with it. I love Tim Holtz products (I've got quite a few actually) but haven't made anything from them - I look a lot and then put it all away again! Anyway I thought you might like to see my latest effort. I shall try and describe how I made it now!

Backing Paper

I started with a sheet of My Mind's Eye paper and distressed the edge with Antique Linen ink. I then stamped over it using 3 different stamps and Vintage Photo ink. I brushed Heritage Gold perfect pearls over the whole sheet and it stuck to the inky bits. The cherub was stamped in black archival ink, clear embossed and coloured with distress ink and stickles. I over stamped some more flourishes and clear embossed these too to add texture. Finally I went around the edge of the sheet again with Vintage Photo.

Tag

I sponged all over the tag (cut from cream card on my Cricut from Gypsy Wanderings) with Wild Honey and Shabby Shutters and then spritzed it with a mix of water and the gold perfect pearls. I dried it and then added Vintage Photo to the edges. I stamped with Vintage Photo and then stamped the bird (look closely) with Perfect Medium and then brushed it all with Heritage Gold perfect pearls (they're gorgeous, so goldy and sparkly - excuse the English!). I used Vintage Photo ink on three Prima flowers and added Stickles Candy Distress glitter to the top one. The brad is a jewel one from Dovecraft. The word 'Hope' is cut on the Cricut from cream card and I triple embossed it using gold for the third layer.

Inspire

This was also cut on the Cricut from cream card. I sponged Wild Honey and Vintage Photo ink over it, spritzed it as before and stamped it using Vintage Photo. I triple embossed it with clear powder and threw in a bit of gold into the third layer.

I assembled the card with ribbon from a Crafty Ribbons grab bag and flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts. I used little yellow pearls (thanks Kaz) to finish it off.

The stamps I used were one corner stamp from Tim Holtz's Urban Tapestry collection and the others were from a beautiful large set of Clear Prima stamps (there's no name for the set on the packet sorry, but there are at least 15 stamps on the sheet) which I got from a sale at The Craft Barn. Hope you like it, I so enjoyed making it and will be making more again.

ps. Have done some research and the Prima stamps are a No2 set - you can see them here:

http://www.scrapshed.co.uk/catalog/prima-clear-stamps-crenee-p-9066.html

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