Under the Wire

What a week...not nearly enough time in the Fun Room. Since I have you know, 7 or 8 hours left, I thought maybe I should actually finish my Tim's 12 Tags of 2012 March offering. Like most things I try that Tim suggests, I love the mosaic technique...can't wait to try it on things other than flutterbys. But then again I have my April calendar page to finish (okay and start) and all the Creative Chemistry to catch up on, and tags to make for our April Class at Stamp Cache in beautiful downtown Palmer....and all the other ideas whirling around in my brain!

I bought a couple of wood blocks at Michael's a while ago and since Tim was using a wood grain stamp I thought why not try doing something with wood? First block I tried I used a dark stain on. Mistake. Big Mistake. The next one I started with Shabby Shutters, Broken China, and a bit of Dusty Concord Distress Inks blended together. Oops. Too dark. Picket Fence Stain to the rescue!! Love that stuff.

I am seriously in love with just about all things Dyan Reaveley these days, especially her leaves which come in stamps and stencils. So i popped a few stamped images on the bottom in Bundled Sage, and then broke out the Perfect Pearls. I mixed some copper with water on my craft sheet, painted a bit with that and then Sour Apple. Finally to add a darker color I used my Lucsious Lime Smooch. For the 'branch' I used part of an glassine elegant flourish.

I tried a couple of different embossing powders - the top one is Tinsel Bridal which came out well and a copper color I like alot too.

Finally here's the tag as Tim presented it...we'll probably do this in class, but I like to present another option too.

Back up to the Fun Room!

Sunday Stampers in Bloom

This week, the Sunday Stampers brain child of Hels Sheridan theme is paper roses. She makes them look so easy - no matter, the size, color or material. For the life of me, I don't know how she manages to curve the two and one petal pieces both out and in and the same time....see it even sounds weird. But I managed to get a couple done.....

I used one the first background tags I made in Tim Holtz's great on line class Creative Chemistry which consisted of blending distress inks into pretty shadings. Really. How fun is that? I got so caught up in the colors, I almost forgot the stamp! As in Sunday Stampers. I used Tim's large flourish in Mustard Seed Distress Ink. Pretty subtle, but as I said I was enamoured with the colors.

I have a couple of the new Ideology pieces now - the metal bands with sentiment have some great thoughts. A bit of ribbon, a few embossed flowers, the proverbial wing, a bumble bee and I was done. My sweetie came up to the Fun Room tonight, smiled, and asked what are you going to do with all those tags...I think I'll just enjoy the colors a while.

Sunday Stampers....My Time!

Each Sunday, the lovely and talented Hels Sheridan puts up a challenge for those inclined and this time it was Misty....as in using mists. She also made an awesome tag and offered to send it to someone who entered the challenge. Whoa. That's all I need to want to get misty. But the whole house thing (carrying boxes, packing boxes, carrying boxes) got in the way. Here's the thing though, I live like a bunch of time zones earlier than Hels, so by my figuring as long as I get in before midnight MY time, I should have a chance.

So here's my very ghetto offering (which I kinda even like):

I actually manage to make a comment last Sunday (because that gave me TWO chances to win) and I pledged to make a light and misty something. Yikes.

I started by pouring a tad of dark turquoise mist into a mini mister and diluted it with water, and spritzed. Next I spritzed with Perfect Pearls Biscotti. Then I took my brand new Dylusions diamond stencil and sprayed WAY TOO MUCH Perfect Pearls Heirloom Gold. No problem; I just blotted it and you could still see it was diamonds....kind of. So out came the Picket Fence stain and that's how I got the base coat. It looks like streaky wall paper to me. Last, I used Tim's damask embossing folder to give it the lush, contential look I was after.

One of our favorite companies at the Stamp Cache, my local stamp store, is Memory Box. Dave has awesome paper and dies and these quick little flowers are made in a snap with a quilling tool. If I could find one of the two quilling tools I own. Did I mention the packing and carrying of boxes?? Finally I just used tweezers to roll the flowers....

Lastly, I had just received this very fun wired paper ribbon from Paper Whimsy that was the perfect color. Misty and light. And  minutes to spare before midnight. Wish me luck!!

Enjoy.



Plaids Are In This Spring

Whew...our house is finally on the market. The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of painting, carrying boxes, packing boxes, carrying boxes, cleaning, sorting, carrying boxes. No time for playing in the Fun Room until now, and I'm a happy camper that I'm getting something into Linda Ledbetter's very fun Grungy Monday challenge. Linda's Studio L3 blog was one of the first ones I visited on a regular basis as I started diving into this wonderful creative and blog world.

So, the challenge this week was to use Tim Holtz's fun, and somewhat challenging plaid technique. I've done this before, and playing with alcohol inks definitely makes my heart sing, so it was fun to try some non-Christmas colors. Since patience continue to evade me, I tend to swipe in the opposite direction without putting new ink on, which results in some muted colors, but hey, it's all a process right?

