Grunge Mondays- week #1, Day #10, 2008

I had to work  a split-shift today so made the most of it by making my Grunge Monday tag for the first week of Linda's new challenge over at Studio3. We are going to be making something each week following the instructions for Tim Holtz's "12 Tags of Christmas." Each Monday, Linda will tell us which one to follow and we make our take on it following the technique he outlines for us. It is so much fun. We just finished doing his whole book in random fashion, making one project eahc week until we did them all. We all learned so much and made so many new friends online. I hope you will join us. Thank you Linda for keeping us motivated and Tim for all of your generous sharing of your talents and knowledge. This week we are doing Day # 10 from 2008. I used the new Wild West set and wanted to incorporate the Wild West words and handguns from it, so I got out my shrink plastic and it worked great! Perfect size and glued them down using glossy accents. I stamped the Salloon onto the grungeboard for the technique. I really liked how it turned out.

Spring Tag

In one of my yahoo groups we are having a spring tag challenge and it ends tomorrow. I have not had time to create at all lately with all of my free time going to straightening up my studio so used my lunchbreak today and whipped this tag up and entered it quickly before the deadline. It felt so good to make something. I have got to finish up. I kind of stopped because some of the organizers I had ordered for all of my 8 1/2 x 11" papers is on backorder and won't ship til mid May! I need that spot for several other things to follow the plan I had going. I may have to box it up so I can get the rest moved around and see if it's going to work for me. It has been such a chore! I really need to stop buying andf hoarding and get using these supplies!

December Tags- Day 1, 2008

Alrighty, we are moving into 2008's tags this week. Here is my take on Day #1. I really enjoyed this one, though it took me several days to find my mask! LOL I am making quite a bit of progress on my studio revamping and hope to really make a big transformation today! Wish me luck. I pretty much followed this one to a tee but loved the results. Hope you'll play along and post your link so we can all enjoy your art.

Show us a word challenge aka birthday card

Since I took a play break this afternoon to make my spring tag, I decided to do the challenge over on SimonSaysStampandShow, Show Us A Word, and make it into a birthday card for my dear father-in-law's birthday tomorrow. He is turning 81. He is so young for his age and in such good shape. Anyway, I hope he likes it. My word is Celebrate and I used a sizzix die I bought quite a while ago and hadn't used yet. I really like it and iut actually has two birds on it. I used an old flourish and flowers die I have had forever and cut it apart to make it fit behind the bird which I pop-dotted over it after piecing together the parts I opted to use. I swiped the breast and wings lightly with terra cotta paint dabber and firmly on the beak. The eye is black enamel accents. I ran out of room for any other embellishments and men don't really go for bling so I guess it's done.

Spring Tag-Tim Style

I have been trying so hard to go through and organize and purge my craft studio that I have not had any time to play and create, so I took the time today to make a spring tag for the AllThingsTim yahoo group challenge that Della from IBrakeForStamps gave us. I used my new Distress stains for the first time. Love them! I also used some liquid applique that surfaced in the "dig" for the rabbit. Fun stuff. I found lots of clear packaging that I couldn't bear to throw away and trimmed them down into a managable pile and decided to use some over my stamped butterflies. I stamped in black stazon onto the plastic and then colored with my Copic markers from the back side. Important-back side, ask me how I know! They don't play well together. i then stapled the butterflies onto the stamped images with my tiny attacher. When I heated the liquid appplique, the butterflies began to shrivel and bend and fold, so I took a paintbrush handle and shaped them how I wanted them and colored underneath them with markers, then smeared a bit of picket fence stickles onto that and a bit on the plastic butterflies as well. Made the body with a streak of Black Stickles. This was a fun tag to make and am glad I saved that packaging now.

December tags from Start to Finish

Believe it or not, we are already at 12 weeks on this challenge! Here is my version of Day #12 from Tim's 2007 12 tags of Christmas. I really enjoyed this one and like my results. I hope more of you will play along and join us in this challenge. you don't have to make the tags Christmassy at all. Just follow the technique for each one as we go and then link us your results and share with us. We are going to complete them all by the tie he starts the 12 tags for this year, just by making one tag a week.

An award; for me?

Wow, my dear blog-friends, and extemely talented artists, Candy and Donna awarded me with a Stylish Blog award a few days ago. I have been so busy and still not used to this computer that I have not posted about it to thank them and choose my seven blogs to honor. So thank you both again, very much. I was so surprised to get this from both of you! So now the rules to this are as follows:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post.


2. You share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 7 recently discovered new blogs and contact them to let them know they've been awarded.

Some of these may not be new blogs but they might be to you and some are to me, but just a few that I have stumbled across and just find so much inspiration from.

