Tim Holtz Book

For the PMS (Pretty Mean Stampers) Social, we were supposed to wrap up our gift in some form of appropriate manner. So, if you bought your person a coffee gift card, you could wrap it up in a coffee mug. There were some fantastic ideas as the women in this group are incredibly talented. I bought my person a gift certificate to an awesome local scrapbook store (Scrapbook, Memories & More). I was at a loss as to how to wrap it up when I decided to just make a mini book. I decided to see if I could make one using only the Tim Holtz stamps I own. It was a bit of a challenge, but a lot of fun too!

I started by cutting thin chipboard into 4x4" squares. Then I cut up a bunch of old Scrapperdashery double sided papers that I love into 4x4" squares. I stamped out each page and adhered them to the chipboard. I rounded the corners using my Round It All and distressed the edges using my Distress it All. Then I bound it using my Bind it All. Typing all that out made me giggle as I feel like a Zutter commercial. Oh well; I do love their products. It's funny because I almost didn't buy a Distress It All because I had the little hand tool and that worked, so why would I buy the DIA? Well, after using it, I will never go back to the little tool. I can get a way better result with my DIA and it doesn't take as long. I can distress the edges so much that they gain thickness which is very cool.

Here is the cover of the book.


First pages.


Second Pages:

Third Pages. I used the little paperclips to attach the gift certificate. That way when she took it out, the page still looked nice.


Third pages with the gift certificate attached.


Back of the book:


The book came together fairly quickly. I only used two inks: Chalk Ink (Dark Brown) and Versafine (Onyx Black), so there wasn't a lot of decision making involved. Just grab some stamps and stamp them. And that's what stamping should be sometimes. I think at times, we overanalyze everything; is this the best paper? Is it perfectly centered? Should I use this ink or that one? Sometimes it's just fun to go for it without thinking. I think most times we will be pleased with the results.

Gift Cards

Tonight is my local stamp club Christmas Social. We always have it in January, but circumstances required moving it to February. It's all good.

This year, we are doing a gift card exchange. We each filled in a sheet about what stores we liked and then our names were cut off and our sheets exchanged. It's kind of exciting. Anyway, one of my friends asked me to bring a gift card to my store for her to give to her person. I had some old ugly printed ones, but I wanted to play a bit and see if I could make something better. And I did.

I started out with scrap paper and thin chipboard. I cut two pieces of paper and one piece of chipboard to 2.5x3.5" (ATC size). I stamped Kayric (the name of my store) and the amount ($25) on the front and then I stamped the Tim Holtz bird and a Tim saying on the back and stuck them altogether. I rounded the corners with my Round It All (I love that tool; it will cut through chipboard) and I distressed the edges with my Distress It All (I also love that tool). Then I just inked the edges with Chalk Ink. I loved how it turned out, so I made two more generic ones with a blank dollar amount that I can just fill in with whatever. I don't get a ton of requests for gift certificates, but I do get enough that it's worthwhile to have one or two on hand.

I am still so excited about how these turned out!