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....
no, not meatloaf.
Art leftovers. Technique leftovers.
My friend, Eileen, sent me some gorgeous papers, along with two swatches of what I believe was waxpaper, that was used in one of her techniques. Being as how I'm a junker and recycler of all things that can hold ink or glue, I was up for the challenge. I thought. Maybe you won't like it, that's your perogative. I decided to make a card using the amazing Wendita's stamps. I believe it's the Make Mine Mini set.
Shh-a-wing:
I die cut the wax paper with my Nestabilities. Yes, the bluish, greenish color, scalloped piece there. And the reason I say that I THINK it's wax paper is because when I tried stamping with distress ink, it didn't even show up. So, on to the Staz On ink in Azure blue. It worked, albeit a little light.
I'm going to back up here and say that I had stamped and embossed the flowers and leaves first, then thought that Eileen's leftover paper would work with that. Now, the flowers are Wendy's stamps, BUT, it's an outline stamp. So how did I so cleverly get the embossing powder into the center of the design, you're asking quietly to yourself? HA, I used an embossing PEN to fill in with embossing ink, then put the powder on. The embossing powder is Ranger's Blue Glass. Very brilliant blue, like.....blue glass. lol I covered the brad and the eyelets for the center of the flowers with the same stuff.
The leaves are Adirondack EP, Lettuce. I thought the flowers were a little bright, so I stamped the flower design on the wax paper again, cut out and attached.
The papers used for the mats are Dream Street. Same sheet of paper, it was double sided, so just turned it over to make two different mats.
The blue background paper is....are you ready?...actually a paper bag from some store that I don't shop at, but people I know with taste do. And of course they thought of me before they threw it in the trash.
So there you have it, and thanks to my friend, Eileen, for sharing her leftovers.
Shh-a-wing!
....meaning, who are the winners going to be? lol (in case you're new here and haven't gotten my weird sense of humor).
Yes, (sigh) last day for the Valentine's Day tags. It's been fun looking at all the comments and guesses. If you're just checking in, you have till January 31 to leave comments on each post in order to enter to win the tag for that post. I will choose winners on February 1.
Without further ado, I give you tag six, Wendy inspired:
Once again, all you need to do is tell me how many of Wendy's stamps I used on this tag. Wendy inspired tags should be a little easier than Tim inspired, because all Wendy has right now are stamps, whereas the Timinator has a whole line of stamps and embellishments. So, get your glasses on (or contacts in), check out the tag and leave a comment! Scroll down if you want to enter to win the other tags! Later!
I love rhyming..can you tell? lol Yeah, I see you rolling your eyes out there.
Man, only two tags to go, then I have to think of something else to post about....hey, I like this blog thing because it is forcing me to create. I mean, not forcing in a bad way, but I always put off doing stuff, and then never get anything done. I'm not making excuses here, but my "studio" is actually a room out in our machine shed which is about 150 feet from the house. You know how it is when you get home from work in the middle of winter, and you're all nice and cozy curled up in front of the TV, the last thing you want to do is bundle up to walk outside, in the dark, to the studio. Once I have, I'm glad I did, it's just gettin' up the gumption to do it. TMI as my sister says, Too Much Information. Ok, ok, on to tag five.
Here it is, Tim inspired:
Had to throw that little rhyming bit in there at the end. Although so much more could relate the the One World One Heart post above. At least I hope it's above this one. Thanks to the guidance of my friend Eileen, I learned how to keep a post at the top of the blog.
Speaking of Eileen, remember the grungepaper rose swap I am hosting on the EWV group? I very IGNORANTLY forgot to mention that Eileen actually mentioned that idea for a swap to me in the first place. So, technically, the idea for the swap was hers. Just wanted to set the record straight. You also need to check out her giveaway for OWOH, it's totally awesome. Actually she is doing three giveaways, one for some product, the other two for really cool pins.
Ok, let's keep going with the Valentine's Tags, shall we?
