A Class with Tim Holtz! Heart and Soul

I had the best morning on Saturday -  I attended a class by Tim Holtz - held at a nearby stamp shop called Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA.   There were 4 workshops - but I was only able to get in to one (you had to phone in on a given day and the phones were just wild busy!)  He writes about it here on his blog!

The class I got into was called Heart and Soul -  and we created a wonderful box with a heart inside covered in faux riveted metal.    Basically - I wanted to go to learn new techniques - so it didn't matter which class I got into (although I would have loved to attend them all!)

So we came into this rather large room -  I heard there were 100 people at each class - there were three rows of tables from front to back - this is the center row where I had a seat about 2/3rds of the way down - this was taken about half way into the room.

When I was waiting outside in the line to get in -  I met Heather - who had come all the way from Pittsfield, MA -  it took her 4 hours to get there because of traffic -  she was there for all 4 classes - lucky duck!  So the very first thing we did was to get in line to have Tim sign our Compendium of Curiosities books and the aprons that we were given by Kate the owner of the shop.

Here's Heather, Tim and me.

and here's Tim and me (lot's of pictures were being taken!)

The aprons say "Tim Holtz and I did ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. seriously, it was very distressing".  Rather tongue in cheek!! Did I say he signed my apron too??  Ya - I guess I did..... and can I just say -  he was just like you see him on his blog or any You tube videos you watch him in - he was funny, friendly and just a nice guy.   He took his time with anyone who wanted autographs or pictures - he walked around during the whole class talking to everyone - being sure they understood what they were doing etc...    And Mario was there too -   here he is helping with something that wasn't working quite right.

So here I am working on my project -  there were people from Canada there, a whole group of ladies who called themselves "Everything Tim" came from Ohio. 

 First we colored the cardboard boxes with Distress Stain inks, I used Silver (these are window boxes with little boxes inside but we took those out) then we inked over them with Distress Inks, I used Forest Moss - then we sanded all the sides to distress - and attached pulleys on the bottom for wheels.

 And just look what we did with puffy paper mache hearts!  We covered them with randomly cut pieces of silver metal foil sticky back sheets.  Then we made marks along the seams - some with the tip of a click it ink pen, some with a push pin and some with a craft scraper.  We made the stitches using loops of thin wire that we just inserted into the holes!  Next we inked the whole thing with 3 colors of Alcohol Inks -I used Pitch Black, Stonewash and Ginger. Isn't this the coolest thing??! Oh - and then we sanded it with steel wool to take most of the color off!

We lined the inside of the box with Terminology tissue wrap

We added Box Corners, sprocket gears, word keys, game spinners, time pieces and a light bulb - and even half of a View Master photo wheel!  He must have gotten those at an antique shop!

Here's Heather with her finished creation - everyone did theirs with slightly different colors and adhering all the 'stuff' in different places which Tim encouraged of course!

 and here's me with mine!

Not the typical kind of craft I usually create -  but I really enjoyed this workshop and my finished 'industrial style assemblage' (as the course description called it!)

Here are a few pics I took at home for a close up view!

 That's a piece of rusty screen across the bottom of the box.

Kent is my husband's name - so that is what I put inside the label pull -  and this will be a memento for our 15th wedding anniversary which is this June -  my word key just happened to say LOVE and the type charm says Lifetime - very appropriate!  And the View Master wheel I got has pics of Hawaii - maybe there's a trip in my future??!!  I think I'll add something with my name on it as well as our wedding date.  You can actually pull this around like a little pull toy circus wagon or something!

So, what do you think??!!