12 TAGS OF 2012 - OCTOBER

Somehow it seems longer than a month since Tim made the monthly tag. Got used to the 12 tags of Christmas I suppose. Anyway, how to compromise this time as I don't have the BOO die nor the ticket die nor the date stamps.
I came up with this:

I had everything to create the base tag so that was easy, I cut the spider from grungepaper but I already had the cat which was part of some pre-cut grunge from way back. The colouring of the glitter was quite messy and it took an age to dry so really it remained kind of lumpy!!!! Don't like that technique Tim, however, I do agree about the extra sparkle you get by colouring it with ink so maybe I'll have another go. I cut the October from the Lost & Found papers and stamped 'creepy' using some tiny Halloween stamps I have. The black wool tied at the top is also coloured with pitch black alcohol ink.
All in all, it turned out fine and I adore the colours. Thanks Tim for another fun tag time.

GETTING BUGGY

The Saturday reminder is posted over at Wicked Wednesday ATCs. I have the honour of being a guest designer this week and made a little bug house for today.

I dry embossed an ATC sized piece of grungepaper which I stuck to some card for stability. This was distressed with wild honey DI - I thought the honey may attract some bees LOL. The little door and barge boards were distressed in green and then either stamped with bugs or written on. I stamped the gorgeous butterfly on to card and coloured and glittered it. I just had to include a bead dragonfly from the lovely Heather Fenn-Edwards book. I have made so many of these now that I have lost count. A few tiny leaves, a ladybird and a glow in the dark ant finished the little bug house.
Such fun too.

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATC #7 - BOOKS/READING

This week, over at the Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge blog, the theme is books/reading.
Interpret this however you want by using stamps, digis, or even torn printed pages. I decided to make a little book. It proved difficult to photograph in one go, but here it is:

I used grungepaper and put it through my Big Shot in one of Tim's embossing folders - collage - in order to give it a faux leather look. I then used Old Paper distress stain all over it followed by Vintage Photo distress ink. I stuck some dark brown ribbon along the spine, a gold peel-off in each corner and used lettraset letters on the front to call the book Wicked Atcs.

I found the words Book and Reading in an old dictionary, cut them out and made a couple of pages to fit the inside. I stuck these in with glossy accents.

Then I cut a small piece of white card, stamped it with a Hero Arts flower which I coloured with Peeled Paint and Worn Lipstick distress ink to stamp, distressed the edges with Barn Door DI and added a bit of fibre to match. Voila, a bookmark.

Just a bit of fun. But, that's what it's all about isn't it.

BATCAT

Had a bit of fun with this. The cat is one of Tim's stamps as are the little bats. Simply stamped onto grungepaper, distress coloured around the edges, a brad through the back legs, tail and head and a bit of acetate to hold the bats.

Here it is in motion.

I wouldn't like this kitty to come to live at my house.

JOURNAL JOURNEYS OCTOBER CHALLENGE

This month's challenge over at Journal Journeys is autumn/nature plus the use of stencils.
Although, unlike many, I actually don't like Autumn. I hate the thought of everything dying plus the cold, wet and wind. The dark doesn't help either. I much prefer spring when everything is happy. Having said that, I do adore the autumn colours which are some of my most favourite ever especially the deep reds.
Still not really into this journaling lark but I keep having a go, so here are my pages for the challenge this month.

I used a mixture of distress inks, colour wash and Terra to create the background and I used a flower stencil plus the remains of grungepaper once I had die cut leaves and a swirl as another set of stencils. The dots are the remnants of red rubber once I had mounted the alpha stamps it contained and I also used a plastic letter stencil to spray some perfect pearls through - which hasn't shown too well on the photo. The 'rutting' deer are from Tim Holtz reindeer flight die and their antlers are from his branch tree die. The words are one of Andy Skinner's stamps.
Although I said autumn means everything is closing down ready for the winter and dying, I think the amazing colours have brought this little scene to life.

MY CLEVER PAL, SONIA

That's very true, Sonia is more talented than she admits. Her cards and ATCs are always so very neat and full of imagination. She's a child of the sixties, like 'T' and I, so we have a lot in common and we chat online when we can. By that, I mean when Sonia is not jetting off to Spain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL.
Anyway, before she does just that again on Sunday, she managed to make me some ATCs and post them off to me.

Love and Peace

A torn piece of K & Co paper over coloured mount board topped with a peace symbol. The gems are so neatly placed and the 2 words perfectly stamped.

Create


This card made me giggle. The image is Paper Artsy I think, which Sonia has stamped onto coloured card and then cut out!!  She has hand written the words onto acetate and stapled them to the side. Really effective.

