Vacation Page

Don't forget classes tomorrow, September 26! See previous blog posts for details.

Enter the September stamping challenge on this blog!  See this blog post for details.  Winners picked randomly.

Now, onto the art...

This page has a background of acrylic paints that are mixed and blended with water.  The final layer is Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist applied through a stencil to give a slight watery shimmer to the page.  The starfish, sand dollar and seahorses were covered with distress embossing powder and real sand to get a great, rough texture.  The netting comes from Michael's, sold in a bag near the sea shells and glass baubles used for home decor.  The whole page is a nummy mixture of different textures and complimentary color!

Tag Tuesday March 22, 2011

Thank you Louise for doing the Tag Tuesday challenge - it was the only challenge I ever participated in and although I rarely had time to do it I often checked what everyone else was doing and really enjoyed it! And thank you to Rebecca for taking it over at Blog Challenge Garden. To help make sure the new challenge gets off to a good start I decided I had better participate! So here is a spring tag...

Let´s see if I can remember what I did....since I did half yesterday and half today, I am not sure I will get it all, but I will try....and now that I look at it, I am not sure there is any stamping on it, although there is a lot of paint and ink...LOL...please forgive me....I tried!

First, I covered the tag with Spun Sugar Distress Stain and edged in copper paint. I then trimmed the flowers from a cocktail napkin and applied them to the tag with wax (which actually ended up coating the whole tag by the time I was done). I attached a butterfly I punched from a scrap with the Martha Stewart Monarch punch and a dragonfly and a copper Spring piece from the new K&Co collection. It is finished off with a snippet of silk ribbon. Thanks for visiting and I love comments if you have the time! And you might want to check out my Anniversary post, also from today. ¨I´m just sayin´¨ as Wendy would say....

Point of View: October

Here are the five cards for Point of View this Thursday. To stamp the Unity tree stamp I used, brown and green markers (memento, but any dye markers will do, pool and stream paint dabbers, versamark and black detail embossing powder, jet black archival, tea dye and vintage photo distress ink and a blending tool for the vintage. For the leaves I used distress inks, reinkers and perfect pearls in an assortment of fall colors - just about any would work. Think peeled paint, rusty hinge, any of the browns, yellows or oranges - with blending tools! I will have everything at class, but if you want to work faster, bring along what you have in your stash and off we will go. Class is Thursday night from 6:30-8:30.

Simon Says Challenge #2: Wendy Vecchi Style

OK, famous Wendy rose, Wendy Happiness stamp, Wendy details: black glaze pen dots, copper paint on the edges, script stamp on the flower and leaves...on Lost and Found paper with a couple of Tim embellishments and stamps thrown in for good measure...just my mood today....have fun everybody....

Star Seashell Book

This is an August class to wrap up the summer. It has a seashell theme and a quote about the sea on the cover. You may of course make a custom cover and call it Cruise 2010 or the name of your favorite lake. Or it could just be a dream book. After we make the star book we will put together the 5 spreads and the cover. The back of the pages could hold extra pics or journaling. Let us take a look....






The book from above....



The book as displayed...it is meant to be left open and standing on a bookshelf or a coffee table...or anywhere you have a little space. The book is 7¨ tall and each page is 5¨ (although the internal page is 6" wide).




The first spread....embossed on the left.



The second spread. Big chip board shell has a fun paint technique on it.



Love how the stamp on the left matches the paper in the middle spread.



This butterfly is much prettier in real life...it is alcohol inks on a piece of transparency and it is quite shimmery...but hard to photograph!



The last spread...perfect pearls...you didn´t think I would do this and not use Perfect Pearls! They look like seashells.


The cover when the book is closed and tied. That little panel is the one that can be customized to say whatever you would like. Hope you can join me for class... it will be fun! August 12th and 22nd at Scrapbooks Too.

Tim Holtz Cards for Card Class II

OK, I'll be the first to admit that these 4 are very different in nature. The tag is TIm Holtz style I think. We will do a cool distressing technique with dictionary paper and masking tape. The next one....




uses the bitty grunge set and is just plain fun - and fast!!


