Tammy Tutterow

True Love Quilty Heart Tag

2012-02-27T08:00:00-06:00

Today there are two parts to the tag I am sharing. First here, I am sharing this tag and talking about how I created the background. The second part is a tutorial for the quilted heart that I am sharing on the Therm O Web Adhesives blog. You can find the tutorial for the heart at http://thermoweb.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/die-cut-fabric-embellishments/.

I love how the background of this tag looks! It was so seriously easy too! I started by embossing a manila tag with the new Tim Holtz Sizzix Alterations Harlequin Texture Fade.

I applied pink and light blue PanPastels to the raised areas on the tag. I added Vintage Photo Distress Ink to the edges, blending it lightly up onto the front of the tag. I inked a script stamp with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and stamped the tag randomly on the raised areas.

To embellish the tag I added a quilted die cut fabric heart. The instructions of how I created the heart and how I added some distressing to it can be found in the tutorial on the Therm O Web blog: http://thermoweb.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/die-cut-fabric-embellishments/.

I wrapped some dyed crinkle ribbon (dyed with Broken China Distress Stain) around the tag and heart and tied it off in a simple knot. I cut a tie from Grungeboard with the Tag & Tie die. I colored the tie with Picket Fence Distress Ink. After drying the tie I inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I added the word "true" with my beloved Hero Arts Printer's Type LC stamps and Jet Black Archival Ink.

InLinkz.com

Wonderful Things Matchbook

2012-02-24T11:39:30-06:00

I am back today with another project from CHA-W that I created for Tim Holtz for the Sizzix booth. I really love all of the new Alterations releases, but this matchbook set may be my favorite. These little books are so fun and quick to create!

For this book, I cut one of the wider matchbooks from Grungepaper. I colored the Grungepaper using Broken China and Picket Fence Distress Stains. I misted the stains with water to help them blend. After drying the Grungepaper with my heat tool, I inked the edges and folds with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I made pages for the inside from dictionary print paper from the Lost and Found Paper Stash. I used a ruler to create a torn edge. I inked the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. If you are not very handy with tearing pieces against a ruler, you can cut them with a paper trimmer and then use an edge distressing tool to give the edges a worn and torn look.

After inking, I stacked the pages together with a small amount of adhesive along the bottom edge to hold them together. (I added photos to the pages after the outside of the book was finished.)

I placed the pages inside my cover and machine sewing along the very bottom of the outside of the book to bind the pages in place. Just above the sewn line, I punched two holes through the assembled book to match the holes on a Word Band. I added a bit of adhesive to the back of the Word Band to hold it in place.

I fed a piece of dyed crinkle ribbon through the holes in the back of the book bringing them to the front of the book.

I then wrapped the right end around the back of the book so that I could tie it off in a knot on the left edge of the book.

To embellish the cover, I added a piece of the dictionary print paper torn so that it was slightly smaller than the front over. After inking, I adhered it in place with adhesive. I then tore and inked a smaller piece of the butterfly print paper from the Crowded Attic Paper Stash. After adhering it in place, I sewed around the inner inside edge with a sewing machine. After sewing, I added a File Tab with the word "things" to the left edge of the cover.

Finally, I added a W cut from Grungeboard with the new Word Play alphabet die (seriously a must-have die!). I colored the letter with Peeled Paint Distress Stain. I inked the edges of the letter with Walnut Stain Distress Ink after drying the stain. I added a layer of Glossy Accents to the top of the letter. After the Glossy Accents was dry, I stapled a Chit Chat Sticker with the word "wonderful" to the top of the letter. I adhered the finished letter onto my cover.

InLinkz.com

Farewell Google Friend Connect-

2012-02-23T08:00:00-06:00

This message is for my readers who follow through Google Friend Connect. If you are a subscriber through a different service, please disregard this message. I will be back a bit later today with a pretty post, for now though, a tiny bit of housekeeping. . .

March 1 is rapidly drawing near, which means blogs not hosted on Google's Blogger will no longer be able to participate in Google Friend Connect service.

Google Friend Connect—Friend Connect allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code. We’re retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites on March 1, 2012. We encourage affected sites to create a Google+ page and place a Google+ badge on their site so they can bring their community of followers to Google+ and use new features like Circles and Hangouts to keep in touch. (Source)

Since my blog is hosted on Typepad, that means that if you follow my blog updates through Google Friend Connect you will no longer be able to do so. No worries though, I have several other ways for you to subscribe, so please take a moment and update your feed subscription choice.

If you are on Facebook, you can follow me through my Tammy Tutterow/Fairy Davis page or through Networked Blogs. You can also sign up through Feedburner. Feedburner gives you several different options to get updates through different reader services or to your email. If you blog on Typepad, you can also follow me on Typepad.

