~ Altered Zutter Distress it All Tin ~

When I bought my Zutter Distress it All, it came in this really cool tin. The neat thing about it was, I can fit my Smooch Spritz sprays in it perfectly, so I thought I would hold on to it and alter it one day. So here is a pic of the tin!! Check out how the lid already looks all distressed. That turned out to be so perfect, because I didn't even have to touch that tricky area.

Here is my altered tin. See how the edges of the lid are untouched. How cool is that!?! I used the paper from the Tim Holtz "Lost and Found" line. That pack is absolutely perfect for doing altered item projects. I added random pieces of metal, watch parts, bottle caps, twine, molding paste, spritz sprays, lace, old pieces of costume jewellery, Tim Holtz fragments, Dusty Attic chipboard crowns, and more...

The paper pack has a page with a ton of pictured bottle caps on it. If you take a one inch circle punch to them, they will fit perfectly inside of a regular bottle cap.

Well thanks for stopping by and God Bless!!

~ Dusty at my Etsy ~

As some of you know I am a retailer as well, but it's pretty low key. However, I just got a LOAD of Dusty for my Etsy shop.. Vintage, Fairies, Swirls, Frames, Flourishes, and more more more!! Check it out!!

My Etsy

~ Some More Scraps of Darkness Layouts ~

Two more layouts using the Scraps of Darkness July Desire kit. I'm still having fun creating layouts with this awesome kit!! This first one is a little deep. I call it Vicious Traditions and I didn't put any journaling on the front, but I did print out some and stuck it to the back. Here is what it reads:

When I was a child, every Christmas there was a tradition of giving my Grandfather a bottle of Crown Royal. He always appreciated seeing it under the tree, sitting in it’s signature purple bag with gold stitching. I remember it always bringing a smile to his face. However, some traditions aren’t always good. I come from an alcoholic family on my mom’s side. Growing up wasn’t always easy and some of the things I witnessed as a child, are unspeakable now. With all that said, I rose above all of that. I was able to break free of a family with the burden of alcoholism and I never fell under the curse. I praise God for keeping the addiction away from me and I continue to pray for those that are still held captive by it.

I used the diecut bird for a mask and misted the small Prima roses with Maya Road mist and then I some Burgundy stickles to put on the very tips.
This is one of my Crumpled Daisy, formally known as a Scrunchy Flower. I just didn't like that title lol. I have tutorial for these that you can click on to the right.
The are painted vines that I did using a stencil and black acrylic paint.
So my Rylee is now officially a teenager :( They grow up way to fast. I did this page to show some versatility in the kit.
I sell these little napkin butterflies in my Etsy. They are super cute!!

Thanks for Stopping by and God Bless!!

~ Scraps of Darkness July Kit Reveal ~

Here it is!! This is Scraps of Darkness first official kit for July, called Desire. I've also posted the sketch for the month as well. Look how awesome and rich the colors are and all the fun embellies to go along with it!!There are papers from the Creative Imaginations Breathless collection, Prima roses, Basic Grey bling, Maya Road mist, Shimmerz, ribbons, die cuts and more more more!!!
This is SOD's first official sketch for the July Desire kit. I am so excited about being the sketch artist for this club. I love making sketches and I hope that you find them all inspiring!!

~ More of Me ~

I finally put together a photography blog. I still have a lot more that I want to add to it, but I did get my first post up finally. You can always get to it by clicking on the pick of Brooky to the right -------->

On another note I just got my new Swirlydoos kit for July and it's AWESOME!!!! I can't wait to start playing with it, but right now I am dealing with a three year old who is apparently in a bad mood. Yay for me!! We are sitting on our couch, once again, watching Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. Fortunately, for me, I have my laptop, so I can somehow stay in touch with the grown up world. Otherwise, I find myself being thoroughly entertained by a giant yellow monster with red polka dots.

~ Crumpled Daisy Tutorial ~

I was playing around with some of my dies yesterday and came up with this scrunchy flower lol. Not sure if it's been done before, but I figured I will show you how I did it anyway. I used two of them on this layout I did of myself. I used items from the June Swirlydoos kit and I got the beautiful butterfly from StarSailorScrapper. She always puts together these amazing butterflies for the kits. The die I have is an accucut die and the flowers are about 4 inches across. It really doesn't matter what size you use for these and I am sure that similar dies have been made by various companies. You will need a spray bottle with water and some mist spray of your choice.
NOTE: You don't need a die with a hole in the middle.
I always spray the backside of my flower with water to get it pretty wet, but not too wet that it wants to tear apart. Just do one flower at a time.
Next just start scrunching up each petal as shown. Then repeat this step and the last step for the remaining flowers.
This is pretty much what they should look like. You can make them more scrunched if you want. It just depends on how you want the ending result to look.
Begin layering each flower on top of one another. Mine were still damp when I did this. If you don't have a hole it's nice, because you can use a brad to connect each flower once they are all stacked. Since I had a hole I used some glossy accents to glue them together.
Now I sprayed a few shots of my smooch spritz over the top. Don't move around the layers, just spray over the top.
Next I chose a flower center. The bigger the flower, the bigger the center you will want. Then once my center is in I start moving around and scrunching up my petals to reveal the original color. You don't have to spray yours, it's just something I chose to do.
So that's it. This is my finished flower. They are really easy and pretty. Any questions, feel free to ask.

~ Easy Water Distressing Technique ~

I have been doing this technique for quite awhile and I have been asked by a few people how I do it, so I thought I would throw together a quick tutorial that shows how easy it really is. Here is what you need:


1) Distress Ink of Your Choice
2) Q-Tip
3) Paper You Plan to Distress
4) Glass of Water
5) Distressing Tool

This piece of patterned paper I am using is part of a layout I just did which is also featured in the bottom of this post. Use your distressing tool of choice along all sides of your paper. Don't be gentle and if it tears a little that is a good thing in my book.

Ink your edges all over and don't be afraid to get crazy with it. Wipe some of the ink on top of the paper. Perfect isn't a word that fits into distressing.

Now take your Q-tip and saturate it in the water. Run your Q-tip along the edges of your paper and onto the top as well to spread the coloring around. Again no need for perfection, just let the water run here and there and saturate the edges as best you can by dipping the Q-tip in often.

Now start going around the edges of the paper, while it's still wet, and curl up and make small tears. To speed up the process of drying you can take a heat tool to your paper.

Here is my finished piece. The water really helps blend the inked edges in to the paper.
Here is the layout I used that piece of paper on. I call this "Speechless". I used an altered photo of Brooklyn. All of my layers of paper were distressed using my water technique, some more than others. This layout was used with items from the June Swirlydoos kit.

This is a close-up of some of the embellishments. The frame and clock are both Dusty Attic pieces. I inked over the tops of each one. The flowers are my torn apart Primas that I showed in my last post.

Here are my Prima centers and a couple of butterflies I cut out from some of the patterned paper in the kit.

Check out these gorgeous beads!! Also the rub on below came with the kit and I used that to get my title from. I distressed it a bit as well by being a little rough when applying.

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!!