Tag Archives: Tim Holtz

A Cut Above

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Happy New Year!!!!
For those who celebrate I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and the new year finds you fit and well and raring to go

I’m so excited to announce that I’m officially a Design Team member of A Cut Above. As the name suggests, it’s a challenge blog that celebrates die cuts, and as you may or may not know, I love me some die cuts!

Now, on to the January Challenge!  

The theme is always “Anything Goes With A Die Cut,” and this month, there is a strictly optional theme: “New.” Use the word “NEW,” to tell us about the something new, you used. There must be at least one die cut on your project from a manual or electronic machine no pre-fabricated dies are allowed.

So what did I make for our first challenge….



I used this fantastic Colorize die by Tim Holtz for Sizzix. I used Distress Oxides to colour him and popped him up with lashings of double-sided foam tape. Pretty easy to put together and there’s a video from Sizzix that helps especially for the likes of me who always have trouble getting the pieces in the right order.

We do hope you will join us at A Cut Above my teammates have created some incredible projects to inspire and delight and you’ll find all the details on our page on how to enter.

I’m also playing along with AAA Cards #281 which are asking for a CAS creation

Just Us Girls who are asking us to use dies

Wishing you all a fabulous week

Take care

Marie

The Flower Challenge “Sparkle”

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I’m so excited because I can finally share some fantastic news: As of today, I’m officially a Design team member of The Flower Challenge ! Yipeeeeee!!!!

I’ve been following their challenges for some time now and have been in awe of the super-talented ladies so it goes without saying that I’m as pleased as punch to join them.

So what do we have in store for you for the next month…

I’m sure we all have a little bit of sparkly goodness tucked away in our stashes although I did have to have a bit of a root around mine to track it down. I’m not really a sparkly gal but once I started playing there was no stopping me as my little Chi Molly will testify. She was one sparkly chihuahua herself for a few days, that stuff gets everywhere but so much fun.

Making the card was easy compared to trying to capture all of that sparkliness in a photo. I must have taken 100 shots practically hanging from the ceiling at one point but no pain no gain as they say.

I thought I would steer away from Christmas and go with this fantastic Painted Blooms die set by Spellbinders. I used glitter card for the bristles, distress oxides for the flowers and greenery with lashings of rock crystal embossing powder ( believe me it’s there !), and a few dabs of red stickles which have been in hiding for years at the back of a cupboard, I was pleasantly surprised they actually came out of their little bottle so easily. Fine Tec silver paint was added behind the brush for Xtra sparkle along with silver mirror card on the brush itself.

We do hope you will join us at The Flower Challenge my teammates have some amazing cards to delight and inspire and we would love to see your sparkly creations.

I’m also linking up to

Cut it Up #318 who are asking us to add ” Sparkle and Shine” to our cards which must include a die cut

A Cut Above Anything goes with Die Cuts

Wishing you all a fabulous week

Marie

Colorful Options Red,Green and Gold.

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Welcome back to another fun challenge at Colorful Options. First, a big thank you to all of the fabulous entries we had for our Red challenge. You really do make it difficult to choose winners.

Let’s embrace the festive cheer this December with a splash of red, green, and/or gold! We invite you to tap into your creativity and bring these classic holiday colors to life. Choose one, two, or all three—whatever inspires you most! Let your imagination run wild and see where these colors take you. Whether you’re drawn to the season’s rich, traditional hues or the stamps’ joyful energy, we can’t wait to see how this inspiration board sparks your designs. 

If these colors aren’t quite your style, don’t worry! You’re also welcome to join us with a rainbow-inspired craft. Have fun, and let yourself enjoy!

I made a couple of cards for this challenge utilising some of my new goodies.

I used a combination of dies, the Emerald Cut Labels dies from spellbinders for the frames with the coordinating shaker dome, and the snow person and snowflake are courtesy of Tim Holtz for Sizzix using The Vault Winter Wishes set. A smattering of snow and sequins inside the dome and a touch of embossing popped up on Kraft card.

For this card, I used Spellbinders Fresh Picked Labels dies and a coordinating shaker dome filled with sparkly snow, the candles and greenery are also from Mr Holtz’s Winter Vault series which are the perfect size to fit inside the domes.

We hope you will join us at Colorful Options as the Design Team has once again outdone themselves.

In other news, I’m posting a little late as we had a major storm here in Greece over the weekend which cut our power and flooded our home an absolute nightmare but hopefully, the worst is over.

I’m also linking up to the following challenges.

AAA Colorful Challenges Colorboard #10

Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge #482

NBUS #69 sharing with Darnell and the gang as everything on both cards are brand spanking new.

Well, that’s all for me, wishing you all a fabulous week our heating has just come back on so am off to have a lovely hot shower!

