artsaveslives

My Funny Valentine

2012-02-14T13:53:00.000-05:00

Big announcement from Tim yesterday.....no more 12 Tags of Christmas (sigh....), but instead, the launch of the 12 Tags of 2012. A new tag, chock full of techniques and step by step directions each month. Starting with February, a Valentine's tag.

Not that I'm cynical about love, but whether I've been in or out of a relationship come February 14, it has just never been one of my favorite holidays. But I couldn't resist the challenge, not to mention I had an idea to put a less than serious spin on things.

Tim's main technique involved the use of a specialty paper that results in a honeycomb (and very dimensional) image. You have to click on the 12 Tags link above to see it. Now, as much as I own in the way of supplies, this paper is not in my stash. Somewhere in the back of my mind, however, was a vague memory of making homemade honeycomb paper with my kids way back when I was an elementary school teacher. I did a quick google search and found this totally easy tutorial which is just the way I remember doing it. Does it result in the exact same perfect honeycomb effect as the Inky Antics paper? Of course not, but if you want to give it a try and are too impatient to wait until you can find the real thing, I don't think you'll be disappointed. I'm not trying to take business away from Inky Antics, but not everyone has the means to buy every cool product, and besides, it's always nice to know your alternatives.

Before I go into details, this tag will be my entry for two challenges besides Tim's.

Grungy Monday #36 : V-Day, Tim Holtz style.

Simon Says Stamp and Show : anything goes

And by the way, both of the above challenges will have prizes sponsored by Simon Says Stamp.

I used Tim's paint resist technique with his Rock Star stamp, then used just about every shade of red distress ink over the entire tag. The embossing you see on the top and right side was done with one of those skinny embossing folders from Sizzix. Instead of the lace die for the bottom (which I don't have....and why is that? Something else for the wish list), I used two Martha Steward border punches on Core'dinations whitewash paper. I followed Tim's directions to make the heart with the tissue tape ruffled edge, and made the honeycomb heart following the tutorial directions I mentioned above.

When I saw cupid on Tim's blog, believe it or not, I was instantly reminded of the running man from Wendy Vecchi's Gentleman's Art stamp set (similar pose, no?), so I had him holding onto the heart, and instead of covering him with red stickles, I used black diamond.

I used a plain old office date stamp for the one-day-too-late-for Valentine's-Day date, and right below it, the "oops" is from Wendy's Destination Art set. The "I'm Late! I'm Late!" is from a Stamping Ground Alice in Wonderland set.

And I'm thinking this tag will go out in the mail to a friend who I know is also no great fan of V-Day, and won't mind a bit it's being late.

I'm Still Here.....

2012-02-09T10:12:00.001-05:00

......and I can't believe it's been over two weeks since my last post. When life (as in family and health issues) gets in the way, it does it big time. Doing something creative is about my only link with sanity, and I'm trying to squeeze some of that into each day, but it hasn't been easy.

But, enough of that negative crapola. I did a little something this week, and I have to say, I'm getting a LOT of mileage out of an ATC. You'll see in a bit how it qualifies for three challenges. And, truth be told, I'm just happy to have something new to blog about.

The challenges: Grungy Monday just wants an ATC featuring any Tim products and techniques.

Meanwhile, over at Simon Says Stamp and Show.....there is a recipe. Make something that contains torn edges, distress inks, a button and some wings.

Last, but certainly not least, the Making Art challenge at the Wendy Vecchi yahoo group is to make something that incorporates at least one of Wendy's stamps as well as her technique for creating custom "epoxy" embellishments.

It's amazing how much you can get on a 2 1/2 x 3 1/2" piece of cardstock, if you put your mind to it.

The base is one of Ranger's newish black ATC blanks. The top stamp is from Tim's Rock Star set; the hearts on the bottom are Wendy's from her In Love With Art set. Both were stamped with clear ink and embossed with white powder.

The two hearts that sit on top of the Tim stamp were cut with his mini hearts movers and shapers dies. I used some scraps of watercolor paper which were embossed and then colored with several shades of red distress ink and some distress stains as well. They were also dusted with perfect pearls for a little shimmer. The wings and button were in my stash and have no idea who to credit for them.

Poking out of the hearts is the epoxy embellishment. The glare off the glossy accents was unavoidable, but what I used was a circle of pink paper and a tiny gold heart charm.

The sentiment on the bottom is a stamp from Wendy's Seriously Art set.

And I seriously hope that it won't be another two weeks before I have something to blog about.

Oh, and although it doesn't show up too well in the photo, the edges of the ATC are distressed and torn up a bit. (Just in case anyone from the challenges police is reading this).

Cracked and Bricked

2012-01-24T09:37:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to report that yesterday I managed to create a birthday card that is also OK for Grungy Monday Challenge 34, and the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.
The lovely Linda Ledbetter of GM, asked us to do something that incorporates Tim's crackle resist technique. And over at Simon Says, we're to do a piece inspired by a song title.

I know this is not a card for everyone, but I'm pretty sure its recipient will like it. It's grungy and graffiti inspired.

It started with black cardstock, which I embossed with Tim's bricked embossing folder. I then applied a coat of antique linen distress crackle paint, thick in some areas, thin in others, just like Tim demonstrated in the video. While the paint was still wet I removed some around the bricks so they'd be more recognizable as bricks. Then I just sat and waited for the paint to dry and the crackling to begin.

I added some shreds of 7 Gypsies tissue paper to look like the remnants of posters on the wall. Adhered them with Ranger's Glue N Seal and being tissue paper, they really did kind of "melt" into the wall.

The writing, deliberately wonky (well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it), was done by dabbing black paint through Tim's stencil type.

The shadow of the woman staring at the wall is actually a Wendy Vecchi stamp, from her Regal Art set.

As for the song title.....are you old enough to guess, LOL? Well, it's Another Brick in the Wall, by Pink Floyd, released in 1979. And now you have a pretty good idea of just how old I am!

33 Is A Good Number

2012-01-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

This week marks both the 33rd Grungy Monday challenge and the 33rd Making Art Wendy style challenge over at the Wendy Vecchi yahoo group.

The GM challenge is to use the technique that Tim showed us on his blog back in August of 2008. This particular technique has also appeared in this year's 12 Tags of Christmas, and if I'm not mistaken, in a past 12 Tags as well. It involves fragments, alcohol inks, archival ink, and for most of us, a good deal of finger crossing. A true challenge, but when it works, it rocks.

I used a large oval fragment and decided to use it as embellishment on a card. Not sure yet what occasion the card will celebrate or who will receive it, but I think it turned out pretty good.

I used the script stamp from Tim's reflections set, so with this technique it shows up the right way, not backwards. The oval fragment fits perfectly in the center of the fancy frame embossing folder, and I did that on glossy cardstock. I don't think I've ever embossed on this paper before, and I love the way it looks. It's important to use white paper with the fragment so that the technique really pops. The embellishments on top of the fragment (attached with glossy accents) are from pink paislee. Here's a sideways shot so you can see the dimensionality.

The Wendy challenge also involves a Tim technique....this one from tag #2 of this year's 12 Tags. We're to use the kraft resist technique and some sticky back canvas and Wendy's stamps. I created my own Wendy kraft resist paper by using her lace background stamp, clear ink and embossing powder on plain kraft paper. For the canvas part, I stamped two of Wendy's flowers on the canvas, colored them, frayed the edges, and popped them on the background. Quite a bit of perfect pearls mists were involved. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I did this on 4x6 light chipboard, and it will be a postcard.

Journal Pages With An Asian Twist

2012-01-16T10:21:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite collaborative journals is turning out to be the one with the Asian theme. Something about it has made everyone in the group create the most beautiful books for us to work in. Every one I've received so far has been hand made and they are all just lovely. The other day I received two in the mail from my pal Lee in Australia. Yesterday I was housebound and worked on them all day long (well, with a few breaks in between to watch a White Collar marathon on tv).

First up, Daisy's book. All her pages have a white border and black to work on. Very dramatic. Daisy also requested that we use no bulky embellishements or dangly things, so for interest I turned to texture.

Above, the two facing pages. I started out by embossing black cardstock with Provo's Asian set. The first page has the bamboo, the second the cherry blossoms.

I then swiped the embossed parts with clear ink and sprinkled some of Ranger's antique gold powder over top. Sure, some of the powder went to the unembossed areas, but I didn't let that worry me, as I knew I'd be adding other bits to the page. The gold strips are from torn up joss paper, which you can find online or in many shops in any Chinatown. The flowers and bird are from a decorative napkin. The chinese characters are stamped with clear ink and embossed with black powder.

Now, I know I'm mixing up Chinese and Japanese images, but I claim artistic license, and I hope no one reading this blog belongs to the purist/factual police and certainly don't mean to offend anyone. The kimono is a Judikins stamp which I colored with metallic mica paints. The gold frame around it was done with sticky tape and gold microbeads. BTW, I covered the beads with a layer of Ranger's matte Glue N Seal, so they will stay put forever.

The close up above is a little fuzzy, but I wanted you to see the flower....fussy cut from a napkin, and after it dried I outlined it with a fine black permanent ink pen. You can also see the embossed bamboo on the background.

I'm not sure how much of the shimmer shows up, but the entire kimono does have a subtle metallic glow.

Next up, Carla's pages. I started out with red textured paper, over which I glued a decorative napkin which featured cherry blossoms, but in an unexpected color palette....the whole thing just black, white, and gray. Some of the red peeks through as pink, and I really liked the look.

After the tissue paper tried I stamped over it with clear ink and embossed the images with plain (not antique) gold powder.

The square above is a stamp from an unknown company, found in my stash, embossed with gold, and popped up on the page with a few foam dots. A heart shaped "coin" dangles from it, and I added some gold German scrap....not exactly Asian, but it works.

On this page I did something I've been wanting to do for a while. I acquired a few small brass latches a while back and wanted to use them on a "door" on a page. I used grungeboard so it would withstand bending from opening and closing it. And yes, there is something to see inside....some images I took from the catalog my friend Kyoko gave me on the cruise.

I glued a few select images together and then added the gold embossed stamping of the dragon and the dragonfly. The red paper you see on the inside of the doors is really just there to cover the prongs from the brads used to attach the latches to the doors.

The Writing's On The Wall

2012-01-12T09:13:00.000-05:00

This year I am once again participating in The Sketchbook Project (for more information, click on the link on my sidebar). A quick summary for those who don't like links: When you sign up, for a small fee you are sent a sketchbook and a theme (which you can interpret as you like or even ignore....no sketchbook police lurking about). There are some rules, but they are simple and are all about keeping the books a uniform size and free of embellishments that can fall off or hurt someone. The books (last year 28,000 artists from around the world requested books and about 10,000 actually finished theirs) are sent back when completed and then they go on a road trip. Last year we had fun visiting the tour in Brooklyn, NY where it originates and viewing the books of many of our online friends. And some friends in far away places caught the tour in their home towns and got to see our books in person. Click HERE to see my post on last year's sketchbook and HERE to see photos of my visit last year.

My theme this year is Writing on The Wall, and I had fun with it, being pretty literal and just making like a grafitti artist. I actually sent my book back way ahead of the deadline, and look forward to the start of the tour this spring.

Grungy Monday 31 -- Happy Birthday Tim!

2012-01-04T09:31:00.000-05:00

Linda Ledbetter, the brains behind Grungy Monday came up with a real winner this week....this Saturday is Tim's birthday, so Linda's challenge is for us to use whatever Tim products/techniques we'd like and create a birthday card for Tim. I actually did mine on Monday, even popped it in the mail for Tim yesterday morning, but today is the first chance I've had to post about it.

While I was at it, I noticed that the challenge over at Simon Says Stamp and Show is "something old, something new," and my card (and envelope) fit this challenge as well, so here we go with another twofer.

