Author name: Shari Trumbull

So here’s a throw back to  A Vintage Journey today for Annie’s Tic-Tac-Toe challenge— a la Tim Holtz, of course!!  You can find the game board at A Vintage Journey with inspirational projects that each of the Creative Guides made to fire you up!!

As we are winding down the Valentine’s Day weekend here in the US, I thought I’d share one last Valentine’s creation that I made using several moves on Annie’s Tic-Tac-Toe board.  I didn’t mean to use almost every square!! 😉

I only started out taking the Left-Vertical move of *Idea-ology/Paint/Foil Tape*.  Then as I started gathering my goodies, I found I was also moving Bottom-Horizontal with *Foil Tape/Texture Fades/Stains*.  And as easily as that, I found I had also moved Right-Vertical with *Ribbon-Twine/Die Cuts/Stains*.

I’m so glad that it’s OK with Annie if we make more than one move!!  🙂

One of my very favorite Tim Holtz-things to do is create my own backgrounds.  The process of blending and swirling and layering his inks, paints & stains has actually led me to not depend on decorative papers as I once did.  Believe me, I did not create the way that I do now, when I first started card making almost 18 years ago!  I was very clean and simple back then and OMG–smudge anything–Blasphemy!!  😉 🙂

I started my Tic-Tac-Toe project with layering color onto Tim’s Idea-ology Cabinet Card first.  I finger painted Picked Raspberry & Barn Door DPs randomly over the surface and heat dried.  Then I rubbed Tea Dye & Vintage Photo DIs over the painted surface and used my Hearts LS to add a few hearts here and there with Walnut Stain DI.  I finished with a spritz & flick of water to create those awesome water spots!!

Here’s the back of the cab card.  I didn’t stencil hearts on the back, but I did spritz and flick water spots to my hearts content!!  I love water spots (and paint splatters, too!)!!

I picked this lovely couple from Tim’s Found Relatives cards and tinted the woman’s blouse and barrette with my Worn Lipstick DM.  To age the image a bit, I lightly pulled my sanding block over the surface and edges and then inked with Tea Dye DI and my ink blending tool.

Here’s my little piece of embossed foil tape.  I almost had a “whoopsie” moment, not realizing how limited a supply of foil tape I have on hand.  This little strip represents one of the pieces I had left, which I had already embossed with polka dots.  Well, this is for Valentine’s Day and I wanted hearts!  I don’t have a heart texture fade or embossing folder, so I used my Hearts Layering Stencil and embossed the hearts that way!  OK–So, I may have cheated just a little bit!  But, using your Layering Stencils to emboss, is a great way to extend the usefulness of those stencils!

Here’s that same piece of foil tape, tucked neatly inside the cab card, next to the two Sweethearts!  That’s the love exuding from them 🙂 🙂

I used my Tattered Florals & Garden Greens dies to create my blooms and leaves.  I used a few different colors of card stock for the flowers and I used Tim’s Tissue Wrap to cut out the leaves.  I also layered the blooms with gesso’d & stained pieces of tulle.  I gave each flower a gumdrop center that I colored with Adirondack Alcohol Inks.

This corner was really fun to embellish!  It’s so frilly and girly–completely unlike me–although, I do love hearts and crystals and fun little trinkets!  Here, I’ve stained some seam binding with Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry & Barn Door Distress Stains and tied into this lovely little bow.  I adorned the hangar clip with a heart charm, red heart crystal, and key locket and glued into the tied bow.

I stamped the words using mini alphabet letter stamps (that I’ve had forever!) with Jet Black Archival onto previously stained manila stock.  I fussy cut and inked the edges with Black Soot DI and mounted onto black stock.  I fussy cut the mounted words and adhered to the cab card with matte gel.  I’ve also altered a couple of mini corners-the corners I used were the antiqued bronze finish-with Brushed Pewter DP.

My finishing touch was rubbing Black Soot DP onto all of the edges with my finger–kind of my ‘signed-sealed-delivered’ I’m done!!  🙂 🙂

If you haven’t made your move yet, you’ve still got time to play and enter your Tic-Tac-Toe creation at A Vintage Journey!!   The challenge is open until February 19th @ 6pm (GMT) and Country View Crafts is sponsoring the challenge with a voucher to their online store to the challenge winner!!

I’m so happy to have been invited to join in the game as a Guest Creative Guide–BIG THANKS to Brenda and all of the Creative Guides for having me in for a play or two or three!!  This was fun!!

Thanks for stopping by!!  Until next time–Stay Artsy Fartsy!!

SUPPLIES I USED:

• Tim Holtz/Idea-ology Items:  Cabinet Card Frame, Found Relative Card, Tissue Wrap; Gumdrops, Hangar Clip, Locket Keys, Heart Charm, Mini Corners, Jump Rings
• Paint & Stains:  Distress Paints, Inks, Stains & Markers (Tim Holtz/Ranger)
• Foil Tape (Inkssentials/Ranger)
• Texture Fades/Embossing Folder:  Polka Dots (Sizzix); Hearts Layering Stencil-in lieu of a Texture Fade (Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous)
• Ribbon/Twine:  Seam Binding (The Funkie Junkie Boutique)
• Die Cuts:  Tattered Florals & Garden Green Dies (Tim Holtz/Sizzix); Big Shot Machine (Sizzix); Silicon Pads
• Everything Else:  Archival Ink (Ranger); Ink Blending Tool; Craft Sheet; Heat Tool; Matte Gel; Hot Glue Gun; Sanding Block; Self-Healing Cutting Mat; Finger Knife (Fiskars)