You can also subscribe by email by simply entering your email address in the box on the left sidebar.

Hopefully all of my Google Friend Connect friends will choose one of the other subscription options to keep up with me. I would hate to lose any of you!

Art Journal: Forgiveness

2012-02-21T10:57:20-06:00

The super sweet and amazingly talented Courtney Walsh invited me to take part in a wonderful special event on her blog celebrating the release of her novel A Sweethaven Summer. I chose to create a project on the topic of forgiveness. I had a very personal reason for choosing that topic and shared a bit about that on Courtney's blog.

I generally don't share much persoanl stuff here, so I will just focus on sharing some project details. I will say that as I worked on this page and re-visited my art journal after not creating a page for it in a long time, I remembered what I love about art journaling. . . there is not right or wrong to it. For a long time, I resisted the urge to create what I would consider an art jouranl because I am not a journaler. I imagined that to "art journal" you needed to be introspecitve and write about what you were feeling about whatever was prompting your page. With the help of two amazing friends and incredible art journalers (Dyan Reavely and Dina Wakely), I found that wasn't true, art journaling could be anything I wanted it to be. It is completely mine to do how ever I want. For me, that means that I may make a page that just looks like a pretty little piece of inky stampy art to someone else, but to me, it may tell a story told through the colors, images, and techniques I choose. I usually choose a quote or phrase to capture my mood rather than journaling. I find that no matter how long of time has passed, when I re-visit the page, I still know just what I was thinking. There is something grand and amazing in all of that and in what art and creativity gives you as you move through things, events, and phases in life.

The base of this page is a cardstock weight paper with notebook lining printed on it. I came in the binder that I used for my art journal.

I inked the new (and fabulous) Tim Holtz wood grain stamp with Walnut Stain Distress Stain and stamped the image onto my page. I love stamping with the stains because they give a very fluid looking image. In some areas the image will be sharp and others it will be runny.

After drying the woodgrain image, I blended Stormy Sky and Faded Jeans Distress Ink on the edges and onto the face of the page. I used Black Soot on the edges only to give a sharp edge. I like the way that the color goes from dark to light in the center.

I stamped a strip of vellum with the butterfly stamp strip from the Papillon stamp set using Jet Black Archival Ink. After the ink was dry, I colored the butterfiles with assorted colors of Distress Markers.

Because I wanted a very fluid look, I misted the colored butterflies with water. The markers react and move with water, which makes the color move and blend. I dried the vellum with my heat tool. The heat tool warped and crinkled the vellum up a bit, which was perfect for the feel I wanted to achieve. I inked the torn side edges of the vellum with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

Before adhering the vellum strip, I stamped my phrase on the page using Jet Black Archival Ink and Hero Arts Printers Type Uper and Lowercase alphabet stamps.

At the bottom I used a combination of Hero Arts Playful Flowers Alphabet stamps along with the Printers Type Lowercase Alphabet. I also hand wrote a little. I have nice handwriting I think but for some reason it kills me to use it on a project.

After the quote was done I adhered the vellum strip to the page and added sewing along the top and bottom. I love the way the words show through the vellum. I think of it was the truth being there but not always being super clear.

InLinkz.com

Her Dreams Take Flight

2012-02-18T08:00:00-06:00

When I saw the new Destinations paper stash and the vintage luggage pattern, I knew that I wanted to make a suitcase style shadow box using a Configurations box. For the photos inside, I turned to my sweet friend Chelle who had recently take a special trip with her daughter. I let the project be a surprise for her when we got to CHA.

To create the shadowbox, I removed all of the inside boxes from the Configurations and discarded them. I covered the exterior of the box with one of the suitcase pattern papers with PeelnStick Adhesive Sheets. After sanding the edges, I inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

After covering the outside of the box, I added Box Corners to each of the front box corners.

Along the sides, I added travel style stickers. I colored strips of cloth medical tape with Brushed Corduroy Distress Stain to apply to the back edge of the box to simulate the trim on a vintage suitcase.

To add a handle, I salvaged one off of a dented tin lunch box style tin box that I had in my stash. After finishing the outside of the box, I used some SuperTape to adhere the clear insert in place over the opening.

I dabbed Snow Cap Paint Dabber onto a word key and two Regal Adornments wings. I used a dry cloth to wipe the paint off leaving the paint in the recessed areas of the pieces. I used a Tim Holtz Drill Punch to make two holes in the tops of the two wings. I used a jump ring to attach the two wings and the key to a Swivel Clasp. I used 3D Zots to adhere the assembled piece in place on the top of the box.

I lined the inside of the box with the street grid pattern paper.