It's an easel card, and what you see peeking from beneath it is the envelope I made for it....which is what constitutes the "something old" part of the Simon Says challenge. It was made from a sheet of vintage advertising, attached to some sturdy cardstock. And it was part of a package of goodies sent to me by my good pal Nancy in Arizona. (BTW, the "something new" is the distressed doily on the edge die I used to keep the easel open.....it was the very first time I used that die).

Here are some more shots of the card and some of the supplies I used.

The background paper, as well as the paper used on the triangles is from Tim's Lost and Found paper stack. The letters that spell out FUN are Jenni Bowlin stickers, and they are attached to cardstock, placed inside blank brads (an old Stampin' Up product), and the whole thing covered with a layer of glossy accents. I edged the triangles with some white paint so they'd show up better against the background, and they're glued to the string with glossy accents.

The filmstrip was cut from the filmstrip frames die. Where did I get a stamp that says "Tim?" Haha, I didn't. It is actually a stamp from an Oxford Impressions set that says "Time." I just covered the e with tape before inking, and voila! A Tim stamp. (As I take a bow for my cleverness, LOL).

And here is a better look at the envelope. Although I used s a strong adhesive to seal everything, just to be on the safe side (and to add a bit of decoration) I used tissue tape around all the edges.

Oh, and my message to Tim is above the doily where it can remain unseen while the easel card is displayed; one of the great benefits of this style of card.

Only one last thing to say: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TIM!!!

Grungy Monday -- Get Out the Tissues

2011-12-28T10:23:00.000-05:00

This week's Grungy Monday is all about tissues.....Tim's tissue paper and tissue tape, that is. The challenge is simple: use either or both products on a project. No other conditions or restraints. So, remembering to be clever and multi-task, I decided to make a birthday card for my GM entry.

I started out with the idea in mind of using the tissue paper technique Tim used on tag 12 of the 12 Tags of Christmas this year. Except that I didn't go back to review the steps. I just plowed ahead, and as a result skipped a few along the way. But no worries; my unintentionally simplified version works too.

I stamped the background with one of Tim's flourishy stamps, filling it up (using black archival ink), then covering it with a piece of the music tissue paper (using Ranger's matte Glue N Seal). Since I skipped the step where you lighten the stamped images with Picket Fence Distress Stain, you can see quite a bit of the stamping under the music. Which works for me. I also skipped the wrinkling the tissue paper step as well as the cover it all with stickles step.

To add even more tissue to the mix, the image I chose is actually cut from a decorative napkin, glued down with....you guessed it.....Glue N Seal. I covered her printed feathers with some real ones and added a bit of bling in the center.

The bits of sparkle around the edges comes from Suze Weinberg's Beadazzles (in Purple Rain). In case you don't know, Beadazzles are a great mix of micro beads and glitter, and I stocked up on a huge number of them at a Ranger Warehouse Sale a couple of years back. I don't even know if they are still manufactured, but they are a very cool embellishment. And a tip: after adhering them to your project, a light coat over top with....yep.....Glue N Seal, will keep them all in their place forever.

The birthday greeting was made from Jenni Bowlin's mini letter stickers.

If you look closely, you can see some of the stamping/music tissue paper through the image of the dancer, and I think that is very very cool.

Artistic Evolution, Steampunked

2011-12-26T10:45:00.001-05:00

Almost a year ago my journal loving friends and I began the Artistic Evolution, another collaborative project that due to the varying sizes of the pages allows for some previous (and future) work to show through, and encourages an evolution from artist to artist. For more detail about this process and lots of illustrations, click here.

A few days ago I received Val's fantastic book from Elena. Val's covers and art are all about steampunk, and she requested that we stick with that theme if possible. I love steampunk, so have no problem staying with it.

Neither did Elena, and her pages are full of gears, wheels, watches, and beautiful images from Graphic 45's Steampunk Debutante line. My pages evolved easily from hers, and I took most of my inspiration from this portion of her work:

Here are my two facing pages. You can see some of Elena's work behind the left hand page. I used Tim's Weathered Clock die because it looked good with the gears from Elena's page visible behind it.

And here are the two pages separately:

I used DCWV paper with a steampunk theme for the backgrounds, but of course added layers of ink, stencils, masking, paint, modeling paste, etc. to what was already there. I cut the Weathered Clock die from a background I'd made ages ago and never used. The butterfly wing (yes, that's what it is) to the right of the clock is a stencil and I smeared modeling paste over it, then inked it when the paste was dry.

The steampunk gent is a Wendy Vecchi stamp on a coordinating art part, so it's very dimensional. His hat got the patent leather look from Glossy Accents, and it is further decorated with a spring, a resistor and some watch parts.

Here are some close ups from page 1:

The second page has more gears and sprockets (mainly from Tim's idea-ology line), another art part from Wendy, some stamps from Oxford Impressions, and the edge treatment that the next artist will have peeking out from behind her work.

Wendy's watch art part was inked with pumice stone distress ink, then covered with rock candy crackle paint. It was filled with various watch parts, embedded in a layer of Glossy Accents. Some ball chain is glued around the whole thing.

My edge treatment is Tim's Iron Gate on the edge die, inked with vintage photo then covered with Glossy Accents (both sides, as both sides will show). I punched small holes in the tops of the gate and strung thin wire from post to post, with a bit of spring in each section.

As soon as I get to the post office, this wonderful book will be on its way to Lori in Missouri! You gotta love a well traveled journal.

To All My Friends in Blogland......

2011-12-24T20:02:00.001-05:00

PEACE, LOVE, AND JOY

XOXO

Eileen

Rosette Snowman

2011-12-21T09:08:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm still here. It's been over a week since my last post, but I've noticed that things in blogland seem to get quiet right after Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas finishes. And I'm no exception. What I've been up to.....working on collaborative books as they come my way, finishing Chanukah and Christmas cards, spending time with my mom, and trying to just sit down and create something for no specific reason.

When the rosette dies first came out I did a lot of experimenting with them and they really are versatile. The other day Tim showed how to turn them into trees. If you follow his directions for shaping the rosette you also have the makings of a sweet umbrella. But that's not what I've been up to. I decided to try my hand at a rosette snowman.

I used all the rosette sizes for the body, which was cut from lightly patterned white cardstock. After assembly, icicle stickles were rubbed around the edges.

The hat was made by glueing several layers of circles together (cut from patterned black cardstock) for the brim, and more (smaller) circles for the top, finished with one very small rosette....made by trimming some of the width from the smallest of the rosettes. Caution: you really must reinforce the rosettes with tape before folding, especially if you plan to cut one smaller. If you don't, you'll wind up with a handful of pieces.

The broom handle is part of a paintbrush that was no longer brushing, and the broom itself was made with twine and a whole lot of glossy accents to keep it all in place. It is attached to the snowman with thin wire. The "hand" is a bit of twill ribbon that hides the wire.

I'm laughing right now because in this closeup I think it looks like a chicken. However, if you go back to the full body shot, I do believe it does resemble a snowman. The eyes are just black cardstock cut with a plain office supply hole punch. Can you guess what the nose is made of?

I sacrificed the tip of an orange crayon for that.

Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to all my friends in blogland!

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 12

2011-12-12T09:32:00.000-05:00

So, it's the 12th and final tag of Christmas for 2011. Kinda sad, but I think Tim and Mario need those 6+ hours back each day, not to mention running all over Prescott looking for a signal when their internet goes down. Thanks for the fun, guys. Your generosity is beyond measure.

Today's tag features one of Tim's little faux frozen Charlottas. You know, those bizarre porcelain dolls with missing limbs. I don't have any of his version, but I knew I had a bag full of some I'd gotten on the internet, but when I looked......no bodies, just heads. Even more bizarre. So, that caused me to change up my design quite a bit. One head would have looked a bit lost sitting on top of the artful dwelling that Tim used. So I did a rosette instead. Which would lead to another change, and another......well, before I go into all that, here is my tag:

First, I should mention that I did use the background technique with Tim's tissue paper. What I added after the stickles was some weathered wood distress stain. And under the tissue paper I used the background stamp from the Papillon set. Much of this is covered with the tag's embellishments, but it is a really lovely background.

I don't have the decorative strip die that Tim used to make the faux German scrap, so I thought I'd try one of my border punches. Varied success. The first one I tried, a Martha Steward punch, didn't cut through the metal tape all the way. My second choice, also one of Martha's, worked perfectly. Go figure. If you don't have any decorative punches, maybe you still have one of these oldies but goodies lying around:

That's right, decorative scissors work like a charm. And if you want more detail, you can pair them with a decorative hole punch. Here are some examples. The first is the border punch I wound up using; all the edges of the ones that follow were done with scissors. The one in the middle also has my tiny flower shaped hole punch.

A closer view of my faux German scrap (the metal tape I used was glaringly bright so I toned it down just a bit with some black archival ink):

For the letters, I did use Tim's tip of cutting them twice; once from the cardstock covered with metal tape, and once from black cardstock. They really do pop. And I discovered that if you attach your metal to textured cardstock, when you run it through your die cut machine the letters take on that texture. How cool is that! Good way to use up those pieces of paper with nice texture but hideous color. You know, like that neon paper pack that was such a big bargain. :))

I made a tissue paper flower, following Tim's easy directions, and it is so sweet:

Too bad I couldn't find a use for it on this tag. Remember, I opted for the rosette, and it and the flower were just too close in size and shape, and looked terrible together. So, I adapted another of Tim's tissue paper techniques, and using my trusty fringe scissors (yes, I really do have a pair), I followed the pom pom directions, but stopped just shy of making the pom pom and popped the fringe behind the rosette.

I haven't figured out yet what will occupy my early mornings now. Sleep, maybe?????

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 11

2011-12-11T08:31:00.001-05:00

I was trying to keep up with Mario's tweets last night, and did manage to see the photo of the melting pot in Tim's studio. Well, I can take a hint, so before I conked out for the night I was very brave, and pulled mine out of the closet, fearing an avalanche of art supplies. I escaped with said pot and no injuries.

Later on, after reading Tim's blog a couple of times and watching his video on shrink plastic and UTEE, I felt ready to begin. This is a technique I've wanted to try for a very long time. Well, you know that warning, "be careful what you wish for......" I'm just sayin'.

To be fair, clearly Tim was NOT trying this for the first time last night. There is a definite learning curve, but if you follow the directions in the video you'll eventually get something. If you don't have a melting pot or UTEE, you can use shrink plastic the usual way and you'll get a chunky embellishment, but it won't have that smooth, glassy look that the UTEE gives.

I used the two little snowflakes and the ornaments on my tag, but believe me I did lots more than that. In fact, I used up an entire sheet of shrink plastic. Some of the results are destined for the land fill. One thing I noticed....Tim had no trouble releasing the still hot pieces from the metal tweezers he used to lift them out of the pot. Me......my UTEE piece and tweezers were united for all eternity, and I had to re-melt them again and again just to release them, which resulted in.....pieces you will not be seeing on this blog. But I will say that once color was added a lot of the flaws seemed to disappear, and I was left with only noticing how nice and glossy the pieces were.

Tim used a retro Santa for the stamped portion of the tag, and I much prefer vintage, so I went that way. I thought he needed a little bling, so I added some stickles and crystals. And you can see how shiny the ornaments are.

The mini snowflakes actually came out the best, but then again, they were the last ones I tried.

Here are two that were fairly successful, but just didn't work on this tag:

And to leave you with a laugh, what follows is a perfect example of what happens when you ignore Tim's warning NOT to try to trim the cooled off and hardened piece with scissors.

Bad photography aside, this poor little reindeer lost all four legs and a tail. He actually looks better blurry.

Only one tag to go, and then what am I supposed to do at 3:00am??? And no, I'm not taking suggestions on that.

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 10

2011-12-10T12:47:00.001-05:00

Sob, sigh....only two tags to go. But on a brighter note, my comment on Tim's blog yesterday was one of those chosen, and Mario is sending me a prize! I won once three or four years ago, and let me tell you, winning never gets old. Thank you Tim and Mario!!

