Last Minute Textile Inspiration

The Textile Challenge deadline is quickly approaching! Email me your entries by the end of the day Friday February 29th - which is also Eileen's son Griffin's birthday (he is going to be 2!! Ok - really 8, but I love the whole leap day baby thing!) You can email me your entries to challenges @ techniquetuesday.com either as a .jpg picture or scan or a link to where you have posted it online. I will reply to your email that I got it, so if you have sent something and not heard back from me, then I didn't get it!

On this page Jamie Harper used the Textile Squares, Big Timber Line Tall, Extra Large and Large to design the border down the left side of the page. She stamped the letters first, then colored them in with a red watercolor pencil. She accented along the letters in the title with Borderline: Straight and Narrow.

Eileen used blue paint to change the color of the textiles. She used Key Lime Tsukineko VersaMagic ink to color the green Textile Scallops. She stamped on each textile to add texture and dimension using Metro Squares, Swiss Dots, Hanging by a Thread and Backgrounds Medium.


Jamie really went above and beyond for this page!! On the picture Jamie printed 2 of the same photo, adhered one to the layout and the second she cut around the adorable little girl and used it as a mask to stamp over the background with the word background stamp from Olde World Squares.

Jamie used ink to change the color of the Textile Scallops and layered them to add depth to her flowers. She used Boulder Skyline for the title. Finally she stamped the butterfly from BoHo Buzz onto a piece of paper and then cut it out to add the adorable embellishment to the top right corner of the page.

Textile Challenge Inspiration

We know you are all working hard on your projects for the Textile challenge!! I have received some fabulous stuff so far - keep them coming!! We will be awarding prizes to more than one entry - because there are so many great ways to feature these textiles that it will be too hard to choose just one winner!!

So - we decided to go through our samples to provide you with a little inspiration for your textile project.

On this page Sharyn Tormanen used the Textile Circles both on their own directly onto the page and also mounted on the Circle Technique Tiles.

She used ink to change the color the textiles by just wiping them across the textile while it is still attached to the backing sheet. She used images from the Hanging by a Thread stamp set and the "B" from Savannah Capital Letters Extra Large to decorate the textile embellishments.

On this tag - Eileen stamped the Savannah Large letters individually in orange to create the Script look onto a Square Textile. While keeping the textile on its plastic backing sheet, she cut around the words, then peeled them off the backing sheet to adhere to the tag.

I LOVE the technique Heather Binnie used on this page! For the title Heather stamped with the Brooklyn Bridge large alphabet onto the Textile Squares and adhered them to their corresponding size of Square Technique Tiles.

For the little embellished squares - she stamped the bubble image from the Metro Squares stamp set onto the textile and then adhered it onto the square technique tile.

And finally (the coolest part!!) First she sized her picture in her photo editing program to match the size of the largest square textile. Next, she sent a piece of paper through her printer to test the placement, then she adhered a Square Textile to the piece of paper over the top of the printed photo and printed the photo again through her printer to print the photograph directly onto the textile!! Great job Heather!!

Angela @ TT

From the Mailbag!

One more Valentine!! This adorable card was in my email while I was at CHA from Laura O'Donnell. She wrote:

"I saw on your blog that you are looking for Valentines cards using Technique Tuesday stamps. I've attached one I made using Savannah XL alpha stamps (love these!) and the hearts from Love Notes. Other supplies used are 7 Gypsies papers and a border punch from Martha Stewart Crafts. The card measures 4"x8"."

Thanks so much for sharing Laura!


Angela @ TT

Tour of the CHA booth!

The great folks from Nth Degree and Creative Express stopped by the booth and posted all of the raw footage online here:

Technique Tuesday Booth at CHA

I think Eileen did a great job with the tour! Thanks to Creative Express for stopping by!

Textile Challenge!!

It's that time!!! A couple weeks ago we sent out samples of our Textiles. Hopefully you should all have them by now. And - just in case you were wondering - I also included the "Getting Started with Clear Stamps" guide. I know if you are reading this blog you probably have some idea about what clear stamps are and how to use them - so pass it along to someone who would like it if you can!

Now - in the future our challenges will be more "challenging," but, since this is our first one on the new blog - this one is going to be easy.

Are you ready?

Make a project using the Textiles.

Thats it.

Really.

We will be doing a drawing for the complete line of Textiles and one set of stamps from the eligible entries. You need to either send me a picture of your project (please resize to 500 pixels wide) to: challenges at technique tuesday dot com or post your creation to your favorite online scrapping community and send me an email to the above address with the link. Deadline for entries is LEAP DAY February 29th.

Easy Peasy!

We can't wait to see what you create!

Angela @ TT

Happy Valentines Day!

From all of us at Technique Tuesday :)


More details on the Textile Challenge coming right up!


Angela @ TT

Love pages, FUNdamentals of Love

What better time to focus a page on the one you love than today? Technique Tiles FUNdamentals of Love are a great way to get both pages and cards done, quickly and easily.

