“Take off your hat,” the King said to the Hatter.
“It isn’t mine,” said the Hatter.
“Stolen!” the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the fact.
“I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added as an explanation; “I’ve none of my own. I’m a hatter.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

  

I love hats. I have a huge collection of hats in my closet. Each time I go on a trip abroad, I come back with a hat. My mom always says that I have “a head for hats” and should always wear a hat. My husband just laughs at me every time I buy a new one

So, how is it possible that I’ve had Tim Holtz’s “Ladies & Gentlemen” stamp set forever, and haven’t used it yet??

No explanations here, but I have finally used it last night, and created this card for my craft room, with a fun mood color hat spinner:

You can actually spin the cog with your finger, and choose which hat the pretty lady should wear today!

 

And boy, she could wear hats! Check out her different styles:

A Bit About the Making of this Card

It was real fun making it, so I wanted to share some info about the process as well.

I used LOTS of Distress Embossing Glaze on this card.

On the background, I sprayed Distress Resist Spray through a stencil (just like I did in this post), and then quickly applied different glazes on the pattern. You have to work fast, or the spray will dry out!

I love the texture from the resist and the glazes combined. Very cool

After the embossing, I sprayed the background with Distress Oxide Sprays (mostly brown colors).

The hats were also embossed with the glazes, and after they cooled I added some Antique Linen Distress Ink on the white areas.

The lady was actually COLORED with the glazes! I used my Versamark pen, coloring different areas each time, and then embossing it. I really suck at coloring, so this technique worked great for me!

The Spinner Mechanism

For the spinner, I stamped the cog twice (because there’s only a “half” in the set) on a piece of acetate. I used Jet Black Archival Ink for stamping, and then dried it with my heat tool. Surprisingly, it worked!

The pieces are held together mostly in the center. I added a small circle in the center with some glue, and covered it with a small circle label. Then, I added the hats, and because the blue one is covering the border between the parts, it’s helping to hold them together as well

To make the spinner spin, I used a sharp punching tool to punch a hole in the center, and added a large brass brad.

Because the cog is transparent, the pattern of the background is still visible:

To finish my card, I stamped randomly some other stamps from the set, and added a front panel with the banner of the merchant tailor (the hatter!!).

Here’s again the complete card:

Simonsaysstamp Monday Challenge

This week’s challenge at Simonsaysstamp is “E is for?”. I think my E is for Embossing and Eccentric

That’s all for today! Did you like my lady who could wear hats? Which color is your favorite? Tell me in the comments!

If you want to see updates about new posts, please like my Facebook page (and configure it to See First), follow me on Instagram, or follow me on Pinterest.

– Michal