Today's tag features facets and packing tape transfers with a twist. It's a cool twist, and it results in pieces that have the look of old mercury glass. Not that you'd know that looking at my photos, but trust me, it's a very nice technique. Wait, you don't have to trust me. Just head on over to Tim's blog and see for yourself.

Tim stamped his tag with a sheet music stamp for the background. I could have done that. I could have stamped any number of images. Sometimes we use what we have. And sometimes we use what we can reach. Yep, having one of those lazy days (maybe the fact that finding out I was a winner at 3am got me so excited I couldn't get back to sleep had something to do with that), so instead of getting up and finding a stamp, I used Tim's text tissue paper, because there it was, right in front of me.

Other differences: Tim used two large fragments; I used three smallish ones. His hung from the top of his tag with jute; I have mine suspended from a tree branch on bakery twine. I don't have the tattered banner die, so I made my own by attaching tissue tape to cardstock and folding it and glueing it until it sort of resembled the real thing. Tim spelled believe with his alpha parts and dabbed them with gold paint; I used the word peace and copper paint.

I think it came out OK, though I don't love it as much as some of the others I've done. Like yesterday's.

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 9

2011-12-09T11:10:00.001-05:00

Tim's tag today so inspired me, I did two versions! The main feature is a beautiful background technique that involves double heat embossing. Tim used traditional Christmas colors and the result is really striking. I went in an entirely different direction. First, tag #1:

I used a Hero Arts background stamp that I fell in love with during Jennifer McGuire's Inspiration Showcase class a few months ago. The inks I chose were old paper and evergreen bough, which gives a more subtle look than the vivid one Tim achieved with the green and red.

Tim's focal image was a candle and candle holder, cut from grungeboard, inked and highlighted with glossy accents. I used one of the guys from reindeer flight instead. I got the spots by using that technique where you flick drops of water from your fingers to the inked surface. The deer is covered with vintage photo and gathered twigs, then glossy accents over everything.

The third element I took from Tim's tag was the use of lots of foliage, cut from varying shades of green.

The idea for my second tag came to me while I was still working on the first one, and I couldn't wait to get going. It may not look a bit like Tim's, but it does incorporate the three techniques: the double embossed background, the highlighting grungeboard shapes with glossy accents, and the use of lots of greenery.

The background is a Cornish Heritage Farms stamp of license plates. I had a somewhat different idea in my head when I stamped it (an idea that didn't work), which is why the license plates are sideways. I still liked the way the background looked, so I went with it. The sentiment is a Wendy Vecchi stamp. The old car carrying home a Christmas tree was done with movers and shapers; after inking the car with vintage photo and black soot, I highlighted the tires and headlight with markers, then gave the car the glossy accents treatment. When it was completely dry I attached the tree to the car with twine.

The house was put together with chipboard shapes I've had lying around forever. The square was embossed with Tim's bricked folder and then inked with fired brick, aged mahogany, and vintage photo. On this tag, the greenery took the form of trees behind the house.

There are lots of ways to do snow. This is what I did here.....I applied some glossy accents (since it was already right in front of me) to wherever I wanted a bit of snow, then covered it with white embossing powder. When heating it, the still wet glue underneath bubbled up a bit as the powder melted, creating some texture and dimension. I like the way it looks.

Is tag 9 now my favorite? Could be......

And now, pardon me, but I have to get on a soap box for a moment and explain one of the many reasons I adore and respect Tim Holtz. He featured a Hero Arts stamp on his tag and is participating in a blog hop celebrating their new catalog. Even though he has a signature stamp line with Stampers Anonymous. Some stamp designers act as though their stamps exist in a universe with no others. Some stamp companies do the same. I have always felt there's room for excellence from many sources, and I so appreciate Tim's collegial attitude and willingness to showcase the talents of his peers.....and think of them as peers, not competition. OK, soap box is put away.

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 8

2011-12-08T09:09:00.001-05:00

Ah, be still my happy heart.....today Tim went all steampunk on us, and I love it! Not for everyone's taste to be sure, but I have always been drawn to those industrial/sci fi images, and using them on a Christmas tag is just plain fun.

I have a lot of steampunk stamps, dies, embossing folders, and even some stickers and rub-ons. I have gears, watch parts, all sizes of small light bulbs, springs, and other assorted industrial type metal bits. Lots to choose from. So, while I followed the general layout of Tim's tag, and did use his background techniques on the tag, I pretty much went off and used what I had. And had a blast doing so.

Instead of using the gadget gears die, I chose the steampunk on the edge die and attached it to the right side of the tag. It was cut from grungeboard, pounced with gold and copper paint, then distressed and sanded and covered with both walnut stain and black soot distress inks. Some of Tim's idea-ol-ogy pieces were attached to the top.

Tim's steampunk set includes a stamp of three men. Since I don't have it, I used the stamps I do have, from Oxford Impressions. I added a little something to one of the guys to put him in the right holiday spirit.

The santa hat was cut freehand from a scrap of grungeboard and covered with.....are you ready?.....flock. Yep, good old flock. I'm sure I haven't used any in years, but when it came out and was all the rage, I must have bought it in every color. The other fella's hat was covered with glossy accents and he has some holly (mini movers and shapers die) and berries (stickles) on it. Both gents have stickled bowties. As for what's on the bottom.....I raided my steampunk box (yes, I have one) and came up with some springs and an odd looking piece (in between the two springs) and attached them all together with brads.

Tim's tag has a ticket with a pointing hand, letters made shiny with glossy accents, and one of his miniature lightbulbs as an accent. Here's how I put some of those elements together:

I used the Merry Christmas ticket stamp from Tim's odds and ends set. It doesn't show up very well, but the number 25 got the glossy accents treatment. The bit of chain is held onto the ticket with staples (Tim's tiny attacher), and a miniature (decorative only) light swings from the end of the chain along with one of Tim's lightbulbs. I used a pointing hand stamp (one of Wendy Vecchi's) a bit differently too. It is on a memo pin, which was stuck behind the santa hat.

I love Tim's tag, and I'm thrilled with my version. But if you don't love steampunk you probably won't much like either. Me, I'm as happy as can be.

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 7

2011-12-07T10:38:00.001-05:00

Today's tag features kraft glassine paper, and Tim has included a video that demonstrates all the ways this product can be used. Like many of you out there, I bought it when it first came out but haven't used it much. Now that I have a better idea of how versatile it is, I'm sure I'll be including it in more projects. Today we made holly leaves and colored them with alcohol inks.

Tim cut his leaves with a die, which I don't have. However, holly leaves are very easy to cut freehand, and that's just what I did. On Tim's tag, the sentiment was part of a very beautiful and elegant stamp with a lovely frame surrounding the words. Again, not something I own. I used the stamp (from Tim's mini ornates set) that is blank on the inside. I had a few holiday sentiment stamps that fit inside, and used holiday cheer, which is a Stampin' Up stamp that is several years old and I'm sure retired ages ago. I think the two stamps look like they were made for each other.

My holly berries are just some random "pearls" from my stash of dead and dying costume jewelry, and like Tim, I colored them with red pepper alcohol ink. I did the same for the bauble on the top of the tag, and added some red crystals, putting them on a trinket pin.

Here are some closeups:

As for the background of the tag itself, I used the techniques Tim demonstrated, but selected different colors and stamps.

We're more than half way finished, and I'm already looking forward to tag #8.

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 6

2011-12-06T07:29:00.001-05:00

The tag Tim did for today features embossed metal, painted and distressed and very vintage looking. Tim used one embossing folder for his tag (one I don't have), and I used three folders. I cut them into sections to create the collage look of the folder Tim used.

I used the holiday, snowflakes and sheet music folders. This tag was not difficult to do, but it does
involve some drying time. Also, as Tim states clearly, after painting the metal you will most likely think that your tag is a hot mess. Don't be alarmed. The following steps really do make it all work. I think it's a wonderful look.

The embellishment (I don't have any of the Christmas charms) started life as a truly ugly overly bright piece of thin cheap metal. Applying the paint and embossing it really transformed it.

By the way, Tim used Ranger's self adhesive foil. I used metal from Ten Seconds Studio. But......if you have neither, this is what I used to do before I had any metal sheets. Adhere some heavy duty aluminum foil to your cardstock and then proceed as directed. As long as you are a bit gentle with your sanding you won't tear the foil and it is a good substitute for the real thing.

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 5

2011-12-05T05:08:00.001-05:00

When I clicked on Tim's blog early this morning, my first reaction upon seeing today's tag was an actual, audible "wow!" It is very graphic and modern looking, and really makes a statement. I'm sure you've seen it already, but if by chance you stumbled upon this blog first, do go and look at it now. Plus, there's a great video in which Tim explains all the cool ways to use his reflections stamps (you know, the ones that are backwards and probably had you scratching your head the first time you saw them). Yep, today's tag features those stamps, alcohol inks, glossy cardstock, and a tag cut from thick plastic. Are you ready?

Tim covered the plastic tag with several alcohol inks in the red family. I used blues. He used the Christmas reflections stamp from the seasonal set. I only have the original reflections, so I opted for the script stamp, and used it on an angle in the center, leaving room to stamp the snowflakes above and below the script. This is what the tag looks like mounted on glossy white cardstock, after doing the technique:

I think you can see the script, and the snowflakes really show up. I had lots of trouble the first time I attempted this technique a year or so ago, but it went well this morning. Here's a closer look:

For the focal image, Tim created a beautiful and very dimensional wreath using the foliage from his Regal Crest die. Of course I wanted to do something different, and besides, I didn't think the wreath would work as well with my background. I had that pack of seasonal grungeboard on my table, and decided to use the elegant reindeer instead. It was painted with a pearl paint dabber, and I did cut some leaves from the Royal Crest die to give him a blinged out scarf. And here is the finished tag:

I have to say that I'm very happy with my version, because while it doesn't look a bit like Tim's, it does incorporate the wonderful techniques he featured. This might be my favorite so far.....probably until tomorrow, that is.

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 4

2011-12-04T10:09:00.001-05:00

The tag Tim created today is (like all the rest) full of doable techniques, and as usual, I wanted my tag to include them all, yet look different. Tim's focal image was his snowman die, cut from grungeboard. I couldn't find a Christmas themed die amongst my many that would also take a movers and shapers die cut into it, but then I remembered my package of seasonal grunge shapes. The two large ornaments seemed a good substitution.

Other than changing up the images and colors, I followed Tim's instructions for all the techniques. I used the following distress stains on the background: picket fence, peeled paint, bundled sage, and forest moss.

The ornaments were covered with white paint, a thick coat of rock candy distress crackle paint, and then several stains in the red family: barn door, fired brick, and aged mahogany. Instead of using the tulle buttons as an accent, I incorporated them into the decoration of the ornaments. The larger of the two had enough space to cut one of the movers and shapers snowflakes from the center; I just left the smaller ornament whole.

This tag, though not complicated, took the longest to finish because there was so much drying time involved. Thick crackle paint takes a long time to dry, as does the layer of glossy accents that fills the opening in the ornament made by the snowflake die.

I'm more than ready now for tag #5!

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 3

2011-12-03T06:02:00.001-05:00

Today's tag features the dreaded custom stamp pad technique....but dreaded no more! I just knew I'd acquired some of that cut 'n dry felt so that I could finally attempt this with the correct material (one year I tried it with some foam material and that was a disaster). Well, acquiring it and finding it are two different animals, and wherever I buried the stuff, it has decided to remain there. I did, however, find this:

I either found this at a stamp expo or the Ranger warehouse sale, and it contains the same felt Tim used, uninked and in a nice stamp case. However, it is way smaller than I'd like. But we do what we can with what we have. I would ordinarily use a different stamp than Tim, but honestly, the one he used is the only one I have that coordinates with an embossing folder, so I went with that one. Here's how the stamp pad looked after it was stamped and colored with the distress re-inkers:

Pretty terrible, huh? But amazingly, it works, and produced this tag:

Since my custom stamp pad was too small to cover much of the tag I restamped a few times, and by some miracle I did wind up with enough words in the right location to then run it through the coordinating embossing folder. I think it was an accident that I was able to emboss the top part of my tag, just as Tim did, but at least it was a happy accident. After all that, I sprayed the whole thing with Perfect Pearls mist in perfect pearl, so it didn't add any color, just a very nice shimmer, which you may see better in this close up:

I don't have the dies Tim used to cut all the fabulous winter foliage for his tag, but I used his kraft core paper to cut leaves and branches from the dies I do have, in many shades of green. I also threw in a leftover pinecone from the first tag. My berries started out as white flat back pearls, and I colored them red with an alcohol based marker (because my alcohol inks were under too many things to get at without the possibility of an avalanche).

