Verona

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compendium of curiosties 3 challenge #2 - Distress Glitter gift card holder

Follow the challenge here:  compendium of curiosities 3

And my pinterest board here:  craftcupboard under the stars CC3C

Finished Gift card box

Used Tim Holtz picked raspberry, mowed grass, peacock feathers and pumice stone disress glitter.  Picked raspberry and peacock feathers stain.  Peacock feathers distress ink and paint.

Cut paper rounds to fit top and bottom.  Run through Zyron and stick them on cheese box

Ink side of bottom

wrap bottom with ribbon (also ran through the Zyron)

Paint side of top with distress paint (I used 2 coats and used drying tool after both),  Decorate as per above

CC Challenge #1

See the challenge here

My Pinterest board her

Italy Summer 2014 - Travelling Light - The towel of choice - Vatican Dress Code and doing laundry

This is a Peshtemal - A turkish towel.  It absorbs at least as well as your bath towel or beach towel.  It's very soft (100% cotton) dries quickly, it's large (68" x 38") and takes up very little room. Unless something better comes along, this is what we are taking to Italy.

1.  Towel of course

2.  coverlet/throw for sleeping

3.  Beach cover up - fold length wise in fourths and pin the corners togther

Open it up and see 2 arm holes 

put it on with the opening in the front

belt is optional

4.  Shawl to cover my arms, or sarong to cover my knees in cathedrals, especially the vatican.  They take the dress code seriously. 

5.  Always handy when dining Al Fresco

I think if Douglas Adams were around today to write us another book, he would switch from towel to Peshtemal.

Further to no. 4 -  If you don't want to go on the tour wearing tyvek - plan ahead. Besides requiring arms to be covered, the vatican does not allow shorts.  The same could be true at other  churches.  Worse, you have to pay for the tyvek pants. The day we were there, they had run out and we had to wait for someone to come out who was wanting to sell theirs.  Yikes on many levels.

I usually tour in a crinkle gypsy type skirt. It rolls up into a nice small ball and is meant to be wrinkled - great traveller - Very cool, very comfortable and passes dress codes.    Last time I was in Italy, cargo pants that convert to shorts were very popular, too.  Just zip the legs back on and pass right through.  They do require an extra pat down at the airport, if you wear them on the plane.

Here's the advice I will be following for washing.  The powder is really highly concentrated and rinses out very easily.  AND it's available at McCaffreys in Newtown right down the road from YOBC rehearsals.

PLEASE share with extra tips and tricks that you have for travelling light in summer weather in the comments below!  Every idea, no matter how small is a big help!.  Bon Voyage!

No autocad required

I mass produced these cards for our office Christmas party.  Since we are a designer-ish company, I thought these were fitting.  I remembered Tim Holtz (I just love that my Samsung galaxy note recommends Holtz as the next word after I Swype "Tim") talked about liking distress stain for quickly laying down color, so that's what I did.  The first part I cut was the holly so that I could get the Stickles berries drying.  I used mowed grass stainon white card stock and then stamped with black archival ink.  All the stamping was done with same archival by the way.  Then I got to cutting out 10.  I had stamped just the hat portion all aroud the sheet, so with the help of the magnetic platform it was a snap going back and forth through the vagabond.  Wash, rinse repeat, with the nose (spiced marmalade),  hat (used vintage photo and weathered wood - liked both), scarf (festive berries) and arms (well, gathered twigs of course)  Then, cut 10 tags from manila cardstock using the Tim Holtz sixxiz tag die and cut a bunch of grommets using same die and metal tape from the hardware store.  I stamped the entire image on the tag and then assembled, mostly using mounting tape.  The arms were glued on.  My only tip would be to keep an eye on all your bits, especially the noses.  If you craft like I do, you sometimes have a hard time finding little bits.  I kept a tin next to the vagabond while I was cutting.  Anyway, it,was fairly simple and easy enough to do quite a few

Stashing the stash - small stash hanging above the Vagabond

I picked this up at Restore for $1.  I think it was meant for VHS tapes??

Anyway, the top fits 6" pads.  The bottom 2 fit Tim Holtz 4.5 x 5.5 kraft-core, grunge board, Kraft glassine, Vintage Market note cards, Ranger gloss finish paper and other smallish things.  You can see I have my Tim Holtz stencils and Vagabond key guage hanging on the side. Pretty handy for a buck.

Stashing the stash Continued

The big question, when relocated the Craft Cupboard was which cabinets to start with.  We looked first at Ikea, because that is always our go to place.  We looked at Alex cabinets and altough we ended up with a couple later one, we decided against them for our main storage.  We opted instead for this line from Michaels.  The material is decidedly flimsier, but we felt it was strong enough to stand up to our supplies.  The drawers aren't on runners, but we considered that a plus.  While we are crafting, we can pull out the entire drawer, which is certainly convenient.  The other big deciding factor, was a typical craft room miracle.  The storage system was on sale for 40% off and we we had a 20% off entire purchase encluding sale items.  So.....there you go.  The next decision was which ones.  We bought some of each available, and again ened up with another craft room miracle.  It was amazing how well our stash fit into the various configurations.  The one above has 3 drawers.  They are perfect for TH on the edge dies, and decorative strips,  We also use them for the various cutting pads.  

See, perfect height for Tim Holtz on the edge and the decorative stips sit along side

The black box that you see on top hold this:

I've got daubers and crackle paints stored upside down, stickles, alcohol inks and a couple of the Ranger refillable pens.  Along side are my TH markers - stored horizontally as recommended.  The AI and stickles are in plastic containers (you can see 2 spares laying on their side under the markers).  I got them from blitsy.com.  If I can ever figure out who makes them, I'll update this post

This next one is absolutely perfect for sizzix bigz dies.  This is a stack of 2 cubes.

2 fit Bigz Dies side by side and there are dividers that hold 2 deep, so 4 per divider.  The long dies, like the TH tag die fit long ways , so 2 per divider.  I keep my dies in the plastic cover, but cut the top tabs off for easy access.

This next configuration we fudged by combining 2 different cubes, but we wanted the trays to rest on shelves so that they could be pulled out easier.

The trays are perfect for dis stainstress.  Stored like this, the right color is easy to grab.

Also perfect for Distress reinkers.  Also easy to spot the right color

The deepest one is great for heat embossing.  Embossing pads, reinkers, small jar of UTEE and all the other embossing powders.

The drawers underneath are great for the "this and that".    Again, it's great that when you're working on something, you can pull out the whole drawer, rummage, and stick it back in.  

The next stack has bin type drawers that that have hande cut outs on either side.  Top one holds adhesives of all types, The second has several electrical tools.  You can see the heat gun cord sticking out.  It's plugged into a power strip on the next to this stack.  This is located where I can just turn in my stool and grab the gun.  The third bin down holds different mediums....some dylusions sprays, gessos, muli-medium, VerDay.  The bottom bin is all things metal.  Rolls of metal tape, sheets of metal.  Metal hammer, and stamping alphabets.

For a pix of how these look in the room here's a photo

Here's some more shots of my die frames.  Some have galvanized steel sheets for movers and shapers.  Some have magnetic sheets to hold thin dies, like TH Framelits.  (Check my previous post for a tutorial of how I did a frame with magetic sheets.). 

 I've added some vintage tins, for small storage and to add some decor.  I attached them by just placing one of these thin basic grey magnetic snaps on the inside.   Holds like a dream.  You can see in the corner a tin holding some texture fades.

More to come.........