Speckled Egg Distress Monochromatic Card

Hello crafty friends! I hope your week is off to a good start. I'm sure many of you are already aware that a new Distress color has joined the family. If not, let me introduce you to Speckled Egg! This is the first of 12 new colors that will be joining the Distress Family over the next year and half. I was blessed to have the entire Speckled Egg Bundle sent to me by Tim Holtz and lovingly packed by Mario!

SPECKLED EGG DISTRESS MONOCHROMATIC CARD



Of course, as soon as it arrived I had to sit down and play. The result was a rather monochromatic card with nearly all of the new Distress products used. I made this card with my niece in mind, as she just graduated from 8th grade and this color is one of her favorites!


To begin, I created the base to my background on watercolor paper. I first sprayed it with Speckled Egg Distress Spray Stain, spritzed it with my Distress Sprayer and dried it with my heat tool. I then smooshed the Speckled Egg Distress Ink pad onto my non stick craft mat, spritzed the ink with water and then dragged and dipped my paper into the ink to create all the little speckles. Once the inking was completed, I made sure to dry everything completely with my heat tool.


The next step involved adding a little texture. I applied Translucent Distress Grit Paste through the Flourish Stencil.


While the paste was still wet, I sprinkled Speckled Egg Embossing Glaze over the area and then tapped off the excess. I then heat embossed the Glaze with my heat gun.



For a bit more interest, I decided to do some stamping. Here, I stamped one of the images from the Ledger Script using the Speckled Egg Distress Ink. I didn't stop there though. I also stamped the splatter stamp from the Spring Shadows stamp set with embossing ink and embossed it with Speckled Egg Embossing Glaze. 


I also spritzed the entire background with my Distress Sprayer and dabbed the water droplets dry.


Once the background was completed, I turned my attention to the focal point. Here I used the Bigz Tattered Butterfly. I die cut it from watercolor paper and then stamped it embossing ink using one of the images from the Baroque Stamp Set. Next, I sprinkled it with Speckled Egg Embossing Glaze and heat embossed it.


I then inked the edges with Speckled Egg Distress Ink and a touch of Old Paper Distress Ink. I also added this color to the very edges of the background paper and sentiment strip. Speaking of the sentiment, it is from the Tiny Text Stamp Set and is stamped in...you guessed it...Speckled Egg Distress Ink!


The design felt like it needed a little something more, so I added a bit of interest with a die cut strip of watercolor paper cut using the Crochet 2 Thinlits Die. This was lightly inked with Old Paper and then adhered to the card.


Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed this monochromatic card featuring the beautiful new Speckled Egg Distress products.

SUPPLIES


If you are interested in any of the products I used to create this card, you can find a full supply list below. This post contains affiliate links to Scrapbook.com and Simon Says Stamp. If you buy anything through my links, it adds no extra cost to you. I truly appreciate and thank you for your support! (If you're interested, you can see my full disclosure statement here.


Field Notes Tag Book

Hello friends! I'm back to share my latest project...a Field Notes Tag Book. This project was greatly inspired by tag books created by the amazingly talented Paula Cheney and Stacy Hutchison.

Paula first shared this tag book idea and then Stacy shared her take on it. After seeing both of them I was inspired to create my own version. It also gave me the chance to play around with more of the techniques I've fallen in love with after watching Tim's Saturday FB Live Demos. If you've missed any of them, you can check them all out over on Tim's blog.

I'm going to warn you now, this post is photo and information heavy. I wanted to share all the little details on the tag book with you, so I hope you don't mind.




CREATING THE BACKGROUNDS

Each of these tags was created specifically with this project in mind, but you can certainly grab already created tags from your tag stash to create your own version. I wanted a very color coordinated look, but don't be afraid to mix things up to fit your own style.

To get started, I die cut some #8 size tags from watercolor paper using the Framelits Tag Collection. Using Archival Ink in Vintage Photo, I stamped images on each tag using a mix of stamp sets including Flower Shop, Field Notes, Grunged, and Entomology.


I then picked out a stencil for each tag and and applied either Distress Texture Paste Matte or Crackle using a spatula. I know some makers have been sprinkling the embossing glazes onto the wet paste. I however, came up with a different look that I kind of like. 


Once the texture paste was dry, I lightly and gently rubbed an embossing ink pad over the raised texture. Next, I sprinkled the tag with embossing glaze, tapped off the excess and embossed it with my heat gun.  I love how areas of the tag are covered with embossing glaze and others aren't. This gives you space to ink and grunge up the tag even more. If you tend to be heavy handed, this technique might not be for you, but you can always give it a try and wipe the excess away if too much of the tag is covered up for your liking.


I added Weathered Wood and Peeled Paint Embossing Glazes to the tags. Once the embossing was complete, it was time to start grunging things up a bit!

Here you can see what some of the tags looked like before I started the grunging process. I only ended up using the Old Paper Spray Stain though.


During this step, I inked the tags, focusing the ink to the edges and open areas. I applied Distress Oxide Ink using a foam blending tool. On the green tags I used Peeled Paint and Forest Moss and on the blue tags I used Weathered Wood and Faded Jeans. I recommend starting with the lighter ink and then adding the darker ink. I then inked the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and spritzed each tag with water and then dabbed the water dry with a paper towel.

Unfortunately, I neglected to take photos of the next step where I added even more grunge using Distress Crayons. I applied a Walnut Stain over the stenciled areas on the green tags and Faded Jeans on the blue tags. I've learned so much recently about working with this medium and I really enjoy the depth and detail it brings out in project.