Now that I see how really easy making a custom stamp pad is, I am definitely going to either find the felt I'm sure I have or just get some more.

Besides this tag and several other great techniques, Tim's post today features a video clip from an appearance on the old Carol Duvall show, where he demonstrates making a custom stamp pad. I loved Carol's show, and it was there that I was first discovered Tim, and it was such fun watching it again, so make sure you hop over to his blog if you haven't already.

The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 2

2011-12-02T05:48:00.001-05:00

Yes, I realize it's barely 6am in NY, and here I am, already finished with the Day 2 tag. No, I'm not really that obsessed; I'm just not much of a sleeper, and I conked out at about 10 last night, which means I was up and wide awake at 3, when Tim's new post went live in my time zone. I just thought I should establish that I am not a total lunatic.

Click HERE to check out Tim's tag. It is not a very complicated one to make, and I think the background is beautiful. I had to improvise on this background (more on that in a bit), and I chose a different focal image, just to be.....well, different.

Tim's background called for using his seasonal kraft resist paper. I do not have that pack, but I do have the "regular" kraft resist paper. Here's what I did: first I found a sheet that had a large enough area without any resist images to create a tag. Here are two possibilities (I used the first one):

Once I had the tag cut from the center portion of the paper, I just stamped over the script with a variety of Christmas stamps, using clear embossing ink and clear powder. And that is how to create your own seasonal kraft resist paper. Ta da! Now, if you don't even have the regular kraft resist pack, all is not lost. Cut a tag from a plain old grocery bag and stamp the background of your choice with brown or black archival ink. Then procede with the embossing as explained above.

While I dearly love the reindeer Tim used, (and have that die, by the way) I did want my tag to be MY tag, so I went another route. Back in the olden days, before Tim teamed up with Sizzix, when we wanted seasonal grungeboard images we bought them, and I still have a ton of them. In the seasonal pack I found the tree, and covered it with the sticky back canvas, which was inked with evergreeen bough and gathered twigs around the edges. It was embellished with some tinsel and a star charm.

Back to the background for a minute. Have you attempted to create snow flurries by holding, squeezing, spraying the perfect pearls mist, as per Tim's directions? Were you successful? No? Neither was I. So here is a tip if you, like me, lack the patience to practice Tim's technique (which I'm sure is awesome and doable, just not by me). Spray some of the mist onto your craft sheet. Load up a brush with it, and aiming at your tag, smack the handle of the brush over an extended finger on your other hand. Repeat as necessary, then follow the rest of Tim's directions. Voila! Perfect perfect pearls snow flurries for the impatient and/or uncoordinated.

About the bottom of the tag......Tim used gold paint on the trim, but I thought silver would work better for my tag. I couldn't find any silver paint, so this is how I created the tarnished silver look I wanted. First I covered the grungeboard trim with clear embossing ink and silver embossing powder. After it was heat set and cooled down, I distressed it with sandpaper and then inked it with gathered twigs distress ink (because it was on the table.....black or any other brown would work as well). Here's a closeup, that unfortunately does not do it justice; it is really a very nice aged look:

I don't have the Christmas muse tokens, but the "believe"philosophy one seemed appropriate. I just covered it with white paint, then wiped the paint off. It settled into the letters and makes them pop.

And now, I think I deserve some breakfast.

The 12 Tags of Christmas, Day 1

2011-12-01T15:32:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite events of the year has begun, Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas. I haven't missed a tag since I discovered this in 2008. Back then I had almost nothing in the way of Tim's products, so the fun challenge for me was to make do with what I had. Now, there is hardly a thing I don't have, so the challenge is to somehow make the tag my own. Click on the highlighted link above to see what Tim cooked up for us today. My own version is right here:

Tim used his snowflake embossing folder on his tag; I used the snowman folder. I do not own the NOEL die, so I used the JOY movers and shapers die and then cut around it. It doesn't show in the photo, but I did darken the area under the word so it does show up better in person. It is not easy to photgraph glitter.

Thankfully Tim included his pinecone video in today's post, because I did manage to produce several that actually resemble pine cones after watching it three or four times. I don't have the tattered banner die, so what I did was attach a strip of music tissue tape on a piece of scrap cardstock, trim it to size, ink it, fold it, and cut cut the points on the ends. I also substited a swirly die cut for some of the foliage that I didn't have. The pearls are not Tim's baubles, but come from my huge stash of old costume jewelry.

Last year I did two tags each day, the other being one for the Wendy Vecchi group, using more of Wendy's products. I just can't do that this year, but what I think I will do is start doing 12 tags a la Wendy when we reach day 13. That I'm sure I can manage.

Oh, and note to self: don't work with glitter unless you don't mind leaving the house looking like an over the hill disco queen. Just sayin'.......

My Attitude Is.....

2011-11-27T16:57:00.001-05:00

.....Gratitude! I have a lot on my plate lately (and unfortunately I'm not talking turkey here), so I do sometimes have to remind myself that there are still so many reasons to be grateful. And those thoughts inspired this piece for the current Making Art challenge at the Everything Wendy Vecchi yahoo group.

Lori asked us to use at least one of Wendy's art parts, at least one of her stamps, and to stay with the Thanksgiving/autumn theme. I worked on and off all day today, and came up with this:

The base is from the Artful Shrines art parts package. It is covered with some Prima paper over which I used the background stamp (burlap, I think) from Funky Flower Art, as well as the weeds from Well Worn Art.

Here's a closer look at the fence:

It comes from the Outdoor Art art parts set. I have some distress crackle paint from a Ranger Warehouse sale that was unlabeled. I think they are broken china and antique linen, and I globbed them on very heavily, allowed it to air dry, then went over the whole thing with vintage photo distress ink. (The bird, by the way, is from a Sizzix decorative strip die called Birds and Branches. The branches can be seen on the top of the piece).

The garland of leaves were cut from shrink plastic with Tim's Tattered Leaves die, colored with both plain and metallic markers, then strung on twine after shrinking.

I used the round flower from Lower Case Art to make the pumpkin, stamping and cutting it three times, and gluing parts down on top of each other to make it dimensional. Then I gave it a good spray with some Perfect Pearls mist.

The sentiment was done on the computer, and it is how I feel. Today.

Yes, I'm Still Here.......

2011-11-26T14:00:00.001-05:00

......and can't believe it's been more than a week since my last post. First I was out of town on family related business, and then I was too exhausted from that, and then it was suddenly Thanksgiving.
That's it for me; I'm all out of excuses.
Right before I left I received Elena's journal from our asian themed round robin group, and today I finished my pages.

Above is my two page spread. Elena had requested that we have a black border or frame, so I cut my watercolor paper about an inch smaller than her book and used black distress stain to make the border.

What I like most about these pages is that I think that everything I used on them is something that I received from a friend. Here are closer views of the two pages:

The first layer on the paper is a bunch of small squares cut from colored paper I received from Lee. Over that a coat of thinned out gesso, followed by some asian text from a newspaper I got from Teri. The gold and orange you see is joss paper and I think I got that from Sox. The bamboo is from a decorative napkin and if I'm not mistaken, Elena sent that to me. The beautiful images of the Japanese books are from a catalog that Kyoko brought all the way from Japan and gave to me on the cruise.

For better or worse, the haiku is all mine. I know Elena loves to read, which was the inspiration for these pages.

A Tale of Two......

2011-11-17T03:36:00.001-05:00

.....chunky ATCs. Here's the background to this tale: Susan at EWV (the Everything Wendy Vecchi yahoo group) announced a chunky ATC swap. She posted all the details, but I was so excited to get going I finished mine and THEN went back to look over her post. Hah! Seems in my eagerness to begin, it didn't register in my mind that there was a theme, and that the theme was winter/holiday colors. I looked long and hard at my creation, and there was not one bit of it that said winter or Christmas or Hannukah or New Years.....you get the idea.

What's a person to do? Get out another block of wood and start again, that's what. I had the notion to create a winter village and so I did. I used lots of Wendy's stamps, of course, some of Tim's artful dwellings (cut down in size a bit to fit on the ATC), and some made from simple shapes cut from cardboard. I call it "Home For The Holidays."

I used Wendy's gorgeous lace background stamp on the entire block of wood, embossed in white then inked with blues. The icicles around the top are one of Tim's on the edge die cuts. The snow on the roof tops was done with liquid pearls sprinkled with white glitter.

As for the first one I made, it's a bit quirky, maybe not to everyone's liking, but I think I know someone who will get a kick out of it, so it is packed and ready to go, an early Christmas present for a great friend. So here it is....."It Started As An Ordinary Day."

Except for umbrella man (Tim's), this one is all Wendy, from the background stamps to the art parts. And don't you think that umbrella man and cane man go together perfectly?

Grungy Monday Christmas Card

2011-11-08T09:48:00.000-05:00

I always enjoy the Grungy Monday challenges, but this week even more so. The inspiration for it comes from one of Tim's 2007 12 Tags of Christmas. And, since I got onboard the 12 Tags train in 2008, this was a new one for me. Please click HERE to get all the deets straight from the expert's blog.

Now, as I've mentioned, my intent is to use any challenges I enter to create some holiday cards. Not wanting to seem like a copycat or anything, my first attempt used a snowman rather than the Santa that Tim used as the focal image. I really don't love it. At all. But will share it so you can see where things can go so very wrong.

I probably should have used black ink on the snowman stamp. There just wasn't enough contrast between the snowman and the background, which is what lead to my outlining the snowman with my black glaze pen. Now it looks like the snowman was pasted onto the background instead of being the result of some wonderful technique. The paint resist snowflakes came out nicely, however.

So, I went back to the Santa idea, and used a wonderful vintagey La Blanche stamp that I picked up recently at one of those deal of the day sites.

I'm much happier with this one. The snowflakes and script are both Tim stamps; the sentiment is an old Stampin' Up stamp (done with black embossing powder).

I enhanced Santa's hat with fired brick and forest moss distress stickles, his face with rock candy distress stickles, and added some little pine cones and berries.

By the way, I'm taking Jennifer McGuire's Holiday Card Boot Camp and if you need a little jump start to your holiday cards, I totally recommend it. Although it already began, registration is open, and once you sign up you will have access to the class FOREVER (and you can download the files and videos if you like).

Gearing Up For The Holidays

2011-11-01T07:01:00.000-04:00

Last year I dawdled around for so long, my holiday cards mostly said Happy New Year. I've got a decent head start this year, and feel like I'm on a roll.

What started me off was a play date I had with my pals Pat and Teri.

Good thing we are all able to create in chaos. So many supplies, so little room. We weren't making cards for ourselves, but Cards for the Troops. Even with plenty of gabbing, coffee breaks and lunch out, we managed to get close to 30 cards done.

I was so inspired, I continued my card making over the next few days. When I want to produce a quantity of cards that are not quite identical, what I'll do is cut a bunch of embellishments and other card elements (mats, borders, etc), lay them out in front of me and then do a mix and match thing. Here are some cards from my "reindeer series" and all feature die cuts from Tim's Reindeer Flight Sizzix die.

