Learning the Hard Way!

I made this card ALL WRONG!  See those little dark dots on it?  Well, those are smashed "crystals"!! (who knew they were plastic and they could be made to be so flat?!)   Lesson learned, don't run them through a die cutter!  The problem was I ran the blank cardstock through the machine just so I could see a new embossing folder, then I added the crystals, very cute.... but then it all went a muck,  I decided that I wanted to add a window using a Spellbinders scalloped oval ... mistake!  But, live and learn.  I guess I could have peeled them off and added more but I decided to go the cheap route and just added some Stickles on top of each, along with adding it to all of the dots inside the diamonds.  Unfortunately, you can't see any of that :-(  it really does add a cute little sparkle to the card.

Linked to:

Make It Monday #150: Window Screen Cards

Tim Holtz's Brick Wall Die

It all started with this die:

It is a Tim Holtz die from Sizzix.  LOVE IT! LOVE IT!  

BUT....

when you cut it out it is the martyr between the bricks which makes perfect sense but not so much when you try to use it... not to me anyway.  The problem is, if you just lay it down on paper it will be higher than the actual brick, and that isn't "real"... not in the South anyway... here the brick sticks out further than the martyr.  Problem... so, I look all over the web in search of something someone else might have done to fix the problem...nothing...not even on Tim's personal blog.  Well yesterday I had a "suddenly, WELL DUH!" moment.  I cut the die out of a Lean Cuisine box (have lots of those these days) and used it like you would use any stencil you buy.  I don't have any of the paste that is made for 3-d embossing so I improvised with what I had: (a LOT of)

I slathered it on nice and thick with my finger, then instead of smoothing it out with something I patted it to make it rough, more brick like.  Then because I have no patience I took my heat gun to it and that caused it to bubble up a bit, even better! 

The two pictures below are just WEIRD because they make it look exactly opposite of what it actually is!  

- The very top of the first picture is one I made with just paper and in this picture it actually looks that I would want it to look!...but not in real life.

- the middle is just the "stencil" right after I used the tile adhesive and it gives the appearance of raised bricks!  NOT!...just the opposite

- the bottom was the PERFECT results but in the picture the bricks look recessed... ???

Closer:

Now.... how I used it and pictures that maybe show it a little bit better:

Well heck, not really ... you'll just have to take my word for it I guess, the bricks stick out about 1/8".

The solid strip of "concrete" across the top is actually 1 bump cut from a piece of corrugated paper and colored gray.

OH! and I colored the bricks with BIC permanent markers.

Products Used (with links to where to buy them):

InLinkz.com

Make It Monday #148

Today I worked on a card using a technique introduced on the Papertrey Ink Challenge this week.  

Make It Monday #148: Generation Stamping with Line Images & Multiple Colors

There is a video showing what they wanted anyone participating in the challenge to do, and using their stamps was required.

The technique produces the image in the middle of the card below.  It requires line stamps and lots of re-stamping with three different colors for each element.

I only have the one line stamp set that I just got yesterday.  

Stitches & Swirls Stamp Set  

I'm not too crazy about using the technique with this stamp set but I do LOVE the set!  I was able to make the background card using three different stamps from the set and I could tell that there is real potential there, I'm looking forward to doing more with them.

I will add the "link-to" product list to the bottom of the post when I have more time.  That really does take more time than I can give it tonight.

The main reason I do these challenges is that there are TONS of new stamps being made available tomorrow (Jan 15) and I want most of them!  I need to win the random selection to get some store money!!!!