From My House.......

I love this one. Grungepaper houses die cut from Tim's on the edge Townscape die, coloured , some fancy paper behind the windows and then mounted on the previously coloured base using 3D foam. The grasses are from some oriental stamps.









See, I told you Sonia is clever.

A W.I.P.

Well I think it's in progress but I hoped it was finished, however, looking at it, I think it's lacking 'something'.

May find some words to add a bit of depth, we'll see.
Anyway, not much crafting going on here because 'peg leg' and I have been extremely busy all week putting up new fascia boards, power washing the paths, etc. etc. We are having the outside walls coated with an insulation render starting tomorrow, so this little tag just 'happened' in a few spare moments the other day.
I wanted to use the Studio paints I have and make something really bright for a change.

The houses are by Claudine Hellmuth. I used a white dabber on the sponge stamps and over-stamped the clear version using barn door distress ink. However, the base of the tag was the most fun. I used 3 colours of Studio paint, dash of red, yellow pastel and classic teal and mixed them around before painting the tag all over. I had some grungepaper on my shelf that I had die cut some swirls from, so I used that as a stencil together with the teal paint. The little circles are made using the top of paint dabbers.

I really like these paints and hope to gradually have them all so I can make bright backgrounds. Also, I downloaded the mixing chart which gives examples of how to make 51 colours with just the 15 pots.
I found some red voile, some red sticky netting and some white bobble ribbon plus a little key charm which I painted with white dabber, to finish off.

However, as mentioned at the start, I'm not sure it's finished and may just be a Work In Progress.

MY BELATED BIRTHDAY/CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

I received money for both my birthday and Christmas so that I could treat myself to some Tim goodies. Here is what I got.

You can see 3 sets of Tim's new stamps. I especially like the back-to-front words stamps which can be used together with his embossing folders. I had run out of sprocket gears and only have a few swivel clasps left so they were replacements. Multi Matt Medium is so good I have used rather a lot of that too so thought I had better get another just incase. As I haven't had the chance to do any crafting since we came home, I haven't used the scrubbie, but am sure I shall sometime this week.
I also bought a new bottle of blending solution and Tim's 'hanging sign' die from the Art Shop in Darlington and I got 2 more packs of grungepaper yesterday from Inspirations.
Oh! look what the postie has just delivered.

Yippee! All I need now are the Distress Stains I've ordered from Simon Says Stamp.
Thank you for my presents. I love them all.

INSPIRED TO CRAFT TODAY

Having seen the fabulous projects from Tim's workshop at Harrogate and again this morning from the Stitches trade show at the NEC, I just had to get inky.
I have a box full of flowers I bought from QVC some time ago, and because some of them are really big, I hardly ever use them. Time to give them a go me thinks.

I began by cutting a piece of mountboard to just over 4" square, I then used all the inks in the photo to distress it all over.
It came out bright and cheery which is just what I was after.

I then had a rummage in my clear stamp drawer and found this little mushroom stamp. Using black Archival, I stamped it onto 3 different descriptions of mushrooms in an old dictionary, distressed the images and cut them out.







I already had a grungepaper set of leaves which I used at the base of the card after having stamped a couple more in the corner. I used a fine black pen to draw lines around the card, stamped Tim's flight of birds in archival ink and assembled the whole thing to end up with this.

I think it will make a rather nice matt for a 5" or 6" card. The best bit was - I had fun.

FEATHERED FLOWERS

Oooh eck! I do have trouble thinking up headings sometimes. I reckon this is one of those times. Never mind, this is what I wanted to show you.

Not everyone's choice of colours I know, but it all came about because I had already made the big flower some weeks ago and needed to use it before it got damaged. It's cut from K & Co paper using Tim's large flower from his tattered floral die, and then covered in UTEE with a bit of distress stickles to add extra bling.

The base of this wall hanging is mountboard covered with paper from Tim's vintage shabby stack. I cut another little piece and used a Martha Stewart punch to make the zig zag top. All the edges are distressed with dusty concord and crushed olive DIs and the diamond  and flourish stamps are Tim's too (well they are mine actually, but from Tim's range lol) I sanded around the base as well.
The other flower is cut from grungepaper using the smaller tattered floral die, distressed and over stamped with a verse stamp - guess who's? No UTEE on this one, I simply left it as it was.

The feathers are from some I bought from Hobbycraft but the wired beads were the bargain of last year.
Get this - £1.50 for a great long length from Abakahn (sp?).
The swirl is grunge, again from Tim's range. I stamped the sentiment onto a matt cut from a Nestability, gave it the distress treatment, put some 3D foam under one edge and tape under the other and stuck it to the base. I then re-stamped the words onto another bit of paper and cut out the words 'creativity' and 'art' and put 3D foam on those before adding them too.