I discovered that I didn't have any Christmas paper left, but I'm going to show you that doesn't really matter. I took some scrapbook paper with colors that work for the season and stamped and embossed right over the patterns. I then used a Stampin' Up ornament punch to create these cards. I have a bag full of the ornaments, and tried different color embossing powders, so I'm ready to make at least a dozen or more of this style of card.

I only did one with Tim's snowman folder, but I'm sure I'll do more.

This week's challenge at Simon Says is to "show us a house." Still in the holiday mind set, but wanting to do more than a card, I created this little decor item using Tim's Artful Dwellings Sizzix die, and a whole bunch of embossing folders to give each house a different look. It stands up nicely by itself because I attached Tim's small easel die cut to the back. By the way, the easel is way taller than my little village, but just so you know, you can really trim it a lot (I did!) and it still works perfectly.

First a photo of it lying on my table (so you can actually see the houses), then a darker photo of it standing up, and then a side shot so you can see the easel.

The snow is a combination of Liquid Pearls and glitter glass. The smoke from the chimney is some twisted wire. And I think I know someone who is going to receive it as a gift.

Now, back to card making......

Perfectly Distressed

2011-10-25T09:28:00.000-04:00

This week's Grungy Monday challenge takes us to a cool video Tim did some time ago on what he calls perfect distress......the wonderful pairing of distress inks and perfect pearls.....click HERE to check it out; it's an oldie but goodie, and well worth re-visiting. I think this technique will add great sparkle to your holiday projects. Speaking of which, I'm still meeting my own personal challenge, and my entry for GM is also a Christmas card.

I originally thought I'd just use the technique as an accent, but got totally carried away, and used it EVERYWHERE. I know that the sparkle of mica powders does not show up well in (my) photographs, so I also took some angle shots.

You can see the effect of the perfect pearls a little better there. And here's a closeup of Santa.

I stamped Santa (from Tim's Letter to Santa set) on white cardstock with black soot distress ink, and then used several perfect pearls on him: green patina on the holly, perfect pearl on the hair, biscotti on the face, and raspberry sparkle on the hat and coat.

The Happy Holidays stamp is from Tim's Holiday Wishes set, and I used pine needles distress ink and green patina perfect pearls.

The last thing I did with this technique was to add both peeled paint and forest moss distress inks all around the card, using a blending tool. This too, got the perfect pearls treatment; this time I used heirloom gold.

The piece was mounted on a red card base, and at the last minute I decided to add a bit more bling, covering the holly with forest moss distress stickles and adding some barn door distress stickles berries.

So, here it is, still October, and I've already gotten three holiday cards under my belt. Bring on the next challenge!

Two Hearts, One Color

2011-10-24T10:39:00.000-04:00

This morning I worked on two challenges, the current Making Art challenge at the Wendy Vecchi yahoo group, and the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.

Lori, the EWV list mom, inspired us with a card Wendy did in her second book, and the only requirement was that we use two hearts. Well, I interpreted this rather loosely to mean AT LEAST two hearts, not ONLY two hearts. If that's not OK I'm sure Lori will send the challenge police to my house. NOT!! At Simon Says, we're to stamp and show......only one color.

I have a third challenge in mind, a personal one. And that is to start cranking out some holiday cards. So, from now on, whenever I decide to enter a challenge, my piece will be such a card. And here it is:

My one color, obviously, is green. The background paper (7 Gypsies, by the way) seems to have photographed somewhat brown, but green it is.

Do you recognize that I created a wreath? I hope so, LOL. I just stamped a bunch of hearts in every distress ink shade of green around a circle. The heart is from Wendy's In Love With Art set, and I added a bunch of dots with patina Stickles. The sentiment is from Card Art Essentials, stamped on white cardstock with olive archival ink. Peeled Paint distress ink was blended over top, and it is mounted with pop dots to give it some lift.

Oh, and in the center of the wreath, some dark green ribbon from my stash.

Don't tell the folks at Simon Says, but I think before I actually send out the card I'll add just a bit of red. :)

Totally Configured

2011-10-18T13:44:00.000-04:00

The configurations tray I started on the cruise is finished.....I think. There are a few little spots with room for more, just in case I should find something that absolutely needs to be there. But I feel satisfied with saying that I am done. And that everything on the tray reminds me in some way of the wonderful experience it was to cruise the Caribbean with Tim and company.

Some closer looks at the compartments:

A shaker box full of sand, shells and sea glass

(but no one better shake it!):

The flip-up photo album, and under that,

some nautical looking flags I had

in my stash at home:

A compass, a bird, and a thimble:

A pirate ship....I finally did find one online. And

next to it, pieces of a pirate skeleton:

I found this guy in the gift shop on the ship

and couldn't resist:

The tiara Pat made for me, that I regally

wore on our last night onboard:

A silly doll I found in St. Maarten, and dangling

next to her, many of the charms I received

as swaps or gifts:

This compartment is full of goodies that

were in our class kit:

We received a piece of adhesive backed cork that

fit perfectly in one of the compartments, and I used

it to display some pins and one special charm:

Beach souvineers:

"cruise" spelled out with grunge blocks, and check out

Mario and Tim on the "round trip" ticket:

I had the skull and crossbones charm at home.

The cork is from wine at dinner, and you

know what the cocktail umbrellas represent:

A very special photo deserves its own

place:

Now, all that's left to do is decide where to display this great memento.

Tim In 10

2011-10-17T09:31:00.000-04:00

Today's Grungy Monday challenge is perfect for me: Tim in 10, or, create a card using some Tim
products in 10 minutes or less. Great for anyone with time issues. In other words, just about everyone.

I think the trick to accomplishing this is to have a plan, and by that I mean a really thought out plan, so you don't waste any of those precious minutes thinking or futzing around looking for just the right embellishment. Added to that, I wanted my card to actually look like it might have taken more than the allotted time, so I figured I'd need to use a quick and easy (yet impressive) technique. I decided on one from last year's 12 Tags of Christmas. Click here for the details on Tim's blog. And now, my card:

A piece of scrap plastic was cut to the same size as the white shimmery cardstock, then embossed with Tim's Snow Flurries folder. If you click on the link to Tim's blog above, you'll see how you can use this technique to create a very impressive piece when you have more than 10 minutes to spare.

The blue snowflakes are part of Tim's on the edge die which is also called Snow Flurries. It is the same blue cardstock I used as the card base.

I can't tell you the origins of the ribbon, it's just a scrap piece from my stash.

The Merry Christmas ticket is from the Odds and Ends set. It was stamped with black archival ink on a scrap of white cardstock, then lightly inked with Faded Jeans distress ink.

The adhesive that holds the plastic to the cardstock was placed where the ribbon would eventually hide it, so nothing shows through.

If I had more than the 10 minutes (the whole thing actually took a bit less than that) I'm sure I would have added more "stuff," but I'm happy with the way it came out and wouldn't be embarrassed to send it off to someone.

Totally Smashed

2011-10-13T13:33:00.001-04:00

No, not a description of last night's activities, but rather my new found love for the smash book style of journaling. I've shared before that I altered a smash book to take with me on the cruise. Here's the cover again, with the addition of a chain I added to show off some of the great charms I received on the cruise. (BTW, the rest of the charms are in my configurations tray).

I'm not going to bore you with all the pages, just wanted to try to convince some folks I know, who have their doubts about what this smash book thing is all about. For me, as I mentioned recently, it's been very liberating. If your goal is to preserve memories, even everyday events, this is a wonderful way to do so. Just glue in (i.e., smash) some receipts, a photo or two, scribble some words if necessary, and you are done!

Speaking of which, I AM done. The entire book is filled and I have everything I did, what I saw, who I was with, the projects we made, all of it inside. Yes, I can (and might) go the traditional route and do some actual scrapbook layouts, carefully choosing colors, trims, embellishments, measuring, etc. etc., just because I also do find that to be a pleasurable activity in itself. But I don't have to. And given how busy most people are, it's good to know that you can still document the moments of your life without spending an additional lifetime doing so.

OK, off the smash book soapbox, and here are a few of the pages.

inside front cover and first page:

notice I added tabs for different sections:

my time at Disney. few photos but a whole lot of ephemera:

first night on the ship and Coco Cay the next day:

St. Thomas:

Most of the pages of a smash book are blank, but some have some writing and/or doodling. I generally ignored that, just covering the pages with my stuff, but if it so happened that what was already on the page worked with what I was adding, I went with that flow. As above, where it said, "I like this."

St. Maarten:

the configurations tray (notice I left a blank space for a photo of the

completed tray, whenever that might happen):

Every night, after the cabin attendants ready the rooms for sleep, they leave booklets about the following day's activities. I saved them all and cut out the daily summary to include in my book. I put them all in a section of their own.

and here are just two of several pages devoted to the

many wonderful swaps I received (I cut up some coin

envelopes to make the pockets so I could

remove the ATCs and see what's on the backs):

I also have many pages of photos of friends, pictures of every project we did, and of course the time Pat and I spent in Cocoa Beach.

So, have I converted anyone? Anybody planning to get smashed anytime soon? LOL!

Cruisin' The Caribbean With Tim: Departing and Cocoa Beach

2011-10-11T07:14:00.000-04:00

Sunday, October 2nd

Disembarkation

and

Cocoa Beach

We got into Port Canavarel before sunrise, and I went out onto our balcony and got this shot of the Disney ship that had just come in.

All week I'd meant to take a picture of the carpet in the elevator. On my first RC cruise in '09, the idea struck me as silly, but then I realized there is something to be said for reminding people on vacation exactly which day of the week it is. The carpet insert changed daily, and was the first thing you saw when you entered the elevator.

The night before we had put our suitcases out in the hallway, and all we had to do on this last morning was pack away any last minute items in our carryons, eat breakfast, and go to our assigned waiting areas. Our group was called to disembark at about 9:30, and by 10:00 we had retrieved our luggage and were outside waiting for a cab to take us to the Doubletree hotel in Cocoa Beach.

Pretty nice hotel, maybe a little close to needing some renovation, but clean, and best of all, right on the beach. Our driver informed us that it was one of only two hotels there with direct beach access.

Nice room.

Some pretty comprehensive free products in the bathroom.

A small balcony with an ocean view.

An astronaut-related display in the lobby. Pat had hoped to meet one, but alas, they are all long gone.

A small but quiet and relaxing pool area.

And a beautiful, uncrowded beach to walk on.

That night we were treated to this beautiful sight from our balcony.

And the next morning, this wonderful sunrise.

I'm so glad we decided to stay one extra day after the cruise. Aside from being very relaxing, and loving the Cocoa Beach atmosphere, it kept us from the huge crowds that usually are at the airport any day that ships come into port. We got through security in minutes, our flight was on time and uneventful, and I was home before I knew it, already missing my artsy friends and Tim and Mario and having someone else prepare and serve my meals, not to mention a balcony with an ocean view. Sigh......

OMG, A Non-Cruise Post!!

2011-10-10T14:05:00.000-04:00

Grungy Monday #22 - A Tim Inspired Halloween

and

Simon Says Stamp and Show Something With Wings

I was so happy to see Grungy Monday reappear, and lucky for me, I was able to create something that also works for the Simon Says challenge this week.

I'm not much of a Halloween person, but I know plenty of people who are, so this tag will be headin' out sometime soon.

The base is a black Ranger tag which was embossed with Cuttlebug's spiderweb folder. Embossing ink was swiped over the raised parts and then brushed with copper and grape Perfect Pearls. The top of the tag (where there was no embossing, is covered with some of Tim's Halloween tissue tape.

The bird is from Tim's Raven/Scaredy Cat die. It was cut from grungeboard, inked with black embossing ink and covered with black embossing powder. Then it got a coat of rock candy crackle paint. When I went to finish drying it with my heat tool it did some crazy bubbling, but I'm going to say it was deliberate because I like the texture. (But it really was a happy accident).

Behind the bird are both sizes of the mini rosette die. They were cut from some Cosmo Cricket Halloween paper that I've had for about two years. The Happy Halloween ticket is hanging from a bit of ribbon behind the raven.

