12 Tags of 2012 #1

Nope, no more 12 Tags of Christmas, but I'm trying to be a big girl about that. Tim's new idea is a tag a month, still loaded with new techniques and ideas. Since it took me several days to get to my rendition of the February tag started, this may end up being just perfect for me. '

True confession time. I'm tired of red, pink and Valentines' Day. AND I'm having an affair with purple again. We have an on-off relationship, but I'm really enjoying our time together now. So no more Valentines Day, but I do really love the little cupid. He had previously run amuck on my 366 calendar that Kate Crane organizes, so I thought I would let him have some space again.

I didn't have the stamps or embossing folders Tim used, so I broke out my favorite swirl/flourish and covered that in white acrylic paint - stamped it on a tag - and started blending milled lavender, spun sugar, seedless preserves and a bit of worn lipstick around the tag. I wet a towel, dabbed the ink off the swirls and then misted for a  little water action. I am so sorry this picture doesn't do it justice. I love the color I ended up with. The little cupids are covered in seedless preserves. Again, I didn't really have the right color of stickles, but up close and personal they look a bit better than the picture suggests. The top little cupid has some silver on it, and the bottom dude is covered with lavender I think...

The honey comb was fun (once I turned it the right way), but I had to do some futzing with the tissue paper. I kept ending up with G-I-A-N-T hearts that took over the tag. Finally got the hang of it though and look forward to using it again.

One advantage to being this late, is it's only a couple of days until we see what Tim reveals next!

Ghetto Card Making

Please know I consider this a good thing...

I popped upstairs tonight just 'cause and started looking at a 1952 edition of the Ladies Home Journal. First page I opened it to was two great advertisements for buttons and scissors. The next thing I knew I was working on the wonderful Hels' Sunday Stampers theme of Stitches and Sewing. I mean, how could I not? But I need to get to bed at a decent hour so I had to move fast.

To get a vintage feel I decided to work only in neutrals....i NEVER do this. Started with Antique Linen and Old Paper on a tag, and then used a great background stamp from Wendy Veechi's Art Fit for a Queen in Pumice Stone. It reminds me of ticking from old shirts. For a couple of stamps from Mr. Holtz's sewing stamps I brought out the Frayed Burlap Distress Ink and I next was ready to paste on some 60 year old images from the magazine. I love the line on the bottom image which notes "4 impressive buttons on the taffeta party coat". Doesn't taffeta party coat sound fun??? I so want one now. And check out the babe above the taffeta party coat...is that like a minus 12 waist...ahh

About half way through this little whirl wind I realized I should make this a card for my friend Cheri so out came the amazing Dreamer Paper from 7Dots studio. It is fabulous background paper. It's so full of color, texture, and what not (even though it's 2D) it doesn't need much help. A bit of ribbon, another button, and I was done. Tons o' fun. Thanks Hels. 

Foreign Jewelry

I am really beginning to like challenges. Somehow they lead me into doing things I've wanted to do, but just haven't gotten around to. This week on Grungy Monday 37 Linda chose the theme of Tim Holtz Wearable Art. Love it. A couple of years ago I made a charm bracelet out of some charms, Idealogy pieces and parts, fragments and whatnots. But I wasn't careful and kind of haphazard about the whole thing. It needed to be re-done. What better time than this??? AND as an added bonus, this weeks' Simon Says Stamp and Show theme was London, Paris or New York. Did I mention the charm bracelet was about Paris?? See. It was fate, karma, kismet, whatever you want to call it...

I had some map stickers I had picked up along the way and cut those to fit the fragments. One is backed in silver, one in clear tape, and the other has a different picture applied to the "back" side of the fragment and which is covered in Glossy Accents. I wanted the piece to feel like it was put together over time, maybe even from a Paris Flee Market. After I put it all together I realized the Eiffel Tower was missing so I popped in a little charm along with some beads for color. The dress represents the good shopping in Paris. I used Tim's type charms for the letters, and from Helga at ArtChix I cut a tiny little "spoil me". Because really, who doesn't want to be spoiled at least once and a while?

When I first met my husband we took a trip to Paris, and it really was a trip of a life time. I had wanted to go back again for so long, and it was a perfect vacation. Beautiful city, romantic trip, good weather, great food, laughter, shopping; so the heart and the muse token that says Lifetime reference that experience.

And when not adorning my wrist, it happily lives on top of this little light on my dresser, adding a bit of, well, something to the atmosphere.

WOYWW - or Messiness is us

Over on Julia Dunnit's blog she invites us to share What's on Your Workdesk (on) Wednesdays....e.g. WOYWW...here's what mine looked like on Thursday before I started messing about, and since I didn't get up to the Fun Room on Wednesday, it looked the same then as well.