The hardest part of this piece was fastening the wire. I used some spring wire and it had a mind of it's own. I had added a purple eyelet to one side of the zig zag border, and a large fancy one to the other, but trying to get the wire to twist around the hole was another story and had me uttering a few choice words every time I dropped it on the floor, or when it decided to stick in my finger!! Take my advice, don't use it in this way.

Well, I had fun doing this, took my time and just 'played'.

What have you been up to today then?

I'VE MADE A NEW START - AGAIN!

I could beat Amir Khan at 'fighting back' - well not quite, but I'd give it a go. So how's this for starters?????

MADE WITH LOVE
That's the title and is a big hug and thank you to all you amazing friends out there.
Firstly though, I am the proud owner of a gorgeous wall hanging made by Hels Sheridan. I admired it so much I wanted to buy it but Hels wouldn't let me and sent it to me instead. It hangs, proudly, on my wall amongst my other very special pieces of art from friends. I asked Hels if I could make this wall hanging and sent her a picture of it still in construction. She said I wasn't breaking any copyright and was thrilled I wanted to make something along similar lines. I hope this meets with approval.
I so love making grungy things and am happy I've done this one.
XXXX

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS.......

I have been having the most AWFUL week. It should have been good because my little car was back on the road last Sunday. It runs like a fluffy cloud now, all light and happy, despite it's ever increasing swimming pool in the passenger well - no pun intended there!! But as far as crafting goes, I've come - that close to giving it all up!!!!
I've watched, with excitment, Tim's blog and seen all his new releases for this summer. I've tried to keep up with Wendy Vecchi too. A lovely lady in the US, Marti, who is at CHA now, has just shown photos of the workshop she attended yesterday where both of these artists taught along with Claudine Hellmuth. You should see the projects they made, fantastic.
So what the heck is the matter with me?
THERE IS FAR TOO MUCH NEW STUFF BEING RELEASED. How on earth could anyone justify the exorbitant cost of just Tim's releases alone???? How can I possibly save for a new (well not brand new but newer) car AND buy craft AND have holidays AND simply live!!! So, I've decided (hope I can keep to it) that I am only going to buy essentials such as glue and grungepaper and just the odd Alterations die this year. It has to be or I do what I've come close to - and give up.
So what has changed my mind or at least made it up for me?
CRAFTING FRIENDS
They are the salt of the earth. One wonderful lady knows how I feel and encouraged me to continue. I have a particularly wonderful piece of art of hers which I have studied and am in the process of making some of my own. Once made, I will run them past her to make sure I am not breaching her copyright, and if ok, I'll share them with you.
Then I received these from my lovely friend Sonia (you know, the one I gave some crafting goodies to) and she has no idea about this week.

This is so simple but because the papers are tops, ie K & Co, this ATC looks amazing and is a special little thank you.

These 2 are right up my street 'cos they are 'Timy' ones. Nothing to do with me here apart from the mountboard. Sonia makes the most neat cards ever.
But this 1 is the one that did it for me and helped me change my mind.

Now I know I want to craft.
So, with a little help from my friends, I've decided to continue. Now where is that mojo then..........................

CUTTING OUT ON WOYWW

I seem to have been cutting out for England this week, but I'm not complaining. A very lovely, special lady stamped a load of flowers for me on some grungepaper and grungeboard I sent her, and I have a go at cutting them out each time I go in my little work room.

The 'rickety house' and 'on the fence' grunge you can see, is a trial at making a gift box. It's been sitting there like that for nearly a week as I'm struggling with it's construction.
I haven't been over to Julia's as yet to see our wonderful leader's desk, but will once I have posted this, plus I hope to have a peep at a few other's to see what they are up to.
I have been intrigued over the weeks to see so many little 'buddies' trying to join in on this 'what's on your workshop' day, so, I thought I would try and set up a blog just for them. If you get the chance, have a look at http://craftingpets.blogspot.com/ which will be the site where every other Monday you can upload a photo of your pet helping you to craft. I hope to get the ball rolling on MONDAY 14 FEBRUARY
In the meantime, I will put the final touches to the blog and try and get to grips with including Mr Linky for each fortnight. I hope you join in even if, like me, your only pets happen now to be fish!!!!