OK, I think I'm done with spiders and black cats and ravens and witches. Bring on Santa!

Cruisin' The Caribbean With Tim

2011-10-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

Saturday, October 1st

Farewell!

After class this morning (see yesterday's post for the project), there was lunch, and then the challenge of packing. Luckily I left NY with two large half filled suitcases, because I needed every bit of that space for all the goodies and projects acquired this week. At 5:00 we would have our farewell cocktail party with loads of giveaways, then on to dinner.

For those of you who have cruised before, you know that most every night, after making up the cabin for sleeping, the cabin attendants leave an animal, fashioned from cleverly folded towels. Here is our zoo:

Everybody sing along, "I wear my sunglasses at night...." Who is old enough to remember that one hit wonder Corey Hart?

On the very last day we grabbed a moment when everyone was working and Tim wasn't busy, and asked him to take a picture with us. We went into the studio and got Mario in there too.

Val, Pat, Mario, me, Tim and Elena

Before the cruise, Kyoko wrote that she'd heard that our collaborative journal group was starting an Asian themed book, and she kindly said she'd bring some things for us to share. Did she ever! And it seemed as though Naomi was giving things out every day.

A Japanese catalog, newspaper, a handmade button, and in the wrapper, some

washi tape. By the way, on the tag, my name in Japanese. Naomi also

gave out Japanese bubble gum, but no photos of that. Long since chewed.

Antique silk. Wow! Thanks, Kyoko!

Here's that washi tape, perfect for holiday projects. Thanks, Naomi!

To truly enjoy dinner on a cruise you need three things. Good food, good company, and a really good waiter. We had it all. AK was attentive, thoughtful, and always had a smile.

Some more great gifts from great friends:

Gorgeous necklace, made by my cabinmate Pat!

Val found some cigar boxes in one of the ports and

got one for each of us.

I don't even remember who gave out the Caribbean cards, but

I received three from three different generous cruisers.

I got several great gifts from Pam, including the puka shells. The old

type piece with my initial was from Gloria.

I was wandering around the Promenade deck and saw this incredible display of fruit and vegetable carving. And here I thought that stuff was just for eating,

And some random shots of friends.

Our cabin doors are metal, so the cruise line allows door decorations as long as magnets, not tape, hold them up. Look at the fantastic sign Pat made for our door:

Every time you made a purchase in Mario's shop you received raffle tickets. At the farewell party tickets were drawn and many wonderful gifts were given out. Mario really loves this part....look at him here with all the tickets:

I didn't win anything this year (not that I could have fit one more thing in my bags), but Elena (who already owns every craft supply ever invented) won three times.....a full set of archival inks, a huge stack of Thickers, and....are you ready for this.....a Vagabond! Which, of course, she's going to give away since she already has one. She is a generous soul with a huge, huge heart. And another wonderful lady, Linda Ledbetter, won a spot in next year's Scrapmap Mixed Media cruise. That really warmed my heart. By organizing both the Compendium of Curiosities and Grungy Monday challenges, she really kept me happily busy and creative all year. Oh, and check out this awesome slide show she made from her cruise photos. While you're blog hopping, you won't want to miss

Val's cruise posts. They are detailed and full of great photos, almost none of which duplicate mine. Were we really on the same boat?

As we left the party and headed for dinner, we learned that the gifting wasn't finished. Everyone received this exclusive Tim messenger bag:

It's a great size....holds a ton of 12x12 paper and lots more.

As I've mentioned before, I was very tied up this summer with some family stuff, so not only did Pat do our door sign, but she also made sure we could show up for the final dinner in style. It wouldn't be a party without a tiara.

And see, I'm wearing my watch necklace too! Never enough bling.

One more thing. I mentioned in an early pre-cruise post that I was bringing the smash book I'd altered to use as my day to day journal. I have to say, this was a very liberating experience for me. Although I haven't scrapbooked much in recent years, I was at one time a very active scrapper, and would spend hours on my layouts. This time, just getting those memories on paper, smashing them in, so to speak, without worrying at all about matting, embellishments, color combinations, etc. was like a breath of fresh air for me. I'm sure there's room in my world for both methods of documenting memories, but I'm telling you, I'm in love with the smash style.

Two pages about getting to Florida, and Disney. I'm almost finished with this journal; I just have some more photos to print and smash in. Lots of room inside for all the little odds and ends one collects on vacation. Love it!

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped make this cruise the wonderful experience it was. Tim, Mario, Monica, Joy, Richele, Jim, Beth, and all my old and new friends.....THANK YOU!!!!!

And that's it! But tune in tomorrow to see our post-cruise adventures. Cocoa Beach, here we come!

Cruisin' The Caribbean With Tim

2011-10-09T07:34:00.002-04:00

Friday, September 30th

Saturday, October 1st

Days At Sea

and

Workshop #4, Parts 1 and 2

***EDIT: Check out this awesome slide show Linda Ledbetter did with her cruise photos. Great music too!***

My group wasn't scheduled to have class until 2:00 on Friday, so the early part of the day was spent relaxing, reading, wandering about the ship, and of course, eating. Sometimes it seems like that's the number one activity on a cruise.

Everyone was super curious about what sort of project would take two days and a total of 6 hours to complete. So, when we finally entered the classroom we were surprised to see that there weren't any class kits out on the tables. Hmmmm.....Tim explained that he wanted this project to be exciting and a total surprise for us. He hadn't even allowed the other group (they had the class in the morning) to take their projects with them. They were collected and stored so that we would have the same "ooooh" moment that they experienced.

And so, when Tim's helpers started distributing rather large items, it really was a total surprise. We would be working on a configurations tray! Very much like the configurations boxes, but the compartments are shallow.

This is the sample that Tim had done. His wasn't even complete when he got on the ship. Just as he suggested we do, he'd gotten some souvineers at each port to personalize his tray.

We were all taken with that ship in the upper left. How come I didn't find any small ships when I went ashore? Lots of us were asking that question. In addition to the naked tray, we also received this intriguing bag:

Inside, a huge amount of "stuff" to help us fill our trays. By the way, this photo was taken after I'd used many things in my tray. There was even more in it to begin with.

Oh, and we also received paper, all cut to size to fit the compartments. We spent most of the first day of this project inking and spraying the papers, inserting them into their rightful spots in the tray, and then pulling it all together with tissue tape. We made the separate compartments appear seamless with the tape, and also used it around the outside edges. And even the back of the tray was finished with paper (a gorgeous pad from Prima). Here's how my tray looked at this point.

Look at the upper left hand corner. We attached one of Tim's binders to the compartment before adhering it to the tray, and will be able to add photos and/or journaling to the pages we prepared. I used that custom cruise stamp to decorate the first page. The pages flip easily and that's a great way to use a lot of photos in a limited space.

I hadn't acquired a lot of stuff in port, but luckily many of the swaps and gifts I received could be used. For example, I got this cool metal Mickey Mouse from Carol and Mike of Stampers Corner.

And in the right hand corner of this compartment is a tiny shadow box I received from Wendy. It works perfectly with the other beach themed items.

Several of the charms I received found their way onto my tray.

This is as far as I got on the boat, but I've added some things since I've gotten home.

I still have a ways to go, but I have a few more sections filled.

I've added more charms, mardi gras beads from my stay at Port Orleans in Disney, a cork from a bottle of wine we had one night at dinner, a playing card with a Caribbean map that someone gave me, a thimble from St. Thomas, and some pins. I think now I'll go on a hunt for a sailing ship.

Tomorrow, some miscellaneous photos taken throughout the cruise, and our farewell (boo hoo!) cocktail party.

Cruisin' The Caribbean With Tim

2011-10-08T07:33:00.001-04:00

Thursday, September 29th

St. Maarten

and

Workshop #3

We arrived in St. Maarten early, and after breakfast Pat and I left the ship to hunt for some souvineers and postcards. The souvineers for our "big" project with Tim (he didn't mention what it would be, just that we should be collecting items for it), and the postcards for our Mail Love pals back home. What is Mail Love? Well, a bunch of us, most of whom have been in collaborative art projects together for years, have committed to sending everyone in the group at least one thing a month via snailmail. Could be a postcard, an interesting article, die cuts, anything handmade....as long as it arrives in the mail it's OK. We've been at it for several months now, and it is great to receive love in the mail. Try it with some friends!

Anyway.....St. Maarten was not quite as hot as Coco Cay or St. Thomas. Hot, yes, but this island has a pretty constant breeze which makes it much more comfortable. We wandered around, visited some shops, made a few purchases, took pictures, and then returned to the ship for lunch (more on that in a bit).

One of the specialty restaurants on the ship is Johnny Rockets, and we decided to have lunch there. It's a chain known for burgers and singing/dancing waiters. And for only $4.95 you can eat until your veins are throbbing with cholesterol. When you first walk in you are greeted with a rousing "welcome" from whoever is there, and your waiter puts this down on your table:

Onion rings, fries, a dipping sauce, and yes....that happy face is ketchup.

At some point during the festivities all the waiters stop what they're doing to sing and dance for us. They're very sweet, but their moves are not exactly Temptations caliber. But sweet.

After lunch Pat and I filled out our postcards. There are 18 people in our Mail Love group, so we each wrote 9 cards. Yes, Pat sent one to me, and I sent one to her. Or should I say, the nice folks downstairs at the information desk will send them as soon as we get to Florida.

Later that night we were scheduled for a one hour workshop, and we all wondered what we would do in only an hour. Last year we had an hour long Q/A with Tim. Would we do that again? Nope. Tim managed to come up with a very beautiful project that only took that long to complete. Here he is explaining:

He called the project "Elements of Time," and we made a necklace using his idea-ology time piece and an assortment of other embellishments. This is the one I made, and next to it the leftovers from my class kit.

I had time to wander around and take a few more photos of friends.

Here are Lois and Ellen:

After months of enjoying participating in A Compendium of Curiosities and Grungy Monday, I was so happy to finally meet Linda Ledbetter, the mastermind behind those two challenges. Linda was on the cruise and taking classes with her mom Pat:

And it was so good to see Kyoko and Naomi again. They come all the way from Japan for Tim's cruises. And they always bring the coolest gifts. More on that another day.

I remember last year, meeting Carol on her very first trip to NYC. She was a bit nervous, but now she wants to come back! Here she is with Veronica.

I glanced into the store to say hi to Mario, and managed to get this cool picture of myself with him and Jim (Mr. Scrapmap):

Tomorrow, I'm combining our last two days at sea and Parts 1and 2 of Workshop #4. Hmmmm, a project that requires two parts and a total of 6 hours. Are you curious too?

Cruisin' The Caribbean With Tim

2011-10-07T08:22:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, September 28th

St. Thomas

No Workshops Today

****NOTE: Check out Tim's blog today for his recap and awesome video of the cruise!

Today we were in port almost all day, from 11:00am to 7:00pm. I've been to St. Thomas several times, and as it was also burning hot, I didn't race off the ship. But Pat and I did venture off, and decided to see the island in a way neither of us had before, by taking the skyride (a tram) up to the top of Paradise Point. Incredible views from up there, but we did both want to smack one of our fellow passengers who spent the entire ride discussing other trams that had crashed to earth. Was that really the best venue for such a conversation?

Anyway, first the views from our balcony.

On line for the tram. I do look a bit dewy, don't I? Sounds better than saying I was sweating like a farm animal.

Many photo ops at the top of the mountain, as well as some very good bar food and a cold beer.

The Freedom of the Seas is tucked in between a Disney ship and a Carnival ship. Our captain had to do some expert parallel parking.,

On last year's cruise Pat and I had a wonderful meal at Portofino, one of the ship's specialty restaurants. We booked a table for 6 and enjoyed another beautifully prepared and artistically served Italian meal with Elena, Bernie, Val, and Rob.

Here I am getting ready to attack my seafood skewer.