Take care

Marie

Colorful Options August Challenge Yellow-Green

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Welcome back to a new challenge at Colorful Options but firstly thank you so much for so many wonderful entries for our Flags challenge for July you really do make it difficult to choose our winners.

This month, we challenge you to use the color yellow-green.  This palette incorporates yellow, green, and yellow-green. If this palette is not to your liking, join us with a rainbow-inspired craft instead. 

I knew immediately what I wanted to make for this challenge and even though this isn’t a color combination I would usually go for I really like the result.

I used one of my favourite flower dies from Honeybee stamps lovely layers roses which I coloured with Distress Oxides in twisted citron and squeezed lemon. The mason jar is courtesy of Sizzix and is filled with a few sequins from my stash. Unfortunately due to the glare from the plastic I had to sacrifice the clarity of the Tim Holtz sticker sentiment.

Here’s a second card I threw together just for fun made using my Cameo the banana is cut and popped up with foam for dimension and coloured with Distress Oxides and a splash of water. Not one of my best but I made it so I’m posting it hahaha. Once again the sentiment isn’t very clear and I can’t even complain about the glare from the plastic this time just bad photography on my part.

We do hope you will join us at Colorful Options the DT has some amazing cards to delight and inspire and we look forward to seeing your amazing projects in our gallery. Don’t forget you can enter with any crafty medium from crochet to woodwork and anything in between.

Take care

Marie

Colorful Options Peach

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Hello lovely crafters. I’m back today with some happy news. A little while back I was a winner at Colorful Options for this card for their pastels challenge. I was so excited to win as there were so many amazing entries. As a result of my win, I was invited to be their guest designer for June for their Peach Challenge.

Now peach isn’t exactly a go-to colour for me and I thought I would struggle but to be honest I even surprised myself at how quickly my card came together so much so that I made two!

The bear is from the Colorize series by Tim Holtz for Sizzix I used shades of Saltwater Taffy Distress Oxide to ink up the pieces and background and added a couple of splashes of water. The bow tie is from another Tim Holtz set as I felt my bear was looking a little underdressed for the occasion.

For my second card, I used the Stylish Ovals Hello You Floral dies from spellbinders to cut the flowers and oval frame which I layered up to give dimension. I watercoloured the flowers using a combination of Saltwater Taffy and Carved pumpkin Distress Oxides. The florals were attached to an Altenew cover die Starburst Florals. I really enjoyed making this card watercolouring is not something I do very often but I found it rather therapeutic and I will definitely be doing a lot more in the future.

Do pop over to Colorful Options as the design team has created some amazing cards to inspire and delight and there are so many ways you can go using their mood board.

Take care

Marie

Things with Wings!

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Just popping in with a quick card for a few challenges as I was particularly inspired by a new challenge blog (to me) how remiss, over at Sparkles Monthly Challenges. Their theme for this month is “Things with Wings” The Design team has created some beautiful cards full of inspiration and the gallery is filled with creative fabulousness.

I used this huge butterfly die cut by Tim Holtz called Perspective and it really is HUGE. I applied several layers of embossing powder in black all over and some hot pink in the centre. Behind the butterfly are layers of Distress Oxide spritzed with plenty of water, Nuvo crystal drops in black, and a Tim Holtz sentiment sticker in the middle to finish off.

I’m also playing along with NBUS as my butterfly has never been used before, mainly because I was so scared of it’s size.

Triple B who are asking us to feature Birds, Butterflies, Blooms, or all three

Do pop over and check out the aforementioned blogs as there is something for everyone plenty of creative beauty to get those crafting juices going.

Take care

Marie

Less is More #481 Anything Goes

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Welcome back to another challenge at Less is More. For the next fortnight, we’re not limiting your imagination to any particular theme but we are asking that you keep your cards clean and simple.

Well if you’re anything like me being given free reign with a theme tends to end up with plenty of cards on my desk and not being able to decide which one I like best so I will be sharing two with you today.

Not the best of photo’s but the weather this week in Greece is rubbish rain and misery just in time for Greece’s Easter celebrations !! I used the Tim Holtz die set Robots it’s one of my favourites as you can mix and match the pieces to make your own creation. I partially coloured the base with Distress Ink in Pumice stone added a sentiment sticker from Idea-ology some googly eyes and all done.

Another rubbish photo taken indoors in bad lighting, it was difficult to catch the gold hot foil on this one. I used the Pinkfresh Studios Folk Art birds glimmer plate and stencils which were coloured with Distress Oxides then die cut and popped up with foam and positioned behind the heart aperture. Another sentiment sticker and all done.

We do hope you will join us at Less is More once again my team mates have outdone themselves so lots of lovely inspiration in our gallery.

