"If tea cups could talk..." - Art Journal

My newest die cut that I have is my first steel rule die (I believe its is considered a steel rule die). The Tim Holtz Tea Time die; I have been eyeing this die since it came out and I finally purchased it. Part of the reason I held back from buying it was that I have a Cuttlebug machine and I did not want to have to buy a new Sizzix machine just so I could use this die. But I discovered through a You Tube video that I found on Pintrest that you can indeed use this type of die in a Cuttlebug. All you have to do is use the B plate and card stock with this die to cut out the tea cups. 

When I got this I had so much fun just cutting out the tea cup, saucer, and tea bag tag that I had to cut out more than one and play with different techniques on them. In this stack of cups I did the orange cup first. I used gelatos on it. I used two different oranges and blended it with an ink dauber (thanks, Nina and the Waffle Flower blog is where I learned how to do that) and then I shaded the edges with a red. After that I put stencil over it and removed the color a little with a baby wipe to create the dots. The blue cup was made with a light and dark blue gelato blending like the orange cup and then adding texture paste over it with the doily stencil (Tim Holtz again). The green saucer followed that same idea with the gelatos. The cup with the flower and the greenery were done using distress inks. The cup on the bottom of the stack was stamped lightly with cracked pistachio using the distress marker on the stamp then stamping and going over the stamped image with the marker to define the outline and veins. I added some antique linen with a water brush to add some shadow and age to the cup since these cups have chips and wear on them. The floral cup was painted with the antique linen and water brush first then stamped over with distress inks once it was dry.

I am entering this in the Work It Wednesday Challenge  on the Simon Says Stamp blog, their challenge theme is die cuts. I do believe that I had enjoyed myself with die cutting when I made this art journal layout. I hope that you like my project and that you consider coming back and visiting my blog again in the future. Have a wonderful day and be blessed.