Pile Up Wednesday: Distressed Christmas

 Hello Stickles Lovers! Welcome to Wednesday!!!! Cathy here from the ATS Design Team bringing you another Pile Up Wednesday. As I'm typing this post the first snowflakes are falling in my world. We are forecast to get 2-4 inches but I doubt it will last since our air and ground temps haven't been below freezing. All the talk of snow has put me in a wintry mood and I have two creations to share with you inspired by our current Distressed Stickles Linky Party. It took me awhile to dive into the Distressed Stickles line, but now they are some of my favorite embellishments. They give you a chunkier texture and once dried a more matte appearance than standard Stickles. The Distressed Stickles are great for vintage items, male cards, or anything you want to dress up a bit with out making an obvious shiny glitter statement.

I love taking craft classes from local stores and demonstrators. Most of my teachers know I will change up their designs a bit to add a Cathy spin. I recently took an elegant Christmas card class at a nearby craft store chain. I was excited to see they were using lots of Ranger products  including dies, inks and STICKLES! Of course, the single bottle wasn't going to cut what I needed for my cards. Once I got home, I spruced them up a bit.

Here's a peek at two of the cards I created. The first is a serious Stickles Pile Up. The Tim Holtz die cut skates were covered with a layer of glue and then scoops of Distress Glitters were heaped on. We used Rock Candy, Pumice Stone and Black Soot.

Here's a closer look at the skates. You can see that the loose Distress Glitter gives you a rough texture and not lots of shine, just like the Distress Stickles will do.

Can you spy my oops? This is the downfall of using loose glitter. Since this was a class environment I couldn't control the flying flecks, and some of the Black Soot Distress Glitter got mixed into the Rock Candy Distress Glitter. The card has a bit of a vintage/distressed feel so my black flecks don't distract too much. One of the reasons I prefer using Stickles is I can control the placement and amount used. Once my glue dried, I went back in with Distressed Stickles (Black Soot, Brushed Pewter and Rock Candy) to fill in the gaps the loose glitter left behind.

As if the glittering wasn't enough, we laced up our skates! I strongly recommend using your piercing tool before adding the glitter and once again after it's dried to open up the holes for lacing. It was a bit of a struggle to get the needle through the layer of cardstock and glitter; my friend even poked her finger and had a few red drops of blood on her skates. We creatively adjusted her pine boughs to cover up the special 'feature'. We joked that she could tell the recipient of her card that she literally put her blood, sweat and tears into the card.

This is another card from the class that I felt needed a bit more Stickles. In the original design the only Stickles are random dots of Crystal on the gold embossed tree. I went back and used Distress Stickles on the 3 green trees.

Here's a closer look at the trees. The one on the left has a layer of Distress Shabby Shutters, the one on the right has Distress Peeled Paint. The lightest green tree received a layer of Distress Picket Fence. I'm really happy with how they turned out, the Picket Fence looks like a light layer of snow or frost. Since the stamp design has a sketchy feel, I didn't worry about being too precise when applying the Stickles.

That's all I have for you today. I hope you will join my Stickles Pile Up movement and share your creation. Do you have Distressed Stickles in your stash but don't know where to use them? Be brave and try a Pile Up and show your creation off in our Distressed Stickles Linky Party. 

Thanks for coming to the Pile Up! I'll see you with another creation in a fort night.

~ Cathy, ATS Design Team