Tags

The current PID challenge is "tags," and I did two. One is ATC sized, and one is made from a coaster. You can see Angie's tags on the PID blog.

Oh, and did you know that today is International Charm Day? Check out Arlene's blog for more information.

Jewelry and Journals

I just completed my first pages in my circle book group, Through The Eyes of An Artist. These pages are for JJ, who requested that a frog be somewhere in the pages we do for her. The first is my art page: Side by side with it, is my journaling page, which is supposed to say a little something about me and describe the process involved in doing these pages:If I have to include a frog, he sure better be wearing a crown! JJ's journal is now on its way to Tracy in Washington state.

I also found some time to play a little more with my Tim Holtz hardware. Love the whole idea-ology line, especially how easy it is to turn these pieces into jewelry. A favorite cousin has a birthday coming up. Don't know if this piece is going to her, or one I haven't even made yet, but here's my latest "grunge art" creation:

While I'm on the subject of Tim Holtz, he recently did a video tutorial on his website on using canned air and alcohol inks. Crazy, huh? I finally got a can (buying air, go figure!) and played a little. Nutty, but love the effect:

Jewelry Class

Yesterday I co-taught a jewelry class at my friend Heidi's meetup. We had a huge turnout....13 people, including Heidi's parents (though only mom crafted). Lots of my Gotham City Stampers teammates were there, and I really enjoyed sharing what I know about turning bits and pieces of a variety of things into jewelry. Heidi demonstrated decorating game pieces, using stamps, alcohol inks, rub ons, and lots of bling. I used some Stampin' Up hardware to make pendants. We filled the openings with little collage pieces, and then added some bead work to finish them off. Everyone had a great time, and I know I'd be proud to wear any and all of the completed pieces.

The photo above is of the pendant I did as a demo. I made a little collage to fit inside the hardware piece, added a jump ring on top for the cord, and then created three little beaded dangles for the bottom hole.

Here are some of the pendants created by the class participants:

Yvonne did these, and I think they're just gorgeous.

Sandy, Heidi's mom came all the way from central Pennsylvania, and made these wonderful pieces.

Corris did these, and I think they are wonderful!

Thought you might like to see some of the happy crafters.

From left to right - Jen, Heidi, Corris, Yvonne, and me with Bo.

Visit This Blog!!!!

My friend Betty from PID has a lovely blog, and she is currently posting truly outstanding tutorials on altered books. Having done one (only one) myself, I do know what goes into it, and Betty has done HUNDREDS of them! So, do please check out her work (and enjoy some very good music while you're there).

New Tutorial

I love trying new background techniques, and the quicker and easier they are, the more I like them. I just posted a tutorial on the PID blog. Click here to check it out!

Grunge Paper Squares

The other grunge paper swap I'm in at ATT is a twinchie swap.....that is, 2" squares. I really went to town on these....they have been dry embossed, heat embossed, sprayed, inked, blended, distressed, stamped. I was even able to add some grunge board shapes and idea-ology hardware. I'm pretty amazed at how much I could do with two square inches

Grunge Paper Flowers

The All Things Tim yahoo group is having a grunge paper flower swap, and I had the chance to work on that today. Grunge paper is like the wonderful grunge board, only thinner, and it comes in 12x12" sheets. I love it because it is flexible, takes ink, paint, dry embossing, distressing, all sorts of embellishments beautifully. It can be bent, curled, cut, wet, and it doesn't tear or fall apart. ATT is actually doing a couple of these swaps, but the flower one is the first I've had a chance to work on. I used two Stampin' Up punches...the scallop circle and the five petal. The circle one I sprayed with Glimmer Mist, ran through a Cuttlebug folder, inked, hit with the versamark, clear embossing powder and the heat gun. The five petal flower I gessoed, stamped with black pigment ink, embossed, then inked. I layered the two, and topped each with a different combination of metal embellishments, most of which are from Tim Holtz's Idea-ology line, which you know I LOVE.

PID Monday Challenge

Angie's challenge at PID this week is Black & White + one other color. I chose yellow for my miscellaneous piece:It is an 8 1/2 x 11" wall hanging. I used a die and my Big Kick to cut out the butterflies from all sorts of black and white papers....old sheet music, foreign language newspaper, bingo card, dictionary page, wrapping paper and even wall paper. The yellow one is from a piece of Stampin' Up designer series paper. Each butterfly has a little PID image....all faces from two of their inchie collage sheets. You can't tell from the photo, but the butterflies are only attached by their centers, so the wings don't lie flat. It has nice dimension in person.

