Happy Birthday Mr. Holtz (better late than never!)

Hi everyone!  Wow!!  It has been an exhausting few weeks.  This has been my first full week back at work (as a faculty member at a local university) after my surgery.   On top of all of that, when I'm not at work, I'm in the gym for a couple of hours of physical therapy.  My trainer has the nickname "Dr. Pain".  Yeah ... it fits.  He is a former marine and he makes me work hard.

With all that going on, it is no wonder that I'm a little late with my wall hanging birthday wish for Mr. Tim Holtz (his birthday was January 7th).  Also, this project is completely outside my comfort zone.  The current Compendium of Curiosities 3 challenge (Challenge 19) over at Linda Ledbetter's blog is Frayed Fabric.   I really don't sew. Although  I have a sewing machine in my basement that my mom gave me,  I've actually never used one.  I didn't think I could learn how to use a sewing machine this week. So ... there were several times that I laid the project down and said "I quit!".  I was so afraid of making a mess.  However, I actually thought about Tim and his idea of "embracing imperfection" and carried on.  I'm pretty happy with the result. Regardless, this project was all about wishing Tim a happy birthday and thanking him for all that he has done to inspire this community to create.  I hope you had a fantastic birthday Mr. Holtz!

My project started with some of Tim's fabric "charms".  These wonderful fabric squares had some of my favorite Tim designs on them.   I wanted a substantial but pliable backing for my wall hanging.  Since I don't know how to use a sewing machine, I decided to do some hand stitching.  That got me to think about some cork squares that I had in my stash.  I could actually sew through the cork!  It worked fabulously!

I stamped "happy birthday" with Barn Door Distress Paint and added Tim's birthday with an archival ink pen directly on the fabric.  The word "TIM" was cut out of the Subway Signs fabric charm.  It was the one that had "TIMES SQUARE" on it.  I added a little stuffing to the back, used the frayed fabric technique and voila ... a personalized wall hanging for Tim's birthday.

 The fabric squares came bound with some ribbon that had Eclectic Elements and Tim's name on it.  I thought it would be fun to include this in the design and even frayed the ribbon :)

My decorative stitching was really free-form.  I didn't have a plan or pattern.  I just sat and stitched with embroidery floss.  This is what happened!  I ended up with some "half-flowers" at the bottom and  I added some buttons for the centers.

I used Tim's Weathered Clock die to create the clocks around the edges.  I wanted something that sort of looked like rusted wrought iron.  I started by die-cutting the two clocks out of grungeboard.  Black Soot Distress Paint was used to paint each clock.  I then inked up both with Distress Embossing Ink and applied a thick coat of Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE).  After heating the UTEE with my heat tool, it leaves some holes in the embossed surface.  I rubbed some Rusty Hinge Distress Paint into those holes.  After the paint dried, the rust color was a little lighter than I wanted.  I went back over the Rusty Hinge paint with a Rusty Hinge Distress Marker.  Perfect.

I had fun with the other embellishments.  There is one of Tim's compasses (painted with Barn Door Distress Paint). 

The die cut butterfly and rose needed some "bendable" backing for the fabric so I ended up using some thin aluminum from Spellbinders Media Mixage.  The fabric was lightly adhered to the metal using Rangers Multi Medium.  I used Tim's butterfly and pinecone dies to die cut the fabric-covered aluminum.  I was able to fray the edges of the butterfly (above) and make a pretty amazing rose (below).

Well that's about it.  I'm so glad I didn't give up on this project.  Happy Birthday again Tim!!

I hope you can play along sometime over at Compendium of Curiosities 3 (CC3) Challenges.  There is always a great prize pack from Tim and Mario for the Curiosity Crews Choice and since this is an odd-numbered challenge, Joy from Inspiration Emporium is giving away a  FIFTY DOLLAR SHOPPING SPREE for one lucky CC3C entrant!  If you haven't shopped there, please drop by.  Fantastic online craft store!!

Thanks so much for dropping by.  I hope to get by and visit with you all soon.  Have a great weekend!!  -- Mary Elizabeth