The first page is designed to be a complete 12x12 page. the pieces all fit together like a puzzle, allowing you to pop out each piece, decorate however you like, and then pop the pieces back together, add pictures and viola! Finished page.

This is one of my all time favorite pages from Creative Director Eileen Collins. I have scraplifted elements from this page more times than I can count!! First, she covered the inside of the frame background with velvet polka dot paper. The outside edge was created by stamping with the largest stamp on the Irony set in red, then very lightly dragging a Seabreeze VersaMagic ink pad over the top.

You really don't want to know how she made the title - lets just say she really lived up to her unofficial title of "Freakishly Creative" Director. SO - the more sane way is: stamp Serendipity letters individually onto pink cardstock and cut out. If you would like the letters to stand out a little more, mount with pop dots.

On this page - Eileen left the middle of the background blank - the best part of the Technique Tiles are the fact that they are a beautiful Vanilla white color - equally nice blank as well as embellished.

The outside edge is the same concept as "My Funny Valentine." She stamped images from the Casablanca set in black, then swiped Tea Leaves VersaMagic ink over the top.

The title was stamped first with Savannah letters in Tea Leaves, and then stamped over the top with Serendipity in black. Using the phrase "With all my Heart" from the Small Talk Word set, she
stamped along the edge of the heart.

On page two of the FUNdamentals of Love - there are not only a ton of little hearts and swirls, but there is also a really cool Curly Bracket Frame! Tiffany Tillman painted the frame black and then used Whispygigs on kraft cardstock to create her own patterned paper!

The title was stamped with Big Timber Line Lower Letters - Tall, Big Timber Lower Letters - Large and finished off with a heart from page two of the FUNdamentals of Love and an arrow from the Stars and Arrows Technique Tiles set.

CHA Day 3!

Another fun day in the booth!

Cathy and Chrissy from Treasured Memories in Reno stopped by to place their order and reminisce with Mary about her time teaching a class at an event last year.

I told them they could join our 5' 10" and over club :)










Fellow Oregonian Ali Edwards stopped by the booth as well.







We had an interesting dinner at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney! Our waiter Nathan "Tramp" was quite the character. The manager told us that we might be the very first customers to ever blog about our waiter - so here you go Nathan! :)

Just one more day!

CHA! Days 1 and 2

Welcome to our 2008 Winter CHA booth!



















Here is Eileen with Britney Mellen from Creating Keepsakes Magazine.








Here is Mary and Eileen showing off their day one shirts. We have a different Technique Tuesday shirt for each ay of the show - they are all available on Cafe Press - click here too see the Star Shirt.









Eileen - as the Creative Director shows all the magazine folks around the booth - here she is with Michelle Rubin from Scrapbooks Etc.















That night we went out to dinner with the lovely Cath Edvalson and Stacy Croninger from Paper Crafts Magazine.












And finally - Donna Downey stopped by our booth and I had to get a picture with her and my favorite camera bag! This is the shirt I have on - my favorite! And so appropriate for Valentine's Day - TT Heart Shirt.


More tomorrow! :)

Angela @ TT

One quick day of fun in Southern California

Before the opening day of CHA - we took a little time to explore "The Land." Our booth was set up by noon - so we had the entire rest of the day to go on rides, eat and have fun. Mary (our Sales Manager) is like a little kid at Disney - she really thinks it is the bes place in the whole world and loved showing us around.






I grew up down here - but haven't been back in a long time - so a lot of the rides were new to me! Buzz Lightyears Astro Blasters was so much fun!









This is the picture they email to you - don't Eileen and I look so serious??









I loved the addition of Johnny Depp to the Pirates of the Caribbean.









Shellys favorite attraction at Disneyland is the Tiki Room! Eileen had never been so Mary and I agreed to go... I will admit - It was really cute :)















And finally - a nice man took our picture all together right before Sunset.

Homemade Valentines

We have a February tradition at our house in that we like to make our own Valentines. There’s something about the cold winter months, creating with the kids and enjoying a little homemade over store-bought that keeps us doing this year after year.

This year was fun for me because our Wendy (7) has really been taking an interest in all that stamping I’m doing. In hindsight, I don’t know if this was such a good idea after all because now the little upstart wants my job – to say she’s completely hooked is an understatement.

But I digress.

After Wendy was able to fit me into her social schedule, we gather some supplies: Some 3” ziplocks, Valentine M&M’s, the Zoology set, white cardstock, patterned paper and assorted inks.

Then we began. Chocolate first, I always say. We worked together (the best part about these types of projects) and put a scoop of M&M’s per bag and set them aside.

Next I had cut all the white cardstocks to 4 x 6” and the strips of pattern paper to 1 ½ x 3” and ½ x 3”. Once I had cut these, it was easy to have Wendy use a gluestick and adhere the pieces to the cardstock as per the sample I had made for her. This is where I had to really let her be and keep telling myself that this is her project – their satisfaction in their work, pride in doing it

themselves, and the look on their faces is worth just letting it be and not worrying about matching corners and straight lines. She actually did amazing well.

