Be Brave, Be Bold, Be Yourself - Cathy Potosky, Guest Designer

Hi everyone. My name is Cathy Potosky and I am very excited to be here as a guest designer with Quietfire Design for this month.

My project is a set of inserts for a Traveler's Journal I am making for a friend. Could this die set be a more perfect way to remind us to “be” all those things, even when you’re feeling down?

I started by painting my inserts with Distress Paint and sponges and set those aside to dry while I did my die cutting and stamping.

I cut out my dies and embossed them with Emerald Creek Embossing Powders and moved my them to the side to cool and started stamping my quotes.

I used the new Tim Holtz Alcohol Lift-Ink to stamp one quote and used Distress Oxides for the other two. I trimmed my quote images and edged everything in Distress Ink.

I attached my embossed words and stamped quotes with Be Creative double sided tape. 

Here a few close ups of the beautiful dies once they were embossed. 

One was cut from Yupo that had alcohol ink on it.

Thank you for stopping by and having a look today. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with another project.

Supply List:

Be Brave Bold Yourself

But First, Coffee

Courage Doesn’t Always Roar

CreateWithout Limits

Be Creative Tape

Emerald Creek Embossing Powders – Hammered Metal, Charred Gold, Metabaloid Blue and Banff Slate (LE)

Tim Holtz Distress Paint – Faded Jeans, Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch, Shaded Lilac, Hickory Smoke

Tim Holtz Distress Oxides – Seedless Preserves and Blueprint Sketch

Dylusions Paint – Laidback Lilac, Crushed Grape and Black Marble

Thanks to Cathy for her awesome project!  You may find more of Cathy's creations on her blog http://amethystalcove.blogspot.com/ 

Create Without Limits

Hello!!!  It's Wanda here today (waving).  I can just about see the surprise on some of your faces at the lack of color on my card :-)  Gasp!!!  Over the past year (or so... time does get away from me) I've seen quite a few pieces using just white cardstock to put something together and how about paper sculptures all done in white (just google paper sculptures), they are amazing.  So I challenged myself to go outside "my" box and work without color.  It was hard!!!  Every part of me cried out to add color.  Now I probably cheated a little by adding texture but I couldn't help it, lol.  I used an embossing folder for the background along with a diffuser plate to keep the stamped area smooth.  The fern and butterfly are both cut files and I used a stylus to add detail. 

Create Without Limits Quietfire Design Rubber Stamp cling mounted

Fern - Fern cut file available in the Silhouette Design Store

Butterfly - Butterfly Circle cut file available in the Silhouette Design Store

Ranger Archival Ink - jet black

Create WithOut Limits, Flourishes One, Crows

Robyn here, having more fun than -(fill in the blank) I want to say barrel of monkeys- and how fun is a barrel of monkeys?--- a girl with a new technique.

Holly's crumpled embossing technique filled me with "what ifs?".

I used a combo of my favorite stamps and some I rarely use.

This ATC started with stamping the medium sized flourish with VersaMark***hint-have two pads-one that you keep perfectly clean for watermarking and one for general stamping(and be sure to clearly mark them***** all over the white card and thermal embossed clear.

Forgetting to refer to Holly's excellant turtorial, I then added color, Distress blues and purples using the Ink blending tool.
Then I remembered to crumple, misted the paper with water a bit to aid crumpling and then added more color to highlight the highs and lows.
Sprayed with Perfect Pearls Mist- Pearl and glued it onto another card-the crumbling shrinks the paper, so I inked up the border and blended that in.

Not wanting to hide the background I stamped Create Without Limits on velum, thermal embossed with  a purple power and glued it on with Glossy Accents.

I love how the paper gets a leathery look.

The flourished crow was VersaMark stamped, thermal embossed clear on white card.
I covered the card with Distress stain- lemonade and pewter, dried it well then stamped the musical notes with VersaMark and embossed clear.

Time to crumple. I misted the paper on the back and crumpled and straightened several times till I liked it.
Now for the fun- I added first some more yellows, then black soot, and finally chipped sapphire- all with the blending tool.
Wipe the crow off with a damp cloth,
add Crows-themal embossed silver on velum and start on another!

This card began with the flourished egg stamped in silver. When that was dry, the small crow embossed clear.
Stained the card with persimmon , lemon and mustard, clear embossed the musical notes, blended some  more with sapphire and black soot.

Controlled crumple!
 I fan folded the card, ran Picket Fence stain on the folds, more random blending and when dry highlighted with Stardust pen clear.

The crown was stamped on vellum,thermal embossed with Ranger Detail Silver

I want you to see the difference in embossing powders

The one on the left is a random clear, and on the right Ranger detail clear.

VersaFine Onyx on velum

 I recommend you make samples and keep them in a journal or on tags. Saves time and materials in the long run, and I think samples are fun!

Comments and questions always welcomed and I'd love to see "what ifs?" you create!

Be sure to subscribe to this blog by email so you don't miss the next technique of the Month with Holly March 1!