Tips & Techniques Tuesday: Fireworks Stickles

Hi. It's Angeline from ScrappyScrappy. Today I have a "fiery" tip for you for the upcoming New Year or any celebrations at all. :) Get those Stickles out and Stickle away!

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1. Get your favorite Distress Paint out {Mustard Seed / Picked Raspberry / Salty Ocean}. 

Grab your water mister out and spritz some onto the top of the Distress Paint dauber.

2. Splat onto your cardstock to create a splat effect!

3. Then get your favorite Stickles out. {Glam Pink / Broken China / Yellow}

4. Stickle along the splat lines.

5. Ta-daaa!! And you have fireworks Stickles. :) 

I've stamped the sentiment below using some Unity Stamps.

Here's a close up on how pretty the fireworks is with some Stickles.

Hope you enjoy the tutorial. Go try it out and have fun Stickle-ing!

-Angeline

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

Tips & Techniques Tuesday: Stickled Waves

It's Tuesday!  Good news for "TUE" reasons!  First, it's not Monday!  And second, it's time for a Tips and Techniques! Karen here from Craftily Yours, and I am super excited to show you how to use some of those gorgeous Stickles to make waves! 

First, I cut a card mat (with a circle in the middle) and a smaller mat to go behind it.

I used Timeless Twine in light blue and glued one piece across the mat using my glue.  Of course, I made it wavy.  Then I laid a strip of True Blue Stickles just below the first piece and laid another strip of twine down.  Remember, Stickles isn't just glittery goodness, it's glittery GLUE!

 

I kept putting down Stickles and layering up the twine until I got enough twine down to fill the hole in my mat.  I alternated using Stickles in True Blue, Waterfall, and Turquoise to add some dimension.  When I was done, I put a little extra Stickles on top just to make sure it was good and sparkly - like the water at the ocean!

 

It's ok if there are some spaces because you can just fill 'em in with more Stickles!  Once it dried, I trimmed the edges and used it to make this cute birthday card!  The boat is a cut from the Cameo store that I colored in with copic markers and TH distress ink.....and I added some sky with distress as well.

I added some Christmas Red Stickles to the flag and embellished it with a little Snug Hug ribbon and a nautical brad!

I really love how the card turned out!  It looks like it took a long time, but the whole card took me about 20 minutes!

Hope I've inspired you to make some waves!

Craftily yours,

Karen

Tips & Techniques Thursday: Embossing and Stickles

  

Hey ATS fans! Tonya here today with a great little tutorial using Stickles and an embossing folder to make a card background.   

For this technique, the Stickles need to be dry. I started by painting a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 piece of cardstock with Antique Bronze Distress Stickles. 

I let it dry about 4 hours. That seems like a long time, especially when you're anxious to see the finished result! :) But, letting the Stickles fully dry before continuing really does help.  

Once the Stickles were finally dry (stupid humidity!), I ran the cardstock through an embossing folder. 

(When doing this, make sure that the pattern will be raised on the same side of the paper the Stickles are on - the embossed side).

My plan for this background was to have the Stickles collected in the recessed areas of the embossed pattern.  To do this, I sanded the raised areas.

 The sanding may not sand off all the Stickles, but it will remove a large amount. 

Lastly, I inked the raised edges and swiss dots with fluid chalk to highlight the pattern and the Stickles.

My finished card......

Think I will be giving this card to my hubby for Father's Day. I love how Distress Stickles, even though they're glitter, can be used on masculine projects!  =)