For my ATC, I added green to the black and white scheme:

The background is a collage of some of the same papers I used in the butterfly piece. I added Avery in a green dress and some green birds and eggs.

Another Round Robin Page Completed!

Yesterday I received Nancy's book in the mail. It's always a great mail day when I get something to work on. If this is your first visit here and you don't know what I'm talking about, check out this entry for all the details.

Nancy cut her pages in the shape of large tags, and asked that we use a quote or words in our art. I chose a quote about friendship by Anais Nin, and used a beautiful Beeswax stamp of three women, which I colored with pencils, blended with Gamsol, and then highlighted with Twinkling H2Os. Of course I also used some of Tim Holtz's new Foliage hardware from the Idea-ology line.

The other pages already done for Nancy were spectacular, so I was a wee bit intimidated. Well, that lasted a short while. I slept on it and woke up with a very clear vision of what I wanted to do.

Pretty soon this Round Robin will be complete and I'll have my own book back. What a thrill that will be!

Happy Easter

I did this 4x4 wall hanging for a design team challenge at PID. Directions and materials list can be found here. Happy Easter, everyone!

Unbelievable Cuttlebug Giveaway!

I just heard about this one -- you have until tomorrow to go to this blog and leave a comment. You might win a brand new, still in the box Cuttlebug!

Swaps, Continued

I'm back with the gorgeous postcards I received today. The first two are by Betty. I just love her collage style.

The next is by Jennifer R.D. I love everything she does, especially her talent with the sewing machine (remember, I'm sewing impaired). Do you see the zig zag stitch on the top?:

And yet another beauty from the land down under. Thanks Lee :

Lastly, a mystery entry. No signature. I'll update this when I track down the artist!

Thanks to everyone who participated. Love these postcards!

Swaps!

Today was a great mail day....received some long awaited swaps from my PID Swaps group. Elena hosted both....thanks for all your work on this, Elena!

First was our monthly swap...a PID image is announced, and everyone who is interested makes 5 ATCs, sends them to Elena, and she sends us each 5 different ones in return.

March's image was the adorable Avery. I put her in a bottle and made her a specimen, made up Latin name and all. That's her at the top of this post.

This is the card I received from Dianna:

Elena did this one:Too bad the dimensionality of the vase and flowers doesn't come through. Gorgeous!

Next is Jennifer R.D.'s. The ribbons lift up to reveal more of the card. I wish you could see these in 3-D!!

Marcia did an amazing background technique on hers, using fusible webbing or some sewing stuff I know nothing about (being that I'm sewing impaired):

And, all the way from the Gold Coast of Australia, is this beauty by Sarah:

Don't you just love the tiny clock and clothes pin?

Now, on to the postcard swap. Unbelievably (to me), we didn't have enough people in this swap for everyone to get 6 new cards, so we each got one of our own back. Too bad, though I loved my cards (she said modestly, lol), so didn't mind seeing one of them make a return trip. Here are the 6 that I sent off:

I will come back later to show you the wonderful postcards I received in this swap.

Recent Art

Just realized I haven't posted anything in nearly a week...been busy trying to keep up with all the projects I've committed myself to. I'm in two circle books and just signed on for a third, which will take off in a month or so. I love doing those. My Stampin' Up team has grown so large, that our monthly swaps have become a challenge to get done on time. At April's team meeting I have to come up with swaps for 19! And our focus is to use a technique or stamp we've never used before.

I also had a design team challenge for PID due, several swaps, and of course our weekly mingles.

Here is some of what has been keeping me busy; these are all pages I've done for different members of my All Things Tim round robin book:

This is for Estrella's book; her theme is celebrations. I think that creating art is a great celebration of life, so that inspired me to do this:

Sandi didn't specify a theme for her book, and this is what I came up with:

Gloria wanted vintage. I think I achieved that here:

Laurel wanted either the word heart or a heart image on her pages:

And Barbara wanted nothing cutesy. She wanted spooky!

Can't wait to see what's happening on my pages!