I've been playing around with Tim's stamps Fairytale Frenzy Stamps and since Mr. Mojo wasn't all that excited about working, I used some of those ideas. I pulled a green tag out of my drawers; to be honest I don't know what the first layer was - maybe paint. But it was too dark, so out came my favorite Picket Fence Stain. Next I used a little flourish mask on the bottom and put some Bundled Sage Distress Ink on the foam pad that said Evergreen Bough and applied it all over the tag. Finally I stamped the butterfly for a ghost effect in Bundled Sage DI as well. Finally I stamped the branch on with Peeled Paint DI.

I adhered the plaid paper to some grunge paper, managed to let it dry even, and then started cutting out butterflies. These were my two favorite. I was going to glue them down in the middle, but horror of horror the backs were naked when a light bulb flashed. Out came the Perfect Pearl powder, a mist of water on the craft sheet and pretty soon I was painting the backs and edges lovely colors....

Thanks again to the lovely Ellen Vargo who turned me onto the perfect pearls trick. They are one of my new favorite things now.

To finish the tag I broke out my beautiful, embossed metal which was totally Tammy Tutterow's idea, but oh my, what fun it is to create, and how cool it looks when you are done. I spent one whole Sunday morning playing with my Melting Pot and embossing powders and my note that day is that it is just like painting with embossing powder. And now that I look at my tag, and Tammy's I see a striking resemblance....amazing how things stick in your subconscious. The techniques I used on the background were different, but the effect is very similar so thank you Tammy!

Sorry so wordy tonight; but I've been away. Good to be back. Enjoy.



WOYWW #144

Julia Dunnitt had this nifty idea to show each other our work desks on Wednesday. It's lots of fun, so when I can, I try to join in.

This week it wasn't  too bad, but truth be told I did tidy up a bit before I took the picture; not on purpose, just so there would be a little room to work the next time I can steal away to the Fun Room.

I have a little problem though....I tend to keep going when I should stop on a piece. So I thought I would make myself a little sign...you know, as a reminder. And then what do you think I did? Yep. Over did it. So now I just look at it and laugh. Hopefully I'll start to get the message sometime soon.

Hope your having fun!

Grungy Monday # 38

This week, while we all wait (none too patiently) for the new copies of the  Compendium of Curiosities Volume 2 from Tim, the lovely Linda at Studio L3 has given us a great challenge for this week at Grungy Monday. It's one of Tim's first 12 Tags of Christmas, Tag 2 in 2007. It's the tried and true paint resist technique, with "ghost images" made from re-cycled packaging materials, and of course a stamped image.

I started by making stamps from the gear die cuts...a little trick Tim showed us during the 12 Tags of Christmas in 2010 Day 11. I used Golden Fluid Acrylic Transparent Red Iron Oxide on my new stamps and since it's a little runnier than the dabbers, the paint ran into down the foam and created little puddles. Happy Accident, since that is what created the darker shadows on the gears. I embossed them with clear embossing powder and then put down Rusty Hinge, Wild Honey, Stormy Sky and a tad bit of Pine Needles Distress Inks on my craft sheet just like Tim instructed. I love that his instructions actually work!! I used my favorite flourish stamp with Aged Mahagony DI for the stamp part, a Graphic 45 steampunk babe image, some old watch parts, and then made the "ghost" images.

I love how these came out. I used the same Red Iron Oxide paint, added some Golden Fluid Acrycli Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and Raw Sienna, and smooshed them around with my finger. To get some depth I cut the same gears out of black cardstock and popped them off the paper with foam tape. I colored a washer, a fastener and then used another fastner I had in my stash to actually attach them. And then I popped the whole thing onto some black board. I'm going to give this to our webmaster Jack, who probably likes steampunk more than any one I know. Thanks Linda and Tim!

A new month rolls in - Let's welcome March!

There is no doubt, playing in the craft room makes me a happy person. I love Kate Crane's 366 calendar challenge. I find myself thinking about what the day's entry will be at some pretty inappropriate times, and I had such fun creating my March layout.

The lovely frog princess is happy in her kingdom, which I suspect will grow over the month.



I found a couple of Dyan Reaveley new stamps and stencils and oh, what fun they are to play with. I am waiting with baited breath for the new sprays, but I had a pretty good time with my Copic markers in the meantime.

February got a tad (ah, hem) on the busy side. Ah well, lesson learned.

The month ended on a high note though; I was a winner in the first Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2012! I went straight to the moon when I read that!!!!  And what was even cooler was I expanded an idea I had first come up with on the calendar. I love the little cupid. So cute. One night I had the negative space left after cutting him out, and that's what led to Cupids Run Amuck on the calendar, which was premise of the tag.

Little did I know when I made the February page I would have such a cool thing to celebrate Leap Year. Gotta love how the universe works!