Next came the stamping. Now I had this image in my head of having the images be black with just a touch of color for some *pop* and…well, I had to remind myself again to just let her enjoy the process as I do. She wanted brown monkeys, yellow tigers, orange lions and green crocodiles. Who am I to say no, and really..that’s why my kids enjoy this tradition so much because I do just let them be and create their own.

What I did do tho was teach Wendy proper stamping. Straight up and down, don’t wiggle, don’t rock, pull straight up – and for a first timer – I gave her two thumbs up.

After she got all her animals stamped she then did the corresponding messages. Here we realized we hadn’t left enough space for a few of them and I taught Wendy how easy it is to curve the stamps to fit the spot, boy…did her eyes light up!

And I wonder why she’s hooked. If that alone didn’t do it, the next step did for sure.

I nearly forgot that she has to let her classmates know who these are from. Rather than having her sign all 34 of them I just created her name out of the Mainstreet small alphabet, added a little heart stamp from the LMLMN set and she had her own signature (7)

Lastly – to keep things simple we just stapled the bagtoppers to the treat bags and called them done. She can hardly WAIT for the Valentines Party at school!

Sharyn @ TT

We're Taking CHA by Storm!!

We're in California this week for the annual Craft and Hobby Association Trade show! We'll be posting updates all week! Let your favorite store know that you are looking forward to seeing the latest and greatest from technique Tuesday in your store! We are in booth #2357 - stop by and say hi - and get your picture taken with us for the blog! :)

I really wanted to wear this hat because along with being the blog-mistress, I am also the Canadian Store Representative and I want them to be able to spot me! But Creative Director Eileen Collins told me I would clash with the color scheme of the booth. But I am going to sneak it onto the show floor anyway. Shhh.

(I am on the phone with TT World Headquarters in the picture)

So - stop by the booth and say hi! We can't wait to meet you!

Angela @ TT

Big Timber Meadow

One of the most popular pages that we have posted from this release has definitely been "Dandelion Dreams."

This page features Big Timber Meadow Capital Letters Tall and Lowercase Tall, Borderline - Bijou Borders, Savannah Alphabet - Medium, Loopy Labels and Technique Tiles - Scallops.

To make the "Dandelions" Eileen first inked the Scallop Tiles with "Sunlight" yellow ink from the Earth Essentials Ink set. She started at the outside edges and dragged the ink pad lightly in towards the center of the tile, keeping the edges a vivid yellow, with lighter yellow towards the center.

She then wrapped the tile in yellow yarn, attaching the edges at the back of the tile, and adhering a small section of ribbon for the "leaves."

For the title Eileen stole her sons colored pencils to color in the letters. If, like me, you don't have a child to steal colored pencils from, you can stamp the letters first in different colors with Big Timber Letters Tall - and then stamp over the top in brown or black with the Big Timber Meadow Letter stamps.

Eileen used the Big Timber Meadow Capital Letter "B" as a Monogram on this adorable Valentines Day card. She stamped the letters m, i,n,e from Main Street Lower Letters Large on 2" squares and mounted them on a 4 1/2" square of light blue cardstock. She then stamped the "B" on white paper, and, again stealing from her son, colored in the flowers with red crayon. She mounted the "B" to the center of the card using popdots. To finish the card, she inked one of the frames from the Technique Tiles FUNdamental Swanky Frames and mounted it on the card.

Organizing your Clear Stamps!

One of the most popular questions I get is: "How do you store your clear stamps?"



I put that question out to the whole team and almost everyone had a different way of storing their stamps at home - but for on the road we all use the Technique Tuesday Portfolio.

If you have a small collection of stamps it is perfect for keeping the stamps away from light and dust and all in one place.



If you have a larger collection of stamps, the portfolio is great for choosing only the stamps you want to use at a crop at the lss or at a friends house.

The outside zipper pocket is perfect for carrying inks, small stamps, blocks, cleaner and scrubber.



For home storage - the options are endless! The most popular seems to be large three ring binders. Every large set of Technique Tuesday Stamps comes on a clear sheet imprinted with the image and three hole punched.

Sharyn's solution is to store each set alphabetically in big three ring binders.

Heather also uses three ring binders for home storage but organizes a little differently. She says, "I store them by release date. I have binders that I have labeled with what show they came from. It’s how I remember things.I also use clear CD cases to store some of my frequently used stamps. That way, I can have them stored right up next to my work space."
Sharyns small stamp storage solution is a wire box to keep her ink, small stamps and blocks together and organized!



So really - it all depends on how you remember best!

Our warehouse manager Traci has a completely different storage solution for her stamps. Traci likes to take just what she needs when cropping away from home in her Portfolio, but when she crops at home she likes to have it all within reach! She used the Clip it Up system, with large stamps on the bottom and small stamps on the top.
The most important part of storing your clear stamps is using a system that woks best for you! Don't store them so well that you can't find them or so tucked away that you forget you have them! :)