I’m linking my robot card to Happy Little Stampers for their Anything Goes with Dies Challenge.

It’s Easter here this weekend In Greece my most favourite holiday celebration and usually signals my first swim of the year in The Med. Not this year it’s all rain, rain and more rain plus Mr P has ” man flu ” so we will be staying put and feeling sorry for ourselves and I will be catering to his every whim(not).

Take care

Marie

Flowers

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Just popping in with a quick card, which actually wasn’t that quick to make in fact it took ages! So many die cuts on this card most of which went on the floor, on the dogs and to be honest on my nerves. Once I got cutting I couldn’t stop and then I couldn’t quite decide on the colour combinations I liked, you know how it is when you have millions of pieces and non of them seem to work together, and then when I did decide on the colours I liked I couldn’t decide on the placement !!! So without further ado here is my annoying floral offering.

The flowers are from Spellbinders Be Bold Blooms collection, The Umbrella and sentiment and distress oxide are from Tim Holtz and the butterfly is from Pinkfresh studio which has been hot foiled, stenciled, and die cut, plus a few gold blobs just because I felt like!

I’m entering a few challenges with this card hoping that someone out there will recognise my pain and cheer me up with an encouraging word or two.

Triple B challenge is asking for birds, blooms, and butterflies or any of each

Time Out Challenge has the above photo inspiration

Colourful Options who are asking us for pastel colours

Craft Rocket Challenge is asking for lots of lovely layers


All of their galleries are jam packed with floral goodness so I do hope you are as inspired as I am.


For those of you that celebrate wishing you a very happy Easter and hope the weather is being kind to you. Here in Greece, we celebrate next week and just as well as the weather is rotten more like winter than spring.

Take care
Marie

Hearts !

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It’s such a long time since I’ve posted due to Christmas shopping hours (we have a jewellery shop) and a very longggggggg bout of the flu I didn’t have the energy or the inclination to create. I’m back now with a card for a few challenges as I just adore hearts and this is the time of year when I get to use my favourite products and some new ones that have been sitting on my desk now for a few weeks.

I absolutely adore this Tim Holtz Robotics die I received it recently it’s quite an old one and I was amazed at the possibilities. There are lots of individual pieces so you can create your own cute or not so character. I used distress inks applied directly to my glass mat spritzed them with water and dragged my card through it. When dry I flicked on some gold paint and then embossed with clear embossing powder.

The Little heart is also by Tim Holtz called faceted heart I used the same colouring method as described above and then adhered it to my little robot’s chest. A couple of Pinkfresh gold blobs and A Tim Holtz sentiment and Ta-Dah! My cute (well I think so robot is born).

I’m entering the following challenges

Tic Tac Toe I used heart,free and die cut

Cardz for Guys A valentine for Guyz !!

The Sisterhood of Crafters Who are asking us to use hearts

NBUS Challenge #47 as neither of the above dies have been used before.

Do pop over to the fabulous blogs above to see the amazing creations by both design teams and the amazing entries in their galleries and I loof forward to catching up with you all.

Take care

Marie

Sparkle

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Just dropping in with a quick post and entering a few challenges new to me, well not actually new to me but I’ve never entered either before.

Tic Tac To is one of the challenges that I have wanted to enter for such a long time but by the time I get myself together, it’s either over or just like playing the lotto I’m one number short !!!! well, you know what I mean. Today I finally managed to get all three components required to play along.

I’m playing along with the centre line, layers, arctic animal and colouring. Does it matter that my arctic animal is blue? (could be from the cold) This cute bear is by Tim Holz for Sizzix lots of lovely fiddly, tiny pieces to get lost on my desk. My arctic bear was coloured with Distress Oxides in Aged Patina and Picked Rasberry spritzed with water. I decided he needed some fancy gloves and a scarf to give extra layers and of course a little glam I used some glitter card for those. The embossing folder is also courtesy of Mr Holtz coloured with Picked Raspberry Distress Oxide and embossed with Wow bonding powder and then sprinkled some chunky glitter on top. The bonding powder really helps the glitter to stick and stay put. I added some white Nuvo drops to give the impression of snow and there you have it!

Here is the same bear but just a tad of colouring on his scarf and funky Tree, die again by Mr Holtz for Sizzix.

I’m also entering into Simon Says Stamp “Add Some Sparkle” challenge first time playing along here I’ve always been intimidated by this challenge but why not it’s Christmas and I’m feeling adventurous!

Do pop over to Tic Tac To and Simon Says Stamp as they have amazing cards to inspire in their galleries and the DT’s have pulled out all of the stops.

Wishing those who celebrate a fabulous Christmas and Look forward to seeing you all in the new year.

Take care

Marie