THE CHALLENGE IS COMPLETED

Yes, I've completed my 12 chunky pages. What a marathon it's been. Some of the subjects were really hard for me with only a few that I was comfortable with, so I'm quite glad I've done it now.
The deadline was 15 March but that has now been extended by a month. With all the hospital unknowns just now plus Tim's workshop, I just had to plan my time and stick to the original deadline or I would never have completed the challenge. Once the date is up, I shall post piccies of my efforts but here is my page for starters.

My theme(s) for the book is January - December. She gave me February. I don't do Valentines so what better theme for February for me other than Tim's workshop.
I used several shades of brown DI on mountboard pre-cut with the brackets on - the - edge alterations die. I then splashed water over the surface and dried it all off. I then used a couple of stamps and green DI, peeled paint I think, plus a bit of scattered straw distress stickles. The letters are grungeboard covered with a mixture of gold and green paint dabbers. The picture in the frame is one advertising the event which I've simply put together using Tim's Ideology items. It's fastened to the letter 'a' but that's all allowing it to swing. The rest you can see.
It's a very simple page but looks ok in real life and as it's mine anyway, it's fine.
Well 'peg leg' has taken the motorhome to get the new awning bracket fitted. We have freezing fog this morning so the early start won't have gone down well. He goes for his pre-op tests prior to his hernia op, next Monday. When he had the tests for his knee op, he was told they last for 30 days, but these tests last 2 months so he should be ok for March.
My car has been diagnosed. We had to call the AA again - what a nice man! Anyway the plugs were arcing so the spark wasn't hitting the bits it should so we need new leads. Also, when I tried to start it the other day and it backfired, it blew the silencer apart so that has to be replaced. Nothing too costly after all. The parts are just over £50 and 'peg leg' can do it all. I feel like my arm has been chopped off without my little car so it will be magic when I get it back.
Thanks for looking today and if you've made it this far - booo!

TIM'S 12 TAGS OF CHRISTMAS 2010 - #7

What a marathon of a tag today. Phew!
I was given the opportunity to do what I do best - open my perfect pearls UPSIDE DOWN.

Why do I do that every time??? The stuff got everywhere and it's just about impossible to get it back in the pot.
Anyway, I gave today's tag my best shot by improvising.


I didn't have the sticky-backed canvass, but did have a sheet of canvass digital photo paper. I cut pieces to the sizes stated and sprayed them the best I could. I then ran some grungepaper through my Zyron and stuck the canvass to that. I don't have the embossing folder that Tim has used so used a Cuttlebug one instead. I found it really hard to make my flower look anything like and am not happy with it, but I suppose it looks better than my poinsettia plant which has now only got 2 red leaves!!!!
Here is my tag then. I hope you manage yours today.

SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT - SNOW

Pop over to the SCD blog for details of this week's challenge - Snow.
I missed the last couple of challenges but had this one in mind to do anyway, so it fits perfectly.

This is the last of the large cards that Sonia kindly gave me and I've loved using them.
The base is brown corrugated card generously smeared with gesso, fine glitter, white flower soft and some gorgeous Martha Stewart stars glitter. It took ages to dry though. The red card is simply torn and stamped with Tim's snowflake and snowman stamps in Brilliance moonlight white. The letters are coloured with gold dabber and are grungeboard in different fonts.
The gorgeous Tim pine tree was die cut and coloured with forest moss DI. I dried this with a heat gun before adding some gesso for snow. However, this morning was a shock because the snow had turned green! I started again and added some flower soft but that turned green too! As a last resort I lavishly applied frosted lace stickles. It's not quite dry yet but still looks green to me.
The picket fence is Tim's on the edge die as I adore this one. I cut it from grunge paper - as the tree - coloured it with brushed corduroy DI and gave it the gesso, flower soft and glitter treatment. This has stayed white!
An embellishment and aged mahogony DI round the edge finished it off.

SCD NOVEMBER CHALLENGE WEEK 1 - HOUSES

Pop over to the Something Completely Different challenge blog for details of this weeks challenge.
The theme is houses.
A good chance to use my new Tim Holtz on the edge townscape die. I tried it with mount board but it didn't cut through properly. The die is quite intricate, just like the scrollwork one, and that doesn't really like mount board either - but I make it have it!!!

In the end I cut the houses out of grunge paper.
This photo shows the sparkle in the stickles.

This one shows the reflection of light in the windows of the houses.
I used paint dabbers to colour each house and gesso for snow on the rooves and the 'ground' plus some glitter. I already had some off cuts of mirri card that I had previously coloured with Stazon, so used little pieces to stick behind the houses. The light shines on them and makes it look like lights are on in each one.
The base card is distressed over a clear embossed Santa which I ironed to get rid of the embossing. The stars are embossed with sparkly white powder and the 'ho, ho, ho' is simply stamped with Brilliance white.
It didn't turn out as effectively as I wanted, but in real life, it's not too bad.