On the left side is some papers that have been stained and stamped; working on ideas for a canvass or a card; lots of configuration pieces parts above -- teaching a configurations class on Saturday at the Stamp Cache and just haven't gotten around to putting things away yet. Much more fun to play.

Bits and pieces that will sooner or later work their way into something....

It Started Out Simply

But before I knew, one thing led to another, and another, and well, by the time it was done, I kinda liked it. I had such fun making an ATC last week for the Grungy Monday challenge, that I decided to make two more and build valentines around them for the kids. My son is is currently between sweeties, but has an abiding love of music so I started with Tim's tissue paper and the technique he showed us on the last tag of what apparently is the last tag of the 12 Tags of Christmas. Actually I started with white paper, colored that with some Distress Stain in Antique Linen, and then stamped a Memory Box word stamp on top of that. (Happily that qualifies the piece for Sunday Stampers - my very first!!! Huge fan of Hels, but that's something else all together....). I covered that with rock candy stickles.....perhaps I should show you what I'm talking about...

The flower on the ATC was made of grunge paper covered with tissue tape and then cut with the mini tattered flowers on my little hand crank Cuddlebug. I swiped the edges of the flowers with Aged Mahagony Distress Ink and bent up the top flower for some demension. The center is filled with strips I cut from a faux velvet leaf or two and glued down with a couple of beads and glossy accents. The hearts are Tim's; the top one is covered with some red tule and some fired brick stickles. Finally I twirled some copper wire around my paper piercer and slid a couple of black seed beads down the wire and tucked those under the flower in a pool of glossy accents.

For the background I started with watercolor paper. I mixed my new favorite red paint, Martha Stewart's craft acryclic in Chipoltle with Payne's Grey and a lot of water and colored the paper, mopping as I went along. Next I thought, oooo, I'll just spatter a bit of black on top for you know, character. Turns out there is a small knack to that. As you can see I ended up with a few blobs, but in the end, I kind of liked them. And I figured, hey, this looks like some of the T shirts he wears so hopefully he'll like it too. I dry brushed some of the red on top to make it not quite so dark.

And, wrapping up...I did the words on my computer and edged the paper with a black Copic. Added some gears and a couple of spinners, and mounted the whole thing on some black cardstock.
So in the end, I have a card for my son, my first Sunday Stampers, AND an entry for both Grungy Monday 36 - a Tim Holtz Valentine,  and Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge where anything goes...and it surely did.

Thanks to Gingersnap Creations which had a tutorial about speckled eggs yesterday which gave me the idea about splatters, Hels and Dyan Reaveley for the whole cut apart and layer words approach, and as always, the creative gentleman who inspires, Tim.

Celebrate Love.

Simon's Valentine....

This week over at Simon Says Stamp and Show the call went out for something with Distress Inks, buttons, wings and showing torn edges. BINGO. I was so lucky this week. The ATC was made for  Linda Ledbetter's Grungy Monday challenge already had two of those factors - wings and DI's -  AND I needed to make a Valentine's Card for my sweetie. The need to add torn edges and buttons just told me how I was going to make the card. Really...what could be better?

On the middle ATC portion of the card I misted my card and then smooshed it around on the  Dusty Concord, Victorian Velvet and Aged Mahogany stamped on my craft map.  It was a little too purple so I tapped the Aged Mahogany on the card. Well, that made it too red, but since it was still wet I just mopped some of it off. Ah...distress inks. A wondrous invention. I edged with a bit of Dusty Concord and then stamped the Fabulous Flourish stamp in white...more than once. Finally I covered it with Perfect Pearls Mist....another glorious invention. Wish you could see the sparkle a little better.

The wings are pretty obvious, as our the buttons. But I have to say the buttons were just perfect for balancing out the cute little white cherub. I edged the torn edges in Distress Seedless Preserves and mounted the whole thing on a very sparkly paper I picked up at my local store. I've even written the card, and jazzed up the envelope. Life is good. Enjoy.

Holtz-ian ATC

I love Grungy Monday, the all things Tim Holtz challenge that Linda Ledbetter dreams up. This week the challenge was a 2.5 by 3.5 inch ATC, Artist Trading Card. Another something new for me, but what fun. Does it still count that I plan to use it as the center piece of Randy's Valentine's card....I'm saying it does.

I made the crackle hearts and put the wings on for last weeks challenge, which was all things crackle. But you know how that goes....I was busy doing other stuffs and it just didn't get done. Perfect. Worked great this week.