I created two photo mats for my photo by covering two pieces of Grungeboard with papers from the collection. I added machine stitching to both mats. I adhered my photo to the first mat and added Chit Chat Stickers along the edge of the photo. I adhered the first mat to the second larger mat with adhesive foam squares. The assembled two layers of mats was adhered to the center of the inside of the box with adhesive foam squares.

In the lower right corner of the large photo, I added a smaller photo matted on a scrap of cardstock. The small photo was adhered to the larger photo with adhesive foam squares.

I used another of the travel stickers adhered to scrap cardstock to embellish the small photo. I adhered it with adhesive foam squares. I added a Gem Clip and enameled Foliage cluster also.

I embellished the top of the small photo with a second cluster of enameled Foliage and another Gem Clip. I am so happy with the finished project and pretty sure that my sweet friend loved it too. I hope that it will always be a fun reminder of her special trip.

InLinkz.com

Super Cute Stamp2Cut Tag

2012-02-17T08:00:00-06:00

I am blogging on the Sizzix blog today. I am sharing this super cute little girlie tag that I made for CHA using the new Tim Holtz Stamp2Cut cartridges for the eclips, as well as the new Word Play and Tag & Tie die. I hope you will come by and check out the tag and all of the how-to details!

Wednesday Winners!

2012-02-15T13:18:20-06:00

Thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a comment on my post last Wednesday celebrating 45 years of Fiskars scissors! I really loved reading all of the comments about everyone's memories of Fiskars and laughing at the stories of "orange handled haircuts"! It was comforting to know that so many of us went to school with that same haircut!

I have used the magic random number generator to select three winners.

I have each of the winners. Again, thank you all for taking the time to leave a comment. I truly appreciate your visits here !

For My Love Matchbook

2012-02-14T08:00:00-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day! Today I am sharing another CHA project today. This project has a love theme so I thought it would be perfect for sharing today for Valentine's Day.

Using the new Matchbook Set die, I cut one of the taller matchbooks from grungepaper. I colored the grungepaper with Worn Lipstick and Barn Door Distress Stains. I applied 2-3 coats of the two colors of stain randomly on the grungepaper, drying with a heat tool between each coat. After the grungepaper was dry, I sanded the surface of the grungepaper with a sanding block. Sanding gave the surface a very worn soft velvety finish. After sanding I brushed all of the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I cut a lace strip from manila cardstock using the Vintage Lace die. I dabbed Old Paper Distress Stain onto the paper lace strips to add color variation. After drying the strips, I brushed the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I adhered on piece of the paper lace to the underneath side of the front lower flap with SuperTape. I added a machine stitched line through the grungepaper and paper lace.

After adding my cardstock pages to the inside of the matchbook, I pierced three holes through the assembled book using a Crop-a-dile tool. I placed brads through the holes, flattening the brads on the back of the book. I added a strip of paper lace adhered with SuperTape to the back of the book to cover the brads.

I die cut a heart from grungepaper. I colored it as before with Distress Stains. After it was dry, I sanded it a bit more than I did the cover so that it would look more worn and stand out from the cover. I inked the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Stain. I adhere the heart to the cover of the matchbook and sewed around the edges. On top of the heart, I used my Tiny Attacher to adhere a ticket I made with manila cardstock, the Ticket Strip die, and a blank ticket stamp from the Odds and Ends stamp set. Like the paper lace, I colored the manila for the tag with Old Paper Distress Stain and Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I used my {beloved} Hero Arts alphabet stamps to add a title to the ticket.

I attached a ticket to each inside page with a different redeemable gift stamped on each.

Each of the cardstock pages inside has a row of Xs and Os embossed and stamped along the top edge. I used the X stitch embossing folder from the Patterns and Stitches Texture Fades set to create the row of Xs. I used a small letter O stamp to stamp the Os in between the Xs with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I brushed Walnut Stain Distress Ink along the edges and on the raised X border of each page.

I love the way this little matchbook turned out. It was simple to make and would make such a fun and heartfelt gift for someone. I am thinking about pretending that the hubby gave me this booklet and trying to redeem the tickets from him! I really would love to have the maid service and spa day on those tickets!

InLinkz.com

You Are Just My Type

2012-02-13T08:00:00-06:00

I am blogging today on the Sizzix blog and sharing the details about this card I made for CHA featuring the new Tim Holtz Alterations Vintage Typewriter die. You can find the card and details here: http://sizzixblog.blogspot.com/.

Quick and Easy Coin Purse from the Tim Holtz Tag Die

2012-02-12T08:00:00-06:00

I have a new tutorial posted today on the Therm O Web Adhesives blog showing how to make this super quick and super cute little coin purse from the Tim Holtz Sizzix Alterations Tag and Bookplate die. I hope you will stop by and take a peek!