Butterflies A Poppin'

The most recent challenge at the Wendy Vecchi yahoo group was to make something that included some sort of pop up (could be done with the Sizzix Pop N Cut die), hearts, glitter, and at least one of Wendy's stamps.  This coincided with my needing a birthday card for a friend, and I had immediate inspiration.

After completing the card (which was more involved and took longer than I normally take in my card making), photographing it, putting it in an envelope for mailing, and posting it on the group site, I realized one tiny little problem.  Oh dopey me....instead of using hearts, I used butterflies.  LOL!  Well, I appealed to a higher authority (that would be list mom Lori), who assured me in her unique style that there would be no challenge po po coming after me, and my entry could remain.  Phew!

Although I do have the Sizzix die, I was intrigued by an accordian fold pop up card by Sandi Genovese (remember her?).  You can find the video here. (Thanks Vic for sending us the link!)      So that is what I used as my inspiration.

Here is the front of the card.  Deliberately plain, because all the action is on the inside.

 

 

The background is Graphic 45 paper, over which I stamped four of my many butterfly stamps (the two on the right are Wendy's).  The very top one was cut from another Graphic 45 paper, and attached only in the center, so the wings could flutter a bit.  The stamped butterflies were colored with distress markers.

 

The inside.....which, you'll have to trust me, is more impressive in person.  A little difficult for me to photograph well.

 

 

The largest butterflies are stamped images which were colored and cut out.  The four in the front row and the one in the middle of the second row are from that same Graphic 45 paper from which I cut the one on the card front.

 

The birthday greeting is a Wendy stamp.

 

 

The bottom of the inside is a strip of Tim's tissue tape.  The two stamped butterflies are Wendy's again, and those were covered with Glue N Seal and then sprinkled with distress dry glitter in clear rock candy.

 

 

 

Oh, and all of the paper on the inside is Graphic 45 as well.  I'm not sure of the collections they came from as I was just grabbing papers from my stash.....my not terribly well organized stash.







Merry Christmas

To all my friends out there who celebrate this holiday, have a very merry Christmas, full of love and many blessings.  Enjoy your family and friends, and do try to make time for some art.

As you most likely know, this past year Tim Holtz decided not to do the 12 Tags of Christmas; instead he did the 12 Tags of 2012.  Although this was enjoyed, many people, myself included, missed the Christmas tags.  The good folks who run ATT (All Things Tim yahoo group) put together a tag contest, challenging us to come up with an original Christmas tag, chock full of Tim's products and/or techiques.

21 members entered tags; all members could vote.  Only one vote per person, and the participants could NOT vote for their own tag.  Oh, and all entries were posted without identifying the creators, so it was really anonymous.  And we weren't allowed to post our work on blogs, photo sharing sites, FB, etc.  No, I did not win anything, and truth be told, I didn't expect to.  After viewing all the tags I found several I honestly liked much better than my own, LOL.  However, I did manage to scare up a few votes, which was nice.  A couple of the tags did not get any votes at all, and that made me feel sad.  Yes, some stood out from the rest, but none were poorly done.  This is why I don't care for contests in general, avoid reality shows (can't stand when people are voted off), and try to compete only with myself.

The voting being over, the results made public, so now I can share my tag, which I named Metallic Christmas.  Not as in heavy metal, but that everything on this tag sparkles and shimmers in some way.

 

 

The single snowflakes, snowflake border, snowman and joy are all Tim Holtz die cuts.  The background was embossed with aTim embossing folder and sprayed with several colors of Perfect Pearls mists.  The snowman was covered with a generous coat of Wendy Vecchi's embossing paste, and then sprinkled with distress stickles clear rock candy dry glitter (say that five times fast).  His hat was painted black, and while still wet covered with some generic gold glitter.  The trim on the bottom, origin unknown, has been lying around in my ribbon stash for ages.  I'm not positive, but I think the tinsel on the top is a Tim product as well.  It was out of its packaging, so I just don't recall. The word JOY was painted silver.  Then I dabbed it in spots with clear embossing ink and sprinkled silver powder in those spots.  I think that gave it a distressed, antique look.

 

Well, as the snowman is saying, may this holiday season, and the year to come bring you much JOY.

 



House Rules

Last year, while working on a totally unrelated project, I cut some extras from Tim Holtz's Artful Dwellings die.  I was playing around with them, and put them together to create a little three dimensional birdhouse.  And there it sat, always on or near my work table in it's unfinished state.  Until this week, when Simon Says Stamp and Show announced their latest challenge......house rules. Create a house, alter a house, stamp a house, do anything related to a house.  Also, on the Wendy Vecchi yahoo group we have an ongoing challenge to use Wendy's products on a holiday project, so this qualifies for that as well.

I'm happy I waited a year because now I have Wendy Vecchi's yummy embossing paste and Tim's equally yummy rock candy dry glitter, and I used  both to make the snow.

 

I love the texture of the embossing paste and the sparkle that the dry glitter adds.  The shingled roof was made from strips of different shades of brown cardstock.

 

 

 

The house was covered with some of Tim's tissue wrap, which was distressed with a few brown distress inks.  Before assembling, I cut the circle on the front piece and attached a stick (it goes through the opening and is glued to the back wall) to form the perch. 

 

The bird, the nest, the wreath and the pinecones were all found in various places that specialize in scaled down objects for doll houses.  That bird, by the way, was a horrid purple color, but a tiny bit of paint fixed that problem.

 

 

 

This is a bit blurry, but it's the only photo I have that shows what's in the bird's nest (besides the bird, of course).

 

 

Yep, my faux cardinal is sitting on some faux eggs.  Never toss your broken jewelry is all I'm saying.