Seven things about me you may not know:

1. I work as a part-time flexible sales associate for the postal service, you know, just six days a week and as many hours as they can get out of me. LOL, part-time as per my title.

2. I have three grown, beautiful daughters, and a grown step-daughter and step-son.

3. My five granchildren are the best things in life and are most of my entertainment.

4. I am addicted to coffee! Big-time!

5. My hubby and I used to go golfing and fishing a lot, but we never seem to have time anymore though I enjoy both of these a lot.

6. I have probably the messiest art studio of anyone and hoard way too much stuff but am desperately trying to get things sorted and organized. I spend all the free time I have to create just trying to find something I know I have somewhere.

7. I am third in a family of seven siblings; the oldest of the four girls.

Now for my seven blogs, in no particular order:

Wanda from Art by Wanda
Linda from Linda's Works Of Heart
Roni from Ink Stains
Neil from Neelz Expressionz
Julie from Jul's Niche
Gerri from It's All Treasure
Lisa from Studio Rose

Here is my tag for this week's entry, Day #11, 2007 from Tim's blog. Liked the technique and got results but it is sooooo missing something. I held a few things on it to see but nothing screamed "add me." Oh well, it's about the technique I guess. I can't believe we are almost done with the first year already! Time really does fly. can't wait to see what you all do for yours.

OK, that turned out sideways even though I rotated it and tried to edit it again but no rotating option there???? I will figure this out and soon I hope! On to the next challenge! As you all know, this is the final episode in the CCC challenge over at StudioL3's blog where linda had us work throught the enite book, Compendium of Curuiosities by Lord Tiom of Holtz. This week is week #35, found on page #67. i combined it with the challenge on Simon says Stamp and Show challenge this week, aka, SSSS, show us some metal. I just tried metals for the first time a week or so ago on my flower and really loved it. last night I ordered several molds from TenSecondsStudio and some more metal sheets. It's really fun. For this one, I just used a silver sheet I got in a starter kit from Walnut Hollow I think. I cut it to size and applied it to white cardstock and die cut it with my old puzzle maker die and then ran it thru my Vagabond in Tim's texture fade. Of course backwards, so my numbers are backwards but it still looks cool and if I hadn't told you, you may not have noticed. LOL I separated each piece and colored with alcohol inks in various mixes and then swiped each of them with black Satyzon to highlight the embossed areas. Piercing the holes on left was a little tricky as I had so many layers so my brads are crooked but that's OK. For my stitching, I used gold thread to match the brads I chose. Background was wrinkle-free distress, using milled lavendar, dusty concord, and chipped sapphire. Added some tisseue tape randomly and stamped some flourushed prior to that and blended dusty concord around the edges. It looks so much better in person that in the picture but metal always does. I am hooked!

First post with my new computer. I sure hope I can find the pictures to add them. LOL I have no idea if I will. It is sooooo different than my old one. Lightening fast though and that's why I wanted it. I have gotten my tag done for the Challenge #4 on EverythingWendyVecchi yahoogroup. We were to use Wendy's Perfect stamping technique and at least one of her stamps and make a tag. I had to redo mine as I hated the first background I tried in victorian Velvet so did this one in Stormy Sky and it worked much better. I used Wendy's stamps and stamped them on velvet using a mister and my craft iron and cut them out. Hung the dress on Tim's new tiny little hangers. Stamped some buttonholes and stitches in the background and added thread to the buttons. Did you know that Lady Wendy hates naked buttons? Well, trust me, she does! I really love how this turned out. I love working with monochromatic schemes anyway and though I did not start out that way, I completed it that way.

Another week has ticked by and we are moving on to Day #10, 2007 from Tim's 12 days of Christmas tags 2007 on his blog. If you want to play along, go to Tim's blog and click on 2007 and start in. I have a spot below each post to link your creations as we go. If we do one a week, we are going to finish them all before he starts up this years. I struggled with this one and am not thrilled at all with my tag, but I am posting it anyway. Not sure if I will try again for better results but don't care for this one. LOL

Once again I am being forced to combine challenges for the CCC #34 and SSSS, where this week's challenge was titled, "Show us some ephemera" and page #63, Dimensional Collage Fragments from Lord Tim's book. I wasn't sure where I was going with this one, just blended Distress inks in Victorian Velvet, Wild Honey, and old Paper onto my page. I then overstamped several of Tim's stamps in brushed corduroy at random and added some tissue tape again at random. Then I gathered up lots of ephemera in the gambling theme I decided on and made my collage using a dictionary page incorporating the word gamble and went from there. Edges it all with brushed corduroy again for depth. This was very fun and not my comfort zone. I love the look of collage pieces but am so uncomfortable creating them. Great challenge for me!