I put Dusty Concord, Victorian Velvet, and Aged Mahogany on my craft sheet. Got my card wet and swooshed it around for good effect but it was a little too purple so I just tapped the Aged Mahogany on the card. Well, that made it too red, but since it was still wet I just mopped some of it off. Ah...distress inks. A wondrous invention. I edged with a bit of Dusty Concord and then stamped the Fabulous Flourish stamp in white...more than once.

The mini label was die cut from silver craft paper and some paper I was fooling around with the other day...swirling paints. The words came from my computer and were dabbed with a red color that was on my dabber...probably Aged Mahogany which is one of my current favorite DI's. 

So I patiently wait until Monday, to discover what Holtz-ian experience I'll try next week. Thanks Linda!

Spring (oh how I wish) Configuration Box

This is the project I've been living with the last several days. Each month I teach a project class at Stamp Cache, my local stamp store. Linda, the lovely proprietor is SO encouraging to everyone and is  a joy to work with. Any time we do a Tim Holtz project the response has been positive so we decided to take on a configurations box. We combined the box with Memory Box's " What's in the Box" Spring papers and die cuts. Linda orders it, sight unseen, and is never disappointed. This time the line was full of PURPLE....be still my heart.

It was a challenge because almost everything came from the store which manges to pack a whole bunch of goodies into a very small space, but still....

I used the Branch tree and trimmed off the bottom of it to make it into, well, just a branch. Tissue paper and tissue tape covered the outside of the configurations box and held all the little boxes together. I absolutely LOVE the rosettes, so I knew that was going in.

I used the butterfly, snow globe, and posies die cuts from Memory Box. Tim's influence is all over the piece with corners, trimmings flowers, film strips, clock faces, game spinners, foliage, elegant flourish die cuts...geez, i love those flourishes...and the feet. On this piece the feet made all the difference. It was pretty 'light' and the feet really grounded it. I even made a tissue paper flower that is atop the box, with a trimmings flower spritzed with Tattered Angels purple....(I might need a better camera...oh well).

The good news is folks seem to like it and we've added an extra class. Now if I could just remember how I did things in a couple of weeks for the class!  Peace.

Simon Says "Be A Queen"

I said "okay".

It was easy (which was good since I had two hours to make the card, photography it, put it up, and then make the link). When I first got the Wendy Vecchi  stamp I thought, oh my goodness when will I ever use it. It was only because I hadn't met Dyan Reavely and her amazing stamps. So far I have four of her collections and must have more. Not to mention the spray ink Ranger is now carrying in amazing, glorious colors. But again, I digress.

There is weekly challenge at Simon Says Stamps, and the challenge this week was Kings and Queens. I was poking around the web while listening to the Super Bowl and found the link to the challenge on Ellen Vargo's  blog -  who's part of their design team and has many other excellent attributes like her art is way cool. Any way I had picked up the mail this morning and found packages full of art parts and some of Dyan's stamps. There are other things I could/should be doing, but I couldn't wait to play.

The background is three different Tattered Angels sprays on watercolor paper. I used white acrylic paint on a natural sponge and dabbed it on the background. Next I smeared some Grape Jelly ink over top of the white so it was toned down, a bit.  But here's what I like the best. I ripped apart the packaging and smeared some Mustard Seed Distress Ink on the bubble wrap and popped that on top of the whole think. Although you can't see it in the picture, the stems on the leaves are covered with Rock Candy Stickles and it reacted with the Mustard Seed Ink, which I thought was way cool.  

So there you have it. I didn't mean to be a Queen, but the crown I had was a perfect fit and so....there you go.

February - Here I Come

Forgive me if I'm excited, but January here was the coldest in 99 years. Seems like we spent the whole month below zero. So I am very excited to start a new month (even if it is snowing and blowing).

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this calendar challenge over at The Kathryn Wheel. At the beginning of the month you start with a blank canvas and take off from there. I've decided to use it as a diary of sorts; posting bits and pieces of the things I've been working on throughout the month. You'll also notice I kinda have a thing for dimension...

So here's what my January page started out as and what it ended up as .... (I started the second weekend so I kinda had to fake several days)

And a glance at my alter ego from the 1920's along with my favorite quote of the month, and a shot of some really fun paper I got from 7 Dots Studio.  

The 7 Dots paper is so gorgeous on both sides I tried "weaving" it, you know -  one strip over, one strip under type thing  - and really liked the effect. It would be a great background for a tag, or card, or a number of other things. 

So that wraps up January. For February I couldn't really stay away from red and pinks....I have a feeling I'll be pretty traditional in my color choices.

Happy Valentines' Day and Happy Leap Year....see you next month with this challenge and MARCH!