hen I was still in school, I dropped the chemistry class as soon as it was possible. All those formulas, molecular structures and stuff didn’t want to fit into my brain, so when I read about the online course “Creative Chemistry” I had my doubts whether I should join. But I knew that Tim Holtz, the Master of Distress himself, would be our teacher, and I became:


Reading the supply list of online courses always blows my mind. Of course I’d love to own all those distress inks, stamps, distress markers, papers and whatnots, but unfortunately, our cash cow is ill *g*.
Using my amazingly pityful stash of 4 alcohol inks and 4 distress inkpads, I made these first tags. At the end of April I’ll visit a local craft fair which will have a Ranger booth … ;)


Joining the course was a perfect choice! Tim provided us with phenomenal material! Awesome PDF’s and hours of video tutorials! It’s a huge difference between reading about the techniques and actually seeing them. Understanding the characteristics of the various products, how they react with paper and with each other, was a kind of chemistry I totally enjoy!

I wanted to try how one of my selfmade stamps would look on a distressed background. I prepared a cut-out tag as a “viewfinder” before cropping my elephant …

… so I could see how it would look. A few cuts, stamps, glueing and stapling later, here’s what the tag looks like:


The line between elephant and balloon should be a little longer, that’s why I made another tag. Voilà:


Too bad that you can’t see the nice effects of the shimmering pearls which I added to the mini mister. Tim just has the coolest ideas :)
To be continued … :D