Here we go, I mean you go:
This one is Wendy inspired. All I need to know is how many Wendy stamps I used. Might have to look a little harder, but I have faith in you! Yes, those are fragments on the big tag in the middle. I used some of the punchouts on those, adhered with glossy accents to the back. Remember, check back here on February 1, to see if you won this tag! So, if you missed commenting on one previously, you can still go back to that post and leave a comment!
Now, it was a big mail day on Saturday for me. I received several things. One was my GP rose swap partner's project. Yep, finally received Alexandra's project, and it's a beaut! Even the packaging was delish! Remember, she's from Scotland. Now I can say I received something from Scotland. lol. She made this way cool bracelet from grungepaper, along with three grungepaper roses:
Here's the back of the bracelet, the "paint" she used was Crystal Lacquer with Polished Pigments, I hope I got that right.
And she so loved the roses, she made some from paper for the PACKAGING! Holy Cow!
AND, she was so generous, she included some stamped images specific to the U.K. From Glenda, who operates a store called Graphicus, there in the U.K. She has very cool stamps. Like these:
Is that awesome or what? Thank you so much, Alexandra!
Then I got a package from Kathy, who had a little contest whereby we send her some tags that we did from Tim's 12 tags of Christmas, and she randomly drew some winners from those she received. I won one! She was very generous and sent a distress ink pad, two reinkers and one of her ATC's. Very nice! Thanks Kathy!
I also received a replacement punch from Wilton Industries, who manufactures punches for EK Success and Martha Stewart. I'll go into that another time. So it was like Christmas on Saturday. It doesn't get any better than that, I can tell you. Well, ok, only if Tim or Wendy were my neighbor, but besides that. lol. So, a lot of ground covered today, don't forget to comment to enter to win this tag, only two more left to go! AND, comment on the OWOH post to win that piece of art, plus some extra goodies! Later, dudes!
Well, why break tradition with the title thing. Sheesh, either no one was on the computer yesterday, or yesterday's tag really sucked.
I for one, was iced in at home.
The freezing rain we got left about 1/4" to 1/2" of ice all over everything, which included the monster door I need to open to get my vehicle out. Needless to say, I called my employers and said I wasn't going to make it in. Doors still frozen today, but was able to get the old piece of crap S-10 going, which sits outside all the time, and the roads were better, so able to get to work today.
Ok, on to tag three of six:
I call this one Tim themed. I'm going to help you out a little today, so you can tell me how many Tim thingies are on this one. I don't have the snow cap paint dabber, I use regular white acrylic paint. And like I mentioned before, the punchouts from that sheet are so heavily glittered, that I stayed away from any other glitter or stickles. Now, that should make it pretty easy.
Ok, this weekend, I need to finish up the project for One World, One Heart, which starts Monday. You can click on the photo to the right and it will take you to the blog with all the instructions. It's basically a humungo blog event, mostly geared towards those that have blogs, but doesn't exclude anyone. Great way to get to know other bloggers and possibly win some cool art. I think you'll be surprised at what I came up with. Till then, go get creative!
How's that for title overkill????
First, I just want to say, you guys are looking way too hard at the tag. lol. Let me help you out by saying that the punch outs were already heavily glittered, so I didn't have to use any extra glitter. And I don't have the tiny attacher. (
gasps of horror)
So, hopefully, that will make it a little easier for you. Oh yeah, I don't need to know what colors of ink or paint either. But good guesses on those. Don't worry, I really appreciate your comments, it's nice to know people are actually looking carefully at my stuff!
For today's tag, I'm going to switch to Wendy inspired. Mix it up a bit. Expect the unexpected. Grab the bull by the horns. lol
Here we go:
All you need to do is tell me how many of Wendy's stamps I used on this one. It's so easy, it's almost ridiculous. Well, maybe it's not so easy.....it's kind of tricky, but I'm sure you'll figure it out. That's it!
