Instead of using the same piece for the SSSS this week as I did for the CCC, I decided to make a different piece as I needed a birthday gift for Kimberly in my Everything Wendy Vecchi yahoo group later this month, even though my pother piece had lots of layers. I started with a piece of wood, then beeswax, the a decorative napkin and more beeswax. Added perfect pearls and buffed. Added the daisy trim. Stamped Wendy's bottle on clear packaging and again on card-stock, then cut out and added blue stickles to the acetate one and mounted it to the other one, then pop-dotted it on canvas. Added ric-rac for flower stems, cut a leaf vine die-cut and alcohol inked it on glossy and popped it on. Cut several grunge-paper flowers after stamping them. Used various distress stickles on these and topped with Maya Road bingo numbers for her birthdate. Sept. 27. 2010. Tied a piece of trin around the bottle and used a Memo pin to hold the little ticket I die-cut and stamped to that. Lots of layers, lots of fun. I sure hope Kimberly likes it. I kind of want to keep it! LOL

It is already Week # 12 in Linda's CCC and we are on page # 44, Chipped Enamel. Very easy technique with cool results. If you don't have Tim's book yet, get it now. You can get an autographed copy on his blog! I decided to go with a Halloween theme and make a scenery of sorts. I ,asked a moon and used alcohol inks on glossy for my night sky and grassy area, die- cut the haunted house out of black card-stock. Smeared it randomly with embossing ink and used green distress powder for moss, then used a versa-mark pen to color the rest of it and poured on walnut stain distress powder and heated. Ribbon on the bottom. Stamped some bats and spiders in black.

I need yet another birthday card for the 31st, and I am right on top of it on today's lunch-break. If it wasn't for lunch time, I would never get to play it seems! I have been seeing so many cute cards using Technique Junkies "pinwheel technique" lately and have wanted to try one. Well, try I did, and I love how easy and quickly they go together and how you use mostly scraps of card-stock. I think I might make a bunch of these up ahead and use them as I see fit later. Good project for Victoria, my granddaughter, next time she comes over. Here's the birthday card I made for Marv, my bestie, Earlene's husband.

Tomorrow is my little sister, Barb's birthday. I had to make a quick card and decided to make a couple of them and send one to the September birthday girl in my EverythingWendyVecchi yahoo group, even though it's not Wendy inspired. I made her a cool beeswax piece that is Wendy inspired and will post that when I am ready to mail it out to her. Back, to the cards, I was dying to try the new Shimmer Lace technique in the current issue of technique Junkies. Wow, it's really cool and super easy and fast. You can't see the shimmer in the pictures, but in real life, it's awesome! I intended to over-stamp right onto it, but my colors I used were too dark so I pop-dotted them on white with black matted pieces that I edges in Victorian Velvet distress ink. Ooh, I love that color. Used my new Martha Stewart lace-maker punch to add a strip in black behind the stamped piece for contrast. My granddaughter, Victoria, is loving that punch! Anyway simple, quick, and pretty. doesn't get any better than this!

Here we are again, another week gone by. Wow, what a whirlwind! I combined my piece this week for the CCC and SSSS challenges this week. The CCC this week was found on page # 36 of Tim's book, called Blended Batik, and for SSSS, the challenge was to make anything inspired by the Lord Tim of Holtz. Well, my piece works for both of them since everything about is is Tim except the word stamp. What a great technique this turned out to be. I finally have this batik thing down now, thanks to these challenges. I used to have very mediocre results but you will see that it is very defined here. The coloring is very funky though as I used shabby shutters first and then Forest Moss and over-stamped with black archival. You can't see the greens very well in my picture for some reason but in real life, it's very green.

I am having a good day in my studio today! I have been "Distress Sticklizing" away. This week's CCC can be found on page 46 of the Timster's book. I love Distress stickles anyway so this was a fun one for me. My background page was done using the Wrinkle-free distress tech. I love the look f this subtle background. I die-cut some leaves out of glossy scraps my Granddaughter left on my table from her week-end venture in my studio. She loves Grandma's craft room. I used three colors of green alcohol inks on them, meadow, clover, and juniper. I added some music sheets to card-stock using Claudeen's matte medium. Love this stuff and it's scent! Die-cut the tattered florals and smeared them through three shades of pinks on my craft sheet, sprayed with water. Worn lipstick, tattered rose, and Victorian Velvet. Bent and rolled the petals and added a paper fastener. Then I smeared watermelon Distress Stickles all over the petals, and then Vintage Photo Distress Stickles on the paper fastener. It really sparkles in real life but hard to capture on the photo. Have I mentioned how much I am lovin' these challenges?

I feel like I will never get caught up or have any free time to play in my studio! I did get a short day at work today and so I hurried up and finished my birthday card to Irene for the birthday club in the Everything Wendy Vecchi yahoo group. So what if her birthday was the 9th, at least it's still August. LOL Well, it actually worked out in my favor to be slow this month, because Simon Says Stamps' challenge this week, is just that: Wendy Vecchi art, so how perfect for me to make my card for Irene and get to enter it in their challenge. I am following along in their blog and trying to do thee challenges every week as well as the CCC on Linda's blog. At least I get a couple of things created this way! I used a sizzix die of a pinwheel for my flower om grungepaper, over-stamped with one of Wendy's background stamps and the other side covered in designer paper. I stamped Wendy's eye onto a big brad with StaZon for the center. Wrinkle free distress for the layered part and just blended distress inks on the main card and another background stamp of Wendy's. I wish I had used heavier cardstock for my base as the pinwheel flower is kind of heavy!

Here we are at Week #9 already in Linda's Compendium of Curiosities Challenge series. It is flying by and I had no time whatsoever this week to create and wanted to enter the new challenge on Simon says Stamp's new blog as well. At CCC, we are working on page 42 of the book and for simon Says, "wings". I chose to combine the two this week and make one project. I am showing a close-up of both the rock candy crackle on my letters, and the denim bluebird with tea dye chest. Hard to see in the photos, but both crackled very nicely. I used the Faux Bleach technique that Sherry Cheever taught on SplitCoast this past week also. What a great technique that is.

Here it is Week #8 at the CCC over at Linda's blog. http://studiol3.blogspot.com/This has been so much fun to follow along and play and try out at the techniques in Tim's New Book. There are 35 techniques packed into this treasure complete with step-by-step photos and instructions for each one. I can't share how to do them, as you need to buy the book yourself in all fairness to Tim, but you won't regret it. This week we are turned to Page # 39 for the Inking Grunge technique. Here's my take on it. Remember I am making all my pages in this shape so that I can bind them later once we have tried them all and have my own little sample reference book. I am keeping them pretty plain so that the technique is the highlight of each page.