WOYWW 20/10

Just a little amendment to say that the garage has just rung to say that the oxygen detector at the front  of the exhaust has failed and they have ordered one. I can pick my car up at 3pm.
YIPPEE  twice and thrice. Hooray, hooray, hooray. sobs of joy!!!!

Another week gone eh! and we had our first hard frost of the winter last night.
My little old car failed it's MOT on Monday - boohoo! so we have had to take it back to the garage today for some investigating because it failed on emissions. I did notice this morning however, that when I put fuel in on Monday the needle was on half full, but today it's on quarter and I've only done 44miles in that time. It's not leaking fuel so just hope the problem is only minor and not a costly one. Our son-in-law has borrowed 'peg leg's' car to be able to get to  his new job over here prior to a family re-location, so if my car fails completely and I have to scrap it - oh please don't let that happen - then we are without a car altogether. It just isn't practical to use the motorhome every day, it's too big. Please send big hugs to 'our cub', my little precious car.

Anyway, to craft, which after all is the meaning of today. Whats on your workdesk Wednesday, run by Julia. I have made a start on the 12 grunge pages for the swap I am in. Actually, I've completed 2 now - YIPPEE - so only another 10 plus backs to go. Here is a little sneak at the second:

I don't think it appropriate to show it all because each person has their own theme for this swap so will see their pages before they receive them and that would spoil the surprise in March.







I have a third in mind but only bits of it so far, so this is what is on my desk right now.

My hands are freezing after that early morning drive, plus, I have the washer and drier in my workroom and the latter is on at the moment meaning the window is open  for the drier to vent. Not good for the old circulation so I may not be able to handle those beads for a while.





I did receive some fantastic news this week. My son passed the exam (first stage) to his next promotion. Just when you think you couldn't be more proud eh? However, it was marred somewhat by the news that 'peg leg' has very high blood pressure plus a double hernia!!!!!!!!!!!! One more thing to add to his knee problem. So, in about 16 weeks he will have his knee operation then after that, he has his hernia operation. The doctor reckons that the pills he has been on since June have caused/or added to the blood pressure problem, so now he's only on paracetamol for the pain. Life is never dull at this house.
Ooh! must go, our new awning has just arrived.

BACK ON TRACK AFTER LEONIE HUGS

I not only got a big hug 'hello', but another big hug 'cherio'.
The lovely Leonie - now with a sexy deep voice!! - was up to her elbows in distress inks, cuttlebug embossing folders and Spellbinders die frames.
These were some of her examples.

Some are made with grungepaper and some with card, all were gorgeous. The ladies around her demo table were well impressed as was I.

Oh! there's me stood in front with the blue coat on. You can see how big Inspirations is from this photo. Here's another.

And another.

And last one.

Leonie looked the happiest I've seen her and talking to her, she is.
Well, I've  no excuse now so will get cracking with some crafting.

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE............

You know how sometimes you get an idea for a card, or something similar, and just have to make it even though it's seasonal and not that time of year? Well, I just had to make this Halloween tag yesterday.

I was looking through my Tim stamps and found the saying and that just set me off. Can you imagine a skeleton wanting to be a ballet dancer. I think his little tutu is lovely!!

I've just been onto the Something Completely Different challenge blog and found that my tag satisfies todays challenge - ORANGE, BLUE and BROWN, so I am entering it.

I really had fun with this one. I scrunched up the tag, then added walnut stain ink before spritzing it with water. I have a new/old iron, if that makes sense, which I then used to iron the tag dry. The rest is obvious I think.

I then just had to have a go with my new cover stamp kindly sent to me from Traplet. So this is what I made. I think it needs a word or something yet and backing onto mountboard, but it's nearly done. Another ATC inspired by the amazing Heather

.
I used a 'spun' background that was a freebie from Heather on one of her ATC swaps. I stamped the face image on acetate using lime brilliance ink then I matted it onto green miri card which I had coloured myself using stazon ink. All I did then was to add fibres, glitter, bugle beads and some sticky gems all over. I love the colours on this.

Just wondered if you may like to see my sunflowers. The tallest are over 13'!!!!!! The bees are loving them and I hope they go to seed for the birds through the winter.

I would just also like to thank all my followers for taking the time to look at my blog. There are 33 of you now. I feel very honoured. Infact, I am going to put all your names into a box and get 'peg leg' to pick a couple out for some blog candy giveaway.
He's just busy installing a new bi-fold door on the front room, so I'll get him to do it later today.
Watch this space then. xx