Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Use Your Favorite Tool

Happy Monday! I hope you all had an amazing weekend and you're ready for another fun challenge on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge. Our theme this week is, Use Your Favorite Tool. Picking a favorite tool for me is like asking me to pick my favorite child. That's impossible!!! For me to pick which tool is my favorite, I had to approach the challenge by thinking of which tool I couldn't live without.....that didn't help at all. I love ALL my tools and they're ALL my favorite, so I laid out several of them in front of me (the ones I typically use the most), closed my eyes, and just picked one. My pick was the Prima Distressing Tool. For my project, I used this tool to distress the edges of several different ephemera pieces. I hope you enjoy seeing how I put everything together in the tutorial below and I can't wait to see what you choose for your favorite tool.

Don't forget to check this month's guest designer, Nicola.

The first thing I'm going to do is prepare the ephemera that I want to add to the canvas. I chose four small pieces from the Tim Holtz Thrift Shop Ephemera Pack.

I use the Prima Distressing Tool to distress all the edges of each of the ephemera pieces.

I ink each of distressed pieces of ephemera along the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink using a mini ink blending tool. I set these pieces aside while I prepare the canvas for my project.

For my canvas, I use a Tim Holtz 4x6 Burlap Panel and add Salty Ocean Distress Paint in random areas on the canvas. I dry this first layer with a heat tool.

When the first layer of paint is completely dry, I add Tumbled Glass and Stormy Sky Distress Paint in random areas on the canvas. I dry these layers with a heat tool before moving on to the next step.

When the paint is completely dry, I stencil on the Tim Holtz Flourish stencil in random areas with Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste and apply that with a Dina Wakley Palette Knife. I allow this to completely air dry. Using a heat tool to dry this paste will create bubbles, which is a really cool effect, but that is not the look I want for this project. I let the paste air dry for about 30 minutes.

Now that the embossing paste is completely dry, I go over the edges of the burlap canvas with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

I add the ephemera pieces to the canvas where I want them to go adhering them with Prima 3D Transparent Matte Gel.

I want to add some hearts that look like they are made of metal so I use some of the pieces from the Simon Says Stamp Hearts Align wafer die and coat them with Brushed Pewter Distress Paint. These will be last pieces I add to the canvas so I set them aside to dry while I put all the other elements on my canvas together.

I added a shabby bow (tutorial can be found here) and some flowers from my stash along with a Tim Holtz Word Bands metal piece and Timepiece Metal Clock Face. I added a Tim Holtz Hex Fastener to the end of the Word Band to give it a finished look. I blended some Stormy Sky Distress Crayon over the face of the clock with my fingertips and then some Tonic Mother of Pearl Nuvo Embellishment Mousse over the raised areas of the clock face and the hex fastener. The last two additions are the metal painted heart pieces from the Simon Says Stamp Hearts Align wafer die and my project is complete.

I hoped you enjoyed seeing the process I used to create the mixed media burlap panel using one of my favorite tools. Please join us in all the fun and add your project to Simon Says Stamp's Monday Challenge Blog for your chance to win a $50 gift voucher to their amazing store.

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You can find all the following supplies I used to create this project at Simon Says Stamp:

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