Project: Tim Holtz Distress-a-polusa

[Note: I've updated the photo using my new Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W80]

I just got home from a fabulous class with Tim Holtz at Scrapbooks, Etc. I took a quick picture of my finished project with my cell phone, but it does no justice to the project. I'll retake the photo after I replace my digital camera.

The purpose of the class was to experiment with the distress product lines. And who better than Tim to teach them! The class was full, I heard there were 40 attendees and a waiting list. I went in with high expectations, and the class exceeded them all.

First, Tim is great. He's down-to-earth, a guy who is living his passion in life. His passion is contagious. His teaching style is laid back, and he knows how to plan a class. It's the first project I've ever finished in a class! He totally tells you to do anything, do random things, and not to overthink it all. He's friendly and accessible. And did I mention that his projects totally rock! If you ever get a chance to take a class with Tim, do it.

The project is based on a 10" IKEA mirror, just like the one on my studio worktable for the wedding project. We were given a series of chipboard pieces and acrylic shapes from his Fragements line. We distressed each one, and they got glued to the mirror in a patchwork pattern. Then, we attached bits of found objects to the tops of them.

The heart of the project is the chipboard pieces. They fell into three groups for distressing.

1) We used crackle paint on the largest pieces. When the crackle dried, we used distress inks over the top. The crackle colors were a bit too pure for my liking, so I was thrilled to see how totally the colors changed with the addition of a layer of ink. It's not so much the color of the ink that changed the crackle paint, it was the texture of the ink that changed the texture of the crackle paint more than the color impact. I wish my photo showed that kind of detail. All I can say is you have to try these paints and ink over them, even if you use the same color ink.

2) We used embossing powder on the smallest pieces. The distress embossing powder is different from regular powders because it has grains that are supposed to fall away to give the distressed look. So the color after embossing is splotchy. We next inked over these, and again, the ink changed the entire look of the pieces. It filled in the distressed splotches.

3) We inked the remaining pieces, and then used black archival ink to stamp on them. We didn't use the distress inks for this because the products would have blended together instead of giving a sharp black stamp image.

We next created the acrylic squares by gluing them to pieces of paper from Tim's discontinued ephemera paper line.

Once all of the pieces were crafted, we arranged them around the mirror using a template Tim gave us. We tweaked the placement by swapping out pieces of the same size and shape until we liked the layout. Next, we selected from the bag of found object goodies the items we wanted on the pieces, and arranged them around the mirror. This was a blast. The goodies included things like a game board spinner, a small lightbulb, pressed tin crown, game pieces, and a button Tim made to hand out to the class attendees, among other things.

As much fun as I had all of the way through, I thoroughly enjoyed gluing down the individual pieces. We used a Ranger product (I don't remember the name) but it is clear and dried very quickly.

It was fun to see what everyone else created. We had the same materials available to us, and they all look so different! I had Tim sign the back of mine, too! I can't wait to hang it up in the studio.