Wicked Wood

Servus and thanks for stopping by, dear crafty friend!

I have received my Tim Holtz Glass Media Mat yesterday - so I just HAD TO play on it! And I also had some newly bought Tim dies waiting to be tried out too. So I treated myself to a happy time at my craft desk with all my new (and some older) Tim Holtz goodies!

First of all I have to admit that until today....no, to be more precise: until that day last week when I found the Glass Media Mat at an Austrian online store (yay!!!! reasonable shipping costs!) and decided to order it right away - thus treating myself to some fancy up to date Tim Holtz goodness so I could be part of the hype (which is quite an inferior and vain motive...I know) - I had thought that I didn't really NEED it. I just WANTED it. ;)

But after my first play on it I have to say that buying it was the best decision I've ever made!!!! I have been using a paper palette and large sheets of white paper on top of a craft mat that I have glued onto my craft desk - and that has worked quite well - but this way I always had to switch from paper to craft mat to paper palette and they often got in each others ways and there was always one or the other to be put to the side (which isn't easily done as there's no space left to put anything from my desk to the side actually ;) .
Not to mention the amount of messy, sticky scrap paper that produced. Now I have it all in one place. No more paying attention to not wipe my paper palette off my desk! No more putting the large white sheet to the side to get to my non stick craft mat! And I have discoevered and enjoyed even some more advantages I hadn't even thought of when buying the Glass Media Mat! I am more than pleased with this new fantastic tool! Thank you, Mister Holtz!

The Tim Holtz Addicts facebook group is celebrating its fifth anniversary this week and you can enter a give away by sharing a project on there that is done with Tim Holtz products mainly. So I decided that was a good cause to use loads of Tim Holtz Distress Stains, Inks and Paints on the Glass Media Mat. Tim says it's a game changer - and it is indeed!

I came up with a spooky card, using the following Tim Holtz dies, stamp sets and Distress products:

- Entomology stamp set and dies set
- Falling Leaves stamp set
- Vintage Spirits dies
- Fall Foliage dies set
- Tangled Twigs die
- Distress paints: black soot, weathered wood
- Distress Oxides: broken china, fossilized amber, walnut stain, peeled paint, fired brick
- Distress Stains: tea dye, weathered wood, ground espresso, pumice stone, wild honey

The project was inspired by a photograph I have taken in the beautiful Vienna Woods.

It's a simple "running beetle" - at least that was the name I was told by a biologist when I showed him the picture and asked how this wonderfully amazing beetle is called.

He saw my face when he said "blue running beetle" and quickly added "but for you it is also called "Jewel of the Forest". ;)








So I tried to create the effect of a shiny "jewel" crawling in a forest thicket - shiny and blingy against the matte browns of the twigs and the soil and the fallen leaves.

I also wanted it to be a Halloween themed card - so I made my own Vintage Halloween word using the dies from the Vintage Spirits set and cutting some of the words apart to create the "wood".

But let's start at the beginning of my how-to:

I die cut the Tangled Twigs twice from some thin cardboard packaging.

Then I flipped one to the other side and painted both with Distress paints black soot...

...and weathered wood. The weathered wood was only dabbed on here and there and just lightly.

Using my (also newly bought) Tim Holtz stamp platform (which is the perfect tool for a mediocre stamper like me), I stamped two moths and my running beetle from the Entomology stamp set in black archival ink onto some white cardstock.

Then I picked the according dies from the Entomology dies set and die cut the moths and the beetle from a piece of plain cardstock.

I used the "stencil" that I had made this way to exactly place the dies on top of the stamped images. To do so I simply put the "stencil" in its exact position on top of the stamped image and fixed it with some masking tape. Then I kind of inserted the die into that stencil and ran that through my Big Shot.

That worked just smoothly! (I love that particular dies set so much!)

Time to inaugurate the palette on the Glass Media Mat and paint the die cut insects with Distress Stains!

I used hickory smoke Distress Ink and a bit of water on the glass palette to darken the visible white cutting edges with a detail brush.

My plan was to stack two layers of the die cut tangled twigs on top of a foggy background. I used Distress Oxides on the glass mat and turned another piece of grey packaging cardboard into this:

On some white cardstock I randomly blended fired brick, peeled paint, fossilized amber and walnut stain Distress Oxides and stamped some black leaf pattern on top using a leaf stamp from the Falling Leaves stamp set.

Then I die cut some leaves from that using dies from the Fall Foliage dies set. I used the pointy end of a cosmetic sponge to blend the leaves' edges with dark brown stamping ink.

I added some Liquid Glass (from the DecoArt media line) to the beetle's body and put it under the warm desk lamp bulb to speed up the curing process. I guess you get the same shiny and dimensional effect by using Glossy Accents.

To decide where all the die cut leaves and insects were to go, I played around a bit and used the plain white beetle die cut while the painted beetle was set aside to dry.

Using black sticky foam pads I stacked the two layers of thicket onto the background panel.

I used a paper from a Tim Holtz paper pad and the "wicked" and "boo" dies from the Vintage Spirits die set to create my "wicked wood". I die cut "wicked" twice and used the w and the d plus the "oo" from the "boo".

Using my drop shaped cosmetic sponge again, I blended the word's edges with hickory smoke Distress Ink.

Time to glue all the pieces in place! I used some tacky glue and more black sticky foam pads.

I finished the piece off by blending the edges with jet black archival stamping ink using a piece of blending foam. Done!

I am happy that I have managed to create the impression of an impervious thicket with the last brown leaves still clinging to the bare twigs, some moths fluttering through or maybe being trapped in it and my shiny "Jewel of the Forest" as the star of my make. I hope you like my card too!

Some close ups as usual (simply click on the images for a larger view):

Hugs and happy crafting!

And happy 5th Anniversary, Tim Holtz Addicts!

Claudia

xxx