A gorgeous dessert sampler. Yes, I ate the whole thing.

Tomorrow, St. Maarten and a one hour workshop that resulted in a gorgeous finished project. In just one hour!

Cruisin' The Caribbean With Tim

2011-10-06T08:22:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, September 27th

Day At Sea

Workshop #2

and

Some Giveaways

We started our first full day at sea with an early class. My group would be working from 9:00 to noon, and Group B would get their turn from 2:00 - 5:00. If you're thinking that three hours learning from Tim sounds like a good thing, well, you would be right.

We assembled all the pieces to form a very cool travel journal that opens like a gatefold card.

Above, my work space, looking way neater than it usually did. The base of the journal were Wendy's art parts and two of Tim's large binder ring pieces. We had a good variety of paper to work with, and as usual, got to keep all the extras. More on that later.

The two shots above were taken in the classroom and somehow came out very orange. Next, some photos I took when I got home.

Our class kits had all the papers we needed for our pages, all cut and scored for us. We just had to do some folding and closing openings with tissue tape to form some pockets. We also got tags and little paper bags that we could put in the book. The back cover (which I did not photograph) has the same paper as the front, and we added some idea-ology pieces to it, which meant the inside of the back cover had exposed brad prongs. Which bothers some people....I confess, I'm one of them.....so I covered the offending hardware with a tag and the "journey" die cut. We had a Vagabond and lots of dies available in the 24/7 studio, and that's when I did that.

We also had lots of tabs and a canvas page, perfect for attaching pins and charms.

Aside from lots of inking and spraying, I did not decorate any of the pages. I brought a journal with me that I was using and think I'm going to save this one for a future trip, so no point filling it with cruise related stuff.

Before class started, I walked around and took some pictures of friends.

Nancy and Pam

Gloria and Christine

Andrea and Stephanie

And someone was nice enough to take this one of me and three of my best art pals. We've been sharing and collaborating on projects from some great distances for years, and had a wonderful time working side by side on this trip.....and sharing some great meals together too.

Val and Elena

Me and Pat

At every class we'd walk in and our class kit would be waiting for us, which included a written description of the project and materials, and most of the elements we'd need to complete the piece. I say most, because some were just too large to fit in the kit, and were distributed during class. And then there would be other things that weren't necessary for the project, but could be an option. Tim had some very generous sponsors. In some cases we only used a small piece of paper, but received an entire 12x12 package.

Prepare to be dazzled with what we received during classes:

Paper packs from Graphic45, Tim, Core'dinations, Prima, and Cosmo Cricket

Yes, this is a Martha Stewart scoring board

At different times we received the glue glider and Tim's tissue tape

holder and two rolls of tissue tape.

Also in this photo, the custom stamp Tim has made up for each cruise

with the cruise logo.

Tons of tags, tickets, and other small paper

embellishments

Embellishments galore, all from the very

best companies. We didn't get anyone's leftover junk!

More paper

Stamp sets

A variety of letters; chipboard, rub-ons, and Tim's own

plastic alpha parts

More bling

And more from Tim's own line

Now you know why we're advised to bring an extra suitcase on these trips. I left NY with two half filled bags, and returned home with two stuffed to the max. And I haven't even shown you my purchases and gifts yet.

Cruisin' The Caribbean With Tim

2011-10-05T07:47:00.000-04:00

Monday, September 26th

Coco Cay, The Bahamas

and

Workshop #1

We arrived at Royal Caribbean's private beach, Coco Cay, early in the morning, and Pat and I were on the first tender out, assuring us of our choice of location. I had no idea their beach was so huge; much larger than any of the private beaches of other cruise lines I've been on. No need to get there that early, but we settled in and began the tough job of total relaxation.

Our ship as seen from the tender:

the sights as we pulled into shore:

in a couple of hours few of these chairs would be empty:

lots of chickens wandering around the food area looking for a handout:

You know that expression, "hotter than hell?" Well, without having first hand knowledge of just how hot that is, I'm confident that Coco Cay approached that. We were on fire! So much so, that I had to quickly snap a photo of something I received from Stephanie before ~~I ate them all~~ they melted. I only ate them to prevent a mess in my bag, really.

Can you see that she had the candies printed with the cruise logo, and in Caribbean colors? How clever is that? And delicious too.

Pat and I hung in there until around 11:30 when a BBQ lunch was ready. After some salad, ribs, chicken, rice and corn, we baked in the sun on a long line to get back to the ship. Apparently we weren't the only ones who found the island to be a bit too toasty.

Usually Tim's first project on a cruise is some sort of travel journal, so we'd have it to work in for the remainder of the trip. But because of the itinerary, he couldn't do that, but he did want us to do something creative in the limited time we'd have after the ship sailed. So we worked on:

The Cup of Creativity was an insert for a travel coffee cup, and we incorporated a few cool techniques to create it. A good beginning, and we wound up with something that we could use for the rest of our voyage. My group did this from 4:00 - 5:30, and Group B worked on it after dinner, from 8:00 - 9:30.

We got lots of goodies to use and take home, but I'll show them all together (for greater dramatic impact) in a later post. I will show you the kit we all received and would use in all our projects this week:

Cool apron and some very basic supplies (thank you, Ranger!). Everything else we'd need for each future project would be in our class kits or on our work tables to share. That's one of the best things about taking classes with Tim......you honestly don't have to bring a thing with you. And when you're traveling a distance to get there, that is a huge help.

Tomorrow is a day at sea, which means a long workshop and our travel journals at last.

Cruisin' the Caribbean With Tim!

2011-10-04T12:22:00.000-04:00

My body may be back in NY, but my head sure isn't. What a wonderful week we had on the beautiful Freedom of the Seas. But, the journey began before we got onboard. First of all, a few weeks prior to sailing we received our cruise documents and the name badge holder from ScrapMap:

And inside the zippered compartment was the booklet showing which group we were in and the schedule of classes. For the first time, we wouldn't have to wait until we were on the ship to get that information. Whoo Hoo! I could see right away that I was in the class group with just about all my favorite peeps.

I made some ATCs and pins to trade and just give away. Here is my ATC, front and back (with apologies to The Beach Boys):

This is the pin I made. I used an inchie stampboard and the cool Lady Liberty stamp I received from Gloria during last year's cruise.

And here is how I presented them:

I just did a simple ATC and attached the pin right to it.

I also wanted to give a little something to both Tim and Mario. Knowing how they both are into Starbucks, I thought coffee cup cozies (if that is in fact what they are called; I really don't know) would be nice. I had some NYC fabric from the City Quilter and actually sewed the suckers. I am no seamstress and the stitches are wonky, not to mention I sewed Mario's so the writing is all upside down, but I think the graphics are nice enough to compensate for my lack of sewing skills. Oh, and let me mention that they are reversible. Here they are, first Tim's, then Mario's:

My friend and cabinmate Pat and I left for Florida a day before the cruise began, and stayed at a Disney resort....Port Orleans.....fun place, one big Mardi Gras, and upon entering we received these, to get into the spirit of things:

I thought I took some photos while there, but apparently I left that task to Pat, so whenever she gets her pictures uploaded I'll share them, but all I have are these two of our room.....and our luggage. Why I thought the luggage was important to document, I don't know.

Saturday night we met up with Elena and Bernie and had a FABULOUS dinner at Joe's Crab Shack in Orlando. I've wanted to eat there for the longest time, and really enjoyed it. Thanks, guys! Again, no photos taken. What was I thinking?

Finally, Sunday arrived, and Elena and Bernie picked us up and we drove to the ship. We were onboard in time for lunch, our cabins were ready right after, and our bags came fairly quickly as well. Pat and I were unpacked and settled in before dinner. Afterwards we had the welcoming reception where we were introduced to Tim's great team, and had the opportunity to swap and get together with both old and new friends. Here are some of the swaps I received. I say some, because I keep finding more, hidden in pocket and luggage compartments, so I'm sure there are more.

I wasn't part of the organized charm swap, nor did I make any charms, but I still managed to receive quite a few from some very generous cruisers. These are only a few.....the rest made their way into a project several days later.

And then, everyone who is a member of ATT got into this group photo with Tim. Notice all the official ATT t-shirts? Being tall, I am somewhere in the back row.

Check out my friend Val's blog for a good look at the ship. Clearly she was better at remembering to take photos than I was.

To be continued......

Steampunk With A Feminine Touch

2011-09-22T10:22:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know I said yesterday that would probably be my last post until after the cruise, but I got an inspiration for another steampunk tag, and had to roll with it.

Usually steampunk, being all about gears and machinery and Victorian images, has a masculine feel to it. Thanks to Graphic 45's gorgeous Steampunk Debutante line, it can also be soft and lovely. One of their images was really speaking to me and it wound up on this tag:

For the background I layered two DCWV papers. I cut out the beautiful debutante and then added my own embellishments.....glossy accents, glaze pens, and a bunch of tiny watch parts from my stash to go with those already part of her hairdo. I hope you can see all those details, and I also hope if you click on the photo the enlargement isn't a fuzzy mess, which has been happening lately.

And now, I really do have to stop and get packing!

More Steampunk And A Gift

2011-09-21T08:46:00.000-04:00

I have two more steampunk tags to share with you; one came out of an Inspiration Showcase technique, the other was just me messing around.

This one used Jennifer's stamping on canvas technique for the background. The man with the birdcage hat is from Tim's Pen and Pencil set, and he was heat embossed with black powder. The tiny lightbulb was in my stash and I can't remember where I got it, but it's a size that has come in handy for several projects, so I hope I can recall the source and get some more. The gears on the right are from Tim's on the edge die. After cutting them from grungepaper, I ran them through the Cracked embossing folder, then inked them with several brown distress inks (but mostly walnut stain). The words are rub-ons, found some time ago in Michael's dollar bin.

I admit, I love this one. I used one of Ranger's new tags....the black one, and it is a great addition to their tag collection. It went through Tim's Pocketwatch embossing folder, and the raised areas were highlighted with some copper paint. The bird, standing on an idea-ology timepiece is from Oxford Impressions, as is the hat he's wearing. Both were stamped with black archival ink, then colored slightly with old paper distress ink. The bird was completely covered with glossy accents and the hat got the rock candy distress crackle paint treatment. The words on the bottom are also from Oxford Impressions. The tiny clocks are 7 Gypsys rub-ons.

As for the gift referred to in the title. I'm in a yahoo group that has a monthly lottery, and the way it works, the winner (picked from those who participated in the prior month's lottery) gets to choose the theme for the gifts she'll receive. My friend Angie was the winner for September, and being Angie, all she wanted was for us to "make art." So, I did a small (5x7) altered canvas, using all of the layering techniques I love so much, and came up with this.

Lots of layers, lots of texture from tissue paper, paint, modeling paste, stencils, and random bits from my scrap pile. The one really recognizable image, the woman on the right is from Graphic45's Steampunk Debutante set. The piece on the left is one of Pink Paislee's artisan elements, white rubbery ornamental designs that can be altered in many ways, with ink, paint, stain, etc. The canvas is already on its way to Angie and I do hope she likes it.

I don't know if I'll have any more blog posts until I return from the cruise.....and then I'll have plenty. My plan for today is to clean up the studio and put everything away and begin the packing process. We'll see how that works out. Yesterday I received the three new limited edition seasonal distress inks, and I'm itching to play with them.

Inspiration Showcase -- The Completed Canvas

2011-09-20T16:47:00.001-04:00

There were three new techniques today, all what Jennifer refers to as "finishing touches." And so all there was left for me to do was put together my canvas of sample birds. I chose a 6x12 canvas. Why? Because that's what I had in the house! I didn't attempt to do the rows of daily samples.....one way there wouldn't be enough room horizontally.....the other way there wouldn't be enough room vertically. So, I just attached the samples four in a row (except for the last row), and they fit beautifully. They are in the exact order as presented in the classes and I have a list on the back of the canvas to remind me. Of course, I've also downloaded all the PDFs, so I'll have them as a reminder as well.