Le papillion might have different (coordinating) color antenna - they are made using a common household item... and finally my favorite I think (at least today) is the Bee card - very regal and a much brighter yellow than the photo shows. OK, I get a nice clear picture but the color is bad. One of these days it is all going to come together. The big bee on the ribbon is fun to make - it starts with a little sizzlets die. The class is Wednesday night June 2nd at 6 and Sunday June 6th at noon. Hope to see you there.

Tag- Tuesday Challenge #47

is Inspire Me! I was working on making some samples for a card class and this stamp summed it up the best for me: ¨Dance for yourself, if someone understands good. If not, then no matter, go right on doing what you love.¨ It is stamped on the ticket, although that is a little hard to see in the picture. This is my first post for Tag Tuesday Challenge, ok, my first post for any challenge, but I´ve been reading Kard Krazy by Lousie for quite a while now and enjoy it tremendously. Decided it was time to jump in the pool instead of just sitting on the edge watching....


The edge is misted with Rusty Hinge and Sunflower Sparkle Perfect Pearls and is much blingier than appears in the photo. The inspiration quote is stamped on the back of a ticket.

Family Canvas

I made this canvas someime last year and brought it to the Distress 101 classes as a sample of how you can use Distress products for Scrapbooking as well as cards, tags, altered art and mixed media pieces.

In the Perfect Pearls class this week someone remembered that I had used the Perfect Pearls on the flowers on this canvas and asked if I would do a reminder here of what I did on the canvas. It is the Cosmo Cricket Love Notes Paper with an old french book page attached under the photo reproduction. All the Distress Products are Dusty Concord. The frame is stamped twice -slightly offset the second time and embossed with Distress Powder. The strip a third of the way up is Crackle Paint. The flowers are plain cream flowers sprayed with a mixture of Dusty Concord reinker, H20 and Sunflower Sparkle Perfect Pearls. The letters are pounced with a copper paint dabber. It is finished off with an Ideology philosophy tag.

Dream Canvas

This is the canvas we did in the dream canvas class in February. It incorporates lots of things we´ve done in the techniques classes. It has Distress Inks blended on the rose, Perfect Pearls misted on the frame and rose, Distress Stickles on the butterfly, crackle paint on the vine and is edged with a gold Paint Dabber. The frame and vine were cut with Sizzix Dies, the grungepaper rose was made using a Studio 490 stamp and hand cut. The paper is from Cosmo Cricket and the dream stamp is a Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 stamp. The quote, script on the rose and script on the canvas edges were all stamped with Sepia Archival Ink. The entire thing was inspired by a Wendy Vecchi canvas design!

The most asked question of the week...

How did you do this???



This is one of the samples I made for the Sizzix sample board featuring the new Tim Holtz Alterations dies. I think it's my favorite, but it has generated the most questions - no doubt. There have been all kinds of guesses about metal, alcohol inks, pigment inks, etc. Just about every time I've been in the store this week someone has wanted to talk about it. It was FAST and super easy....here are the steps:
1) Cut a 6¨ square piece of chipboard with the Scrollwork edge die.
2) Paint it with the Snowcap Paint Dabber.
3) Paint it again with the Pearl Paint Dabber. (I ¨pounced¨ both for texture.)
4) Stamp image in Jet Black Archival Ink.
5) Add black velvet ribbon and little gem on top of Eiffel Tower.
6) Spritz two white flowers with a mixture of Barn Door reinker and Pewter Perfect Pearls in a Mini Mister. When they are dry, stamp with french script stamp in Jet Black Archival Ink. Put pearl brad through flowers and adhere with pop dot.
7) Add year or saying in stickers on bottom left.
8) Punch holes for binder rings on left side.
Presto, you have a cover for a little book. I made one for myself, and cut the papers with the scrollwork edge too! I love how the edge dies cut through chipboard, grungeboard, stacks of paper, even felt.
Have fun playing with the edge dies!