That's The Ticket!

Ticket Strip Swap--First Set

Last week I mailed some ticket strips for a ticket strip swap to a Yahoo Groups formed by individuals who love Ranger products.  I will admit that I had only used my Sizzix Tim Holtz Ticket Strip die a couple of times last year--to make tickets for Christmas cards and to make tickets to a Witches' Ball ATC swap some of us on another group did last fall for Halloween.

So there it sat, in one of the cases that houses some of my Sizzix long, thin dies.  Gathering dust.  Well, not actually since is in a case after all, but I had used it, then forgot about it.  Like lots of the wonderful stuff I have occupying my studio for future projects I once had in my mind, but now they are sort of lost in the foggy recesses.

I was inspired to make my strips after seeing several posts from others who had already done a few.  Then I watched a YouTube video from a wonderful crafter in New Zealand.  She had a very detailed and well-done video on how she does her ticket strips.  More inspiration!  So I was ready for the challenge.

We had a choice to make them all the same or to make them all different.  I thought that 11 strips would be boring to repeat the same pattern, so I chose to make 12 different strips (I always make one extra piece for each swap I do--for me, in case I don't get one of my own back).  Four strips from this next set of  ticket strips shown in the pictures uses  one of those long bollo stamps with handles on each end.  I have never had occasion to use this stamp, but now I did, since the stamp images fit pretty well on the ticket strip.

More Ticket Strips--Second Set

It is interesting to try and find a series of stamps that will fit well into the little rectangular space of the stamp, and still keep the integrity of the stamp so you could tear off one, and it would look like it could stand on its own with the partial image showing.  I used Tim Holtz's stamp set from Stampers Anonymous called "Odds & Ends" to stamp a blank ticket image on three of the strips.  This set is great when you need something for a holiday or special occasion.  Some of his other sets also contain ticket images.

I had fun trying to find images or parts of images that were small enough to go on these little tickets.  Ranger's Distress inks were used to color and shade the edges of the tickets.  I used some Ranger Glossy Accents over some of the images after coloring them with Distress markers to keep the color fresh while adding the Distress inks with the blender tool.  This worked very well, and I am grateful for that tip learned from the YouTube video.


 
To finish off the swap pieces, to the back I added different images:  they may have my personalized "stamped by" stamp and/or my signature, and some stamped words or other images that worked with the fronts.  For the final step, I used JudiKins' MicroGlaze on both sides of the ticket strips.  I discovered this step enhances the colors and seals the artwork, giving the tickets a nice professional sheen.