Remember, leave a comment on THIS post just for THIS tag. We're two down, four to go. Winners will be chosen on February 1, 2010. You will need to check my post for that day, because you will need to email me within 24 hours in order to claim it, or I pick another winner. I'll admit it, I'm a hard nose.
What are you winning? Well, if you had read yesterday's post, you would know. Kidding. You are entering to win this tag. I can only have so much stuff laying around, right?
Good luck! And yes, I welcome international commentators!
...
well, actually I was talking about a mission I created for myself.
I think up challenges for myself constantly, as I sit there, slightly slackjawed, eyes glazed over, staring at the opposite wall, thinking of how to incorporate as many products into one piece as I can, without it looking like something out of the bottom of a dumpster when I'm done.
Here, let me explain. I bought a grab box from Lisa Pace, when she was cleaning out her studio. Got some really great stuff. Lots of cool fibers, paper AND she uses a lot of Maya Road, so of course, that's one of the main reasons I bought it, and it was loaded, for sure. In it was some SEI paper and a punch out sheet, from the Jolie Chocolat line. Cool stuff. I got two sheets of paper and one punchout sheet.
Hard to see, but the paper has a slight shimmer to it. Maybe this will be better:
And here's the punch out sheet, that's what I call it, for lack of a better (or correct), term:
Oh, did I forget to take a picture before? lol.
The mission I gave myself, and I did accept it, was to make tags for Valentine's Day using this paper and these punch outs. The other half of the mission was, make three in a kinda Tim theme and three kinda Wendy theme. So, now you know the mission, and I'm going to show one tag a day, with a little detail on how I did it. And, rather than have them sit around my office, I'm thinkin'......
'bout.......
havin'.....
a....
little......
contest.....
of some kind.
Whadda ya think? I just haven't determined what or how yet. lol. Maybe I should show one to you first, and then you can determine if you really want to be winning one of them anyways. lol. Here's a Tim tag:
So, if it's going to be a contest, there may be more than one correct answer, so let's just call it a randomly drawn correct answer. Ha!
Ok, here's YOUR mission, should you choose to accept it, leave me a comment and tell me how many of Tim's products, and what products, you see on this tag. VISIBLE products. I don't need to have you say "I think she used the sanding block", stuff like that. You don't have to be real technical, like tell me the exact name of a stamp, or anything like that, either. Clear as mud? Oh yeah, and since it's a contest, I can't give out details on how I made the tag, now, can I? That will have to be given later.
Remember, there are six tags, so three will be shown this week, and since I'm a non-poster on the weekend, there will be three next week. You need to leave comments pertinent to each post, ok? I'll pick the winners on February 1 for each day. So you'll have to come back and check! And if you see your name as a winner, you'll have 24 hours to email me with your address, or I'll pick another winner. Let the games begin!
.....card?
No, actually, two peas means 2 P's.
Still confused? Me too.
Ok, ok, this is what I'm trying to get at..in a humorous way. Sorry to take up so much of your precious time.
There has been some discussion in the EWV group and the ATT group (all things tim) (these are Yahoo! groups), regarding using pigment inks and perfect pearls. Wendy came up with a great technique that uses both of the aforementioned (love this word) products in a background. You can go to YouTube and search for Wendy Vecchi Pigment and Pearls technique or some variation, and you can watch it in person, or check her blog.
ANYWAYS....I tried this technique over the weekend and came up with a couple of simple cards. Basically, you smoosh a couple of colors of pigment ink pads on your craft sheet. Spray with a mini mister that has been filled with water and perfect pearls mix until beads form, smoosh your paper, tag, whatever on this, pick up, let dry or heat set, smoosh again if you want more color. The pigment inks give a more chalky appearance than distress inks or dye inks do. It's pretty cool.
Here's what I came up with:
I wanted to see what Snow Cap white ink would look like. Now, Wendy recommended using two colors of pigment ink pads, but I just chose one here. I had a mix in my mini mister (say that five times really fast, lol), of red perfect pearls and worn lipstick distress reinker, so I used that as my spray. It's really difficult to see the red glimmer from the perfect pearls, that stuff just isn't very photogenic. Or I'm just a bad photographer. I'm opting for the latter.