In Jennifer's canvas it looks to me like she didn't do anything to the canvas itself, which I understand. The samples should be the star. But I didn't like the starkness of the white, so I used some light colored distress stains and inks (mainly old paper and weathered wood) to add just a bit of softness.

First, here are the final three samples, pigment pearl and an embossed button embellishment, distress stickles and pearl painting on the wing, and glossy accents resist and solid embossing on the wing.

And here is the finished canvas. I used pop dots to attach my birdies, except on the rosette one, as it is already pretty dimensional.

And the back of the canvas has the list of all the techniques for handy reference.

More Inspiration Showcase AND Another Wendified Steampunk Tag

2011-09-18T07:43:00.001-04:00

Another early morning with Jennifer McGuire's wonderful Inspiration Showcase online class. The last time I was so eager to see the new project and get going was during Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas, 2010. Yep, I'm liking this THAT much.

Today Jennifer focused on stamping with other than ink and/or stamping on other than paper. Here are my samples.

stamping with markers

stamping on canvas and stamping on vellum (wing)

stamping with paint and paint texture (wing)

painting with markers (my favorite, I think)

stamping on acetate and bonus rolled canvas rose technique

Meanwhile, I'm not neglecting my other favorite places to hang out online. Over at the EWV (Everything Wendy Vecchi) yahoo group, list mom Lori announced the latest Making Art! challenge. Well, she announced it last week, but I completed my piece yesterday. The challenge is based on the project on page 27 of Wendy's second book, but if you don't have it, all you need to know is that you should include a face and polka dots. Since I'm in the steampunk tag swap over at ATT, I fulfilled this challenge with just that. I think it's a fun piece.

They're subtle, but there are polka dots in the background, achieved with one of the techniques from the Inspiration Showcase classes. And the dots came from a Wendy stamp. The gears on the left are on an Oxford Impressions stamp, and (mostly hidden) is a very cool stamp I bought at Absolutely Everything last year, but sadly, I have no idea who makes it. The gears are both grungepaper, cut with Tim's mini mover and shaper dies and from the idea-ology line. More polka dots made with glaze pens.

But the star of this show has got to be art chick from Wendy's Art Rules set. I did alter her up a bit. First of all I gave her a big hat, which is often seen in steampunk images. I just cut it freehand from some scrapbook paper, my intention being to use it as is. It is a great paper with embossed gears from DCWV, but it didn't pop with the background, so I covered it with clear embossing ink and black embossing powder and that did the trick. I also enhanced parts of her face with glaze pens. More polka dots on the hat, and another of those birds I did yesterday when following along with Tim's technique on the Inspiration Showcase class.

More Inspiration, A Wonderful Guest Teacher, And Another Steampunk Tag

2011-09-17T09:19:00.000-04:00

Today's in depth review of some of yesterday's techniques from Jennifer McGuire's online class was fun, and I'm already thinking about how to use a few of them on this year's holiday cards.

But, I have to tell you, (no surprise here), the biggest thrill was a bonus technique from Tim Holtz. It involves grungepaper, distress stains and distress crackle paint, and it got me so excited I started cutting shapes at 5:00am!

I hope you can see the awesome texture on these pieces....click on the photo for a closer view. BTW, if you have a base tray you can fit an awful lot of the mini movers and shapers on it to cut at one time with very little waste of the grungepaper. I just had the most fun all morning, making these, and now I'll have plenty of embellishments on hand for future projects.

Yesterday I did another steampunk tag for the upcoming swap on ATT.

The background paper is from a stack my friend (and ATT list mom) Gloria sent me a while back. I believe it is DCWV. I punched some holes along the right side so that's another paper peeking through. The lovely lady is one of Graphic45's Steampunk Debutantes....at least from the waist up. I combined her with the bottom part of Tim's dressform stamp.

The gears are a mix of idea-ology pieces and die cuts (those mini movers and shapers again), which were colored with black paint and then dabbed with copper. Recognize that bird on her mechanical arm? Yes, it's one from today's online class, and I couldn't resist adding it to this tag.

Oh, and I just have to say......one week from today I'll be winging it to Florida for the Tim Holtz cruise to the Caribbean. Can't wait to take the classes and see all my crafty friends. ONE WEEK!!!!

Getting Distressed on Inspiration Showcase

2011-09-16T12:36:00.000-04:00

No, not distressed as in annoyed, but you knew that. Today's video is all about distress inks and stains, and the techniques are fantastic. Just when you thought you knew them all.....along comes Jennifer McGuire. But before I get to that.....

The way Jennifer has the class organized, one day she presents five techniques and we do our samples, and the next day she goes into greater detail about one or two of them and shows ways to use them in cards and other projects. Yesterday, she focused on embossing on acetate and ways to alter rosettes. I put the two together in one tag, with a steampunk theme. There is a method to my madness. I signed up for a steampunk tag swap on ATT and I'm getting a head start.

I used Tim's Steampunk embossing folder on the acetate, and it is backed with some brownish cardstock. The lovely lady is from Graphic45's Steampunk Debutante line, and I altered her in two ways. First of all, I replaced the hot air balloon that is her skirt with the very layered and altered rosette I made, and secondly (and I don't know how well this shows up in the photo), I added lots of lines on her with a copper colored glitter pen. I topped the tag with a bit of a zipper to continue the steampunk industrial look.

Now, onto today's samples. Again, sorry I can't go into details but once the class is over you will be able to get the PDFs. The link to get more information is on my last Inspiration Showcase post.

pearlized distress resist

distress stamping

stamping with water and metallic paper wing

color blend stamping with distress dots wing

fingerinking (as much fun as it sounds) with distress ink watercoloring wing

Can you believe the amount of information so far? And this is a two week class! And, it was only $19. Maybe the best bargain I've ever gotten.

Hey Mr. Postman....

2011-09-15T14:28:00.000-04:00

......bring me some postcards! Do people on vacation still do that? Nah, I think not. We just aim our phones at random monuments and send them to torture our stay at home friends. Well, to put an end to such modern but less than artistic practices, I recently hosted a postcard swap with some of my buds.

Everyone made cards depicting either real or imagined vacations, personalized the backs, got them to me, and I assembled them into books with my trusty Cinch. I also made covers for the books, and now that everyone has received theirs (well, almost everyone, so you know who you are and if you want to be surprised, go to another blog) I'll share them with you. It was a fun project to do this summer, and it reminded me of so many trips when I was younger and the only way to communicate with the folks back home was by mail.

Here is the front cover that I made, using Tim Holtz paper and stamps, tissue tape, a few other odds and ends, and covered with my new favorite supply, Ranger's Glue N Seal.

I'd love to show you the backs of the cards but I doubt my friends would appreciate seeing their names and addresses all over the internet. Keeping privacy intact, here are the cards:

love the bathing beauty!

wish you could see all the shine and dimension under the lighthouse

fantastic way to represent the sun!

dreamy and romantic, just like Paris

she really didn't go round the world a la Phineas Fogg, but sounds like fun!

gorgeous stamping, and the blue star marks Alaska, the destination of this cruiser

some people have out of control imaginations, as this card, commemorating a

trip to Idahopia attests. The happy vacationer had a spud-tacular time.

greetings from one of my favorite places, England

this one is mine, since I didn't go anywhere this summer (not that I think

being in NYC is any kind of hardship, LOL)

this swapper made cards of every place on her wish list to visit, and I

was lucky enough to receive Paris

The back cover was done similarly to the front, and is a good example of turning lemons into lemonade. I did everyone else's book without a problem, but when it came to my own (guess I was tired) I punched the holes in the back cover on the wrong side. Look how I solved that problem:

Sometimes ribbons are your best friend.

Inspiration Showcase

2011-09-14T14:09:00.000-04:00

A week or so ago, Tim Holtz blogged about an online class taught by his pal Jennifer McGuire. I haven't had the greatest track record with online classes....not because the classes weren't good, but because I'd sign up and then never find the time to actually watch the videos and do the projects.

But this one, first of all was recommended by Tim, and second of all was only $19, and third of all, I'd have access to the videos forever. Duh. No brainer. I was in. And to my very great surprise and delight, the instruction is so clear, the videos so well done, and the techniques so interesting, I actually started following along and am up to date!

Registration is closed and you can't sign up now, but in two weeks when it's over, the PDF version will be available. Click here to find out more and see the finished piece we'll be making after doing all the technique samples.

If you went to the site, you saw that Jennifer did all her samples in the shape of a heart. I'm not really a heart type so I used a Stampin' Up bird punch instead. Some of the techniques didn't photograph very well, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you they all look great. I wouldn't lie to you.

The first 5 samples were all about resist techniques. The name of each technique is under the photo. I know I usually give lots of details and directions, but these are not mine to give.

traditional resist

paint resist (the wing is a different, bonus technique)

trapped emboss resist (how cool is this?)

kissed resist

canvas resist

The next set of samples explore all sorts of dry embossing techniques.

embossed glossy (with layered punch wing....another bonus technique)

embosssed acetate

paper rosette with embossed canvas

altered color embossing (with cool tip on perfect punch positioning...say that 5 times fast)

faux letterpress (maybe my favorite so far) with embossed metal wing

I have been a long time technique junkie, and thought I'd know them all, but there have been a few new ones for me. And the ones I already knew about.....the class was a good reminder, because some of them I haven't used in ages.

I'm excited about this class and all I can say is, the next time Tim recommends a class, sign up!

Steampunk, Wendified

2011-09-12T07:16:00.000-04:00

I can picture anyone new to this blog going, "huh?" Well, in my world, Wendifying a theme just means using Wendy Vecchi's stamps to execute it. It took me almost a week to create something for the current Making Art! challenge at EWV, but as it turns out, the delay worked in my favor, because the piece I did works perfectly with the new Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.

The challenges: at EWV, Lori says, make a tag and use stamps from no more than two of Wendy's sets; and Simon Says, show us some steampunk.

And here is my piece:

For the background, I ran one of Ranger's new (and fabulous) kraft tags through my Vagabond in Tim's steampunk embossing folder, and hit the high points with several distress inks....rusty hinge, vintage photo, and black soot.

The gears on the side were cut with Tim's on-the-edge die from grungepaper. I painted it black, and when that was dry I dabbed it with brown and copper acrylic paint, very randomly so it looked like bits of rust. And when that was dry, I covered the whole thing with a thick coat of rock candy crackle paint. It is attached to the tag with glossy accents, applied only to the edge, so the gears sort of stand away from the tag and have a lot of dimension. (Especially since impatiently blasting the poor sucker with my heat gun made it kind of wonky.....sort of adds to the vintage charm, I think. Well, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.)

The steampunkish man and the words are all from Wendy's set Seriously Art, stamped on plain old white cardstock with black archival ink, then lightly colored with distress inks. Mr. Serious got some enhancement (the shiny parts) with a black Sakura glaze pen....one of my most favorite art supplies, by the way.

The pointing hand (stamped on grungepaper with clear ink and embossed with black powder) is from another Wendy set, Mail Art.

By the way, the word seriously is actually part of the stamp of the man.....it appears right below the image. I cut it off so it would fit on the brim of his hat instead. It's always good to find variations when it comes to using your stamps.

My Favorite Art Journal......

2011-09-10T18:29:00.001-04:00

......so far, at least, is the one I put together using some of my own pages, and pages I've received from friends. Some were fully worked on two sided journal pages, some were backgrounds with art on one side only. I blogged about the journal here, and loved it then. But now....boy oh boy, if that was love then this is out of control obsessive all encompassing LOVE!! The blank pages are blank no longer, and I've included the tags I've received as well.

I do intend to do some actual journaling (you know, put pen to page and write words), but honestly, this is stunning just as it is. I might be biased, of course, as the pages were done by some of my favorite peeps in the world. I even included some stuff done by friends who are not in the group, just because I had to include them somehow.

Well, enough blabbering. Here it is, from cover to cover.