That time I Went Outside My Comfort Zone

Last night I took a class with Sara. The focus was the new Tim Holtz Distress markers. Now anyone who knows me knows that I'm not very *messy* and I'm not a big fan of Tim Holtz' style-not to say that he isn't brilliant his work is just not my thing.

But, I stepped outside my comfort zone last week and my curiosity got the better of me and I figured I would see what these new markers were all about. And I'll admit they are pretty cool.

They are very similar to the distress inks but in marker form basically. I haven't bitten the bullet and bought any just yet but I think I may have to invest in a few colors of ink that I don't currently have.

Here's what I made while playing around last night...



Sara's tags were all different techniques but I just started fooling around and really liked what came out in the end.

But I have to explain my experimenting. The sum total of my rubber stamp collection is about 5 stamps-I only like 3 of them really. These markers are meant to be used on rubber stamps but hey, I'm into breaking rules so about halfway through the class I said 'to heck with this' and just started to break out some of my fav acrylic stamps. And you know what?! They worked-more or less. The key, I discovered, is not to 'load up' the stamp with too much ink. It gives a better impression with less-so truly 'less is more in this case!

Thanks Sara for showing me some new techniques. Check out her blog! She always has cool stuff going on. Right now she's participating in 'Index a Day' where she creates something on an index card every day. There's some very cool stuff coming out of her studio right now!

So moral of the story-maybe I need to do a little more playing?! I enjoyed just fooling around tonight but I think I need an end goal-like a tag mini-album or something-that way making the tags isn't all for nothing.

xoxo
K