I then overstamped the background with one of Wendy's background stamps in snow cap white pigment ink. Stamped the flower image and saying (Wendy) ( I can see why Tim never uses capital letters), and embossed with white embossing powder. The butterfly is a Maya Road rub on. Knew I had to get one of their products in there somewhere, didn't you? Black trim is from Creative Imaginations, cut some little flowers off another piece of trim and placed them on the bases of the flowers, with some red embroidery floss for a bow. Then some little rhinestones for a little bling bling. Matted with white cardstock.
Here's the other one, little different color scheme.
Cranberry was the pigment ink I chose for the background here, along with the same red mini mister mix from before. Overstamped with cranberry pigment ink again with the background stamp. The flower is stamped with juniper pigment ink, and I used one of my new fav products from Ranger, Antiquities embossing powder, the color is Verdigris. I highly recommend it if you like an antique, vintage look. I first saw Jennifer McGuire use it in one of her Thinking Inking videos (YouTube) for Two Peas In A Bucket,
so of course, I had to try it. Here's a close up:
It has some different flakes of color in it, and it doesn't come out real shiny like regular embossing powder, almost a satin finish. Not glossy and not matte. I also bought the Rust color, and that is really cool too. I'll be posting something with that in a couple of days. They have many other colors, but that's all I have right now. :) Ranger, Antiquities embossing powder, go check it out.
Anyways, one of Wendy's butterflies, inked with spiced marmalade and fired brick, some brown ribbon on the bottom, matted on dark brown on top of kraft cardstock. Done.
I should mention, but you can probably see, that there is some brown distress ink on there too. I think brushed corduroy. Yes, I veered temporarily from vintage photo. Shocking.
So, there you have it, two p's, well, actually, pigment and perfect pearls is three p's, but you get the idea. I think Wendy just calls it pigment and pearls. And actually, she had some samples up yesterday using this technique, too. You can check it here. I also highly recommend you watch Jennifer's videos on Youtube. Very informational.
Have a good one, go get out those pigment inks!
On the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo! group, (heretoafter referred to as EWV group), I am hosting a swap. It's a grungepaper rose swap.
It has two "rounds", the first being make 3 GP roses and send to your assigned partner. The second "round" (bell ding) is taking one of the roses you received and making a project to send to a NEW partner that I will be assigning this week.
Now that you have the details, (regardless of whether you wanted them or not), my partner was Alexandra from Scotland. Yes, the Scotland from across the pond, not Scotland, Illinois, if there is one. Isn't that cool? Uh oh, here comes some digression...if money were no object, and I could choose any country in the world to visit, Scotland was and still is, numero uno on my list. So how cool is it that I get to swap with someone from there? Anywho, we decided between the two of us to combine the two rounds and make three roses for each other, and make an extra with a project, and send them all at once, to save on shipping costs. All it means is that we don't get a new partner to mail a project to. Now, the project could be anything. A card, tag, piece of chipboard, whatever. And I can share what I sent, because I know she received it, as she uploaded pics to the EWV group, ha!
Here's what I made for Alexandra:
I also made these three roses:
The hanging started off with a Maya Road piece of chip, I think it's from a scroll banner book?, which I covered with Jenni Bowlin mini paper. Sanded the edges and colored with distress ink.
The rose is GP covered with more JB mini paper, inked and stamped, and some rock candy stickles for a little shine. I made some GP leaves from the Dimensional Rose Art stamp set (Wendy), and also made some metal flowers with Maya Road metal trinket flowers. I stamped on them with Staz On black.
The frame around the saying is Maya Road chip, covered with Vintage Photo crackle paint. The center is inked and stamped. Fired Brick is the distress ink I used. I had stamped with the background stamped from Dimensional Rose Art in white acrylic paint, then inked with Fired Brick. Then stamped MAKE ART in archival black, and covered it with Rock Candy Stickles. Put some little black pearls on for interest. Some randomness with the good ole black Sakura glaze pen, and VIOLA.
