The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.....

.....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.......

......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......

.....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

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

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......