After I had completed the background for each tag and began assembling the tag book, I realized I didn't care for the back side to be left undecorated. For a quick and easy fix, I die cut some more tags from scraps of patterned paper and applied them to the back side of each tag using Collage Medium. I must thank my dear friend Katrina for this solution, who gave it to me during one of our crafty chats!

For complete details on how to assemble the tag book, please visit Paula Cheney's blog.



EMBELLISHING THE TAGS

Now that the tag book base is completed, the next fun step begins...decorating each tag! I didn't have any Photobooth pictures which is what Paula and Stacy both used, so I reached for what I did have and love...die cuts and stamps with flowers and butterflies!


I stamped all of the images using Black Soot Archival Ink onto watercolor paper. The stamp sets I used are Flutter, Field Notes, and Ticket Booth. I then either fussy cut them or used the coordinating dies to cut them out.

To color the butterflies, I used Distress Ink and a waterbrush. I tapped the ink pad onto my craft mat and then picked up the color with a waterbrush.  I used Faded Jeans, Stormy Sky, and Fossilized Amber Distress Ink.


For the tickets and other ephemera type images, I smooshed an Old Paper Distress Ink pad onto my craft mat, spritzed it with water and dragged and tapped the paper into the ink. I then dried it with my heat tool and if it needed more ink, I repeated the process. Next, I inked the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and a foam blending tool. I then finished them off by spritzing them with my Distress Sprayer and dabbed them dry.


The die cut flowers are from the Thinlits Wildflower Stems 1 and 2 Die Set and are die cut from watercolor paper. I used a waterbrush to apply Distress Ink to the stems and the petals using the watercolor technique I also used on the stamps.  I then added the tiny splatters with a fun little technique I accidentally discovered.

After watching Tim's videos, we have all learned how differently the glass mat works vs the non-stick craft mat for holding ink when you want to smoosh, drag or tap your paper into the ink applied there. He often spritzes the ink with water to get the ink to bead up more and even runs his finger through it to spread the ink out.  Well, while I was watercoloring I ran my waterbrush through the ink and saw that it created tiny droplets of ink, much smaller than the spritzing with the Distress Sprayer. I took the watercolored images and tapped them into the tiny ink dots and came away with these tiny ink specks, that I just love!



The woodgrain frames were created by die cutting a piece of watercolor paper using the Bigz Decor Frame Dies. To achieve the wood grain look, I embossed them with the 3D Lumber Embossing Folder. I then inked them with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and applied Walnut Stain Distress Crayon to pull out the texture.

The final embellishment are the die cut butterflies from the Scribbly Butterflies Thinlits. These are die cut from watercolor paper and then stamped with images from the Field Notes and Entomology Stamp Sets in Vintage Photo Archival Ink. I then inked them with Fossilized Amber Distress Ink.



TAG BOOK TIE CLOSURE

To create the tie closure on my tag book, I inked up some Hug Snug Rayon Seam Binding with Distress Sprays in Stormy Sky, Faded Jeans, Old Paper and a tiny bit of Walnut Stain.


I hope you enjoyed this detailed but lengthy share on how I created my Field Notes Tag Book. Here are a few more photos for you to enjoy.





SUPPLIES

This post contains affiliate links to Scrapbook.com and Simon Says Stamp. If you buy anything through my links, it adds no extra cost to you. I truly appreciate and thank you for your support!
(If you're interested, you can see my full disclosure statement here.)



In The Garden | Sizzix Chapter 2

Hello friends! I hope you all are hanging in there and staying safe and healthy. I'm doing my best to hang in there by staying busy and making sure I carve out time for creative play. It's hard to believe it's already May (my favorite month of the year wink! wink!) and Mother's Day is this weekend. Spring seems to be flying by for sure. Today, I'm sharing a spring like card just in time for Mother's Day or any spring celebration. My mom has a love of bluebirds and gardening, so I combined a bit of both using some of the Sizzix Chapter 2 dies to create a card for her.


Where should I begin? How about the cute little bluebird and wreath? I had so much fun creating this little die cut scene. To get started, I used watercolor paper to die cut all of the pieces. The bird is from the Feathered Friends Thinlets, the wreath is from the Funky Wreaths Thinlets and the flowers are from Funky Floral #1. If you didn't know, the wreaths were designed and sized to work with all the Funky Floral sets. Oh the possibilities!


Next, I watercolored them using Distress Inks and a water brush. To do this, tap the ink pad of choice onto your craft mat and use the waterbrush to pick up the color and apply it onto the paper. I find this to be such a relaxing and fun process, but I did cut and color the bird three times before I got him to look like I wanted!

Once all the watercoloring was finished, I added some pen details for a bit of interest. I'm still not sure if I like them, but it does seem to make the little details stand out.


Let's move onto the background paper behind the wreath. This was from a play session following one of Tim Holtz's Saturday Facebook Live in which he taught the Eroded Metallic Technique. Definitely one of my favorite new techniques! I cut it down to size and then added some machine stitching around the edge.

I then layered everything onto a piece of white cardstock that I embossed using the 3D Texture Fade Brickwork. I lightly inked over it with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink to bring out some of the texture and add a hint of color.


To give the bird and flowers a bit of dimension, I adhered them using double sided foam adhesive. I then finished off the card by adding a couple Clippings Stickers that fit the theme of the card.


Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about how this In The Garden Card came together. Now go get crafting!

SUPPLIES

This post contains affiliate links to Scrapbook.com and Simon Says Stamp. If you buy anything through my links, it adds no extra cost to you. I truly appreciate and thank you for your support! (If you're interested, you can see my full disclosure statement here.)




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