Oh, yes, I did stamp with the scrolls (Wendy). They are so nice as filler stamps. Not too busy, just right.
The single roses go like this:
The upper left is another GP rose covered with more JB mini papers, inked and stamped.
The yellow/orange one is obviously mustard seed distress ink with spiced marmalade and some fired brick, stamped with Wendy's scroll stamps, just for something a little different.
The blue one is broken china and faded jeans distress ink, stamped with one of my fav Wendy background stamps, then rock candy crackle paint over all. That's why it looks shiny.
As another little surprise this weekend, I received a beautiful thank you card from one of my blog friends from England, Helen, who had won the first giveaway from December. She makes wonderful art and cards. It's so elegant.
Looks like it might be stamped with versamark, then perfect pearls swished over the image. Am I right, Helen? It's hard to get the full shimmer value of perfect pearls from a picture, but it is simply beautiful. Thank you Helen! By the way, how did you get that perfect scallop on the white paper? I mean, it's PERFECT.
And here's a little comment and FYI on the postal system. I had mailed Helen's goodies about the 2nd or 3rd of DECEMBER in a PRIORITY flat rate box. She received it JANUARY 7th or 8th? So much for paying for priority shipping. I mean, I realize it's the holidays and all, but come on, a month? That's not the best part. I mailed Alexandra's swap January 11 first class, NOT priority. She received it flippin' SIX DAYS later. What the .....??? So hers cost me less than half of what the priority one did and got there 3 weeks sooner. Going to the same piece of land, no less. ( I think, isn't Scotland and England the same piece of land, lol? oh, I'm sure it is) Maybe Alexandra's mail had Captain Sully as a pilot, and Helen's pilots were the dudes that flew past Minneapolis...or Helen's went by SHIP and Alexandra's went by PLANE. Whatever.
So, back to the swap. It is my first swap as a hostess, and I'm relieved to say it is going well so far. Seems like everyone is enjoying it. If you love Wendy's stamps and want to join the group, click on the flower in the upper right sidebar. We plan on having some great swaps and contests coming up! And hey, we're just an all around FUN group! That picture, by the way, is a grungepaper piece that an EWV group member made, Susan K. She's an awesome artist, who I got to meet personally a few weekends ago. Very nice gal, and we had a great time jawing about all our art stuff. She just started her blog, so go check it out.
Enough chit chat for today! Enjoy your week! Eww, is it Monday already???
Now, if any of you have heard the comedian Ron White, you'll know what I'm talkin' 'bout here. In a skit he did, he was talking about having to have drink coupons, and the guy he was talking to called them "coopins". It was pretty funny, you had to hear it. Anyways, my sis and I were going to go on a scrapbook store bus tour in Wisconsin, and I made some coopin holders. You know, those 40% coopins and other discounts from the stores were stopping at.
My job requires some County Courthouse work, and one County in particular sends back documents in these handy little folders, which we don't use at work......but I do. Nice, thick paper, think Bazzill paper times two. They take ink really well, too. So, here's what I came up with.
Can you guess what color distress inks I used? Ha!
Maya Road chip letters
Maya Road jewel flower
Basic Grey tag with unknown brand eyelets
Flower is grungepaper, punched
Wendy's Berry Tree stamp
Wendy's "fly poop" background stamp, this is NOT the actual stamp name, it's what I heard Wendy describe it as....yea, really. If anyone wants to let me know the correct terminology, bring it.
The only thing original to the folder that I saved is the "valuable papers" on the right side. You have to crank your head to see it. After all, 40% off coopins are valuable papers, in my opinion.
Here's the back:
Flap is stamped with Stampin Up French Script background, flowers are Maya Road stamps.
Find the Adventure in Every Day is Wendy's
We R Memory Keepers Grommet (crop a dile big bite)
Unknown rhinestones in center of flowers
And here's the inside:
French Script stamp again, "fly poop" background again, saying is Wendy's stamp. The other gals on the bus were jealous, I could tell. lol. Kidding. Sadly, I haven't used it since. I'm really bad about forgetting I have coupons to use, wait...that only applies to food and sundry items. I ALWAYS remember to use coopins for my art supplies...lol.
I think my favorite technique of all time is using drops of water on distress inks, then blotting, to get that aged look. I really love it.
So, here's a weekend challenge for you, you don't have anything else to do, do you? Make a coopin holder, if you don't use coopins, make it for someone else, maybe? Doesn't have to be just for coupons, either. This is basically the size of a letter envelope (no. 10?), perhaps a tad bigger. You could probably make one very easily from a manila folder, or even grungepaper! oooo, then it could be run thru die cut machine with Cuttlebug folder.....ha! now I've got you goin'. If you do decide to make one, email me a pic, ok? Would love to see your coopin holder! Have a great weekend! I'm goin' to go use my coopins!
I hope you have enjoyed this LONG journey thru my first attempt at book alterations. I guess it really wasn't altering an existing book, just creating my own. At any rate, I had a couple of questions thru the comments, so I thought I would answer them here, before moving on to the back cover.
Stephanie asked:
Been lovin' this book ... are you working on it as you post it, or is it all done, and you're just spreading out the joy?
Steph - it was all done middle of last year, after I had started it in the SPRING. If I posted as I worked on it, that blog would have been way too long.
Eileen's comment:
LOVE LOVE LOVE these pages...the soft colors, the wonderful flowers.
This has been a true labor of love, huh?
Are you doing this for someone or keeping it for yourself?
Eileen - yes, a true labor of love, although love is not a word I would have used sometimes. And yes, I'm keeping this one for myself. It's sitting on top of our entertainment center, so I can look at it during commercials. lol Is that last question a hint or something? lol
I wanted to thank everyone for their nice comments, not a constructive criticism in the bunch. What's up with that? I not so sure everyone is saying how they really feel sometimes. I just opened myself up for it, didn't I?
Ok, here we go, back cover:
I did this one to remind me that it's true....time waits for no one.
The background is stamped with Wendy's "fly poop" background stamp. Love that one. It really does look like fly poop, doesn't it? lol Would go with my "gassy necklace".
The "time" is Maya Road chip, inked and sprayed with Perfect Pearls. The little ruler stamp underneath the saying is the Maya Road metric stamp. The rest of the saying was done with rub on's.
The clock background is a Sizzix die, the clock hands are part of the same die. I painted it with crackle paint and then brushed a liberal amount of Perfect Pearls in different colors all over. Yea, it's been Perfect Pearled. Or Pearled, for short. I embossed some TSS chocolate metal, and cut out a circle for the center of the clock, and then corner pieces. A dew drop in the center of the hands. And another Wendy saying on the bottom.
Time waits for no one, so...find the adventure in every day. How 'bout that for philosophy? HA! Ok, sumpin' a little different for tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, nobody ever told me a source for good gray chip, I want to cut stuff out with my Sizzix, but gluing cereal boxes together just isn't doing it for me. I know, I can use Maya Road chip, but I don't want to ruin one of their good pieces for a trial run, you know? Geez, does MR sell just plain chip sheets? I better check that out, but in the mean time, if you have a good source, please let me know. Less yappin' and more craftin'.
OK, these are my next two favorite pages. I love flowers, that's one of the reasons I love Wendy's stamps. I used grungeboard/grungepaper for all these, so they are REALLY chunky.
Ok, I was getting tired of the Back of 6, Front of 7 titles. Had to think of something different.
Here it is then, just like I said in the aforementioned sentence (wow, that's a really big word for the beginning of a week....I'm spent.... too bad it is also the wrong word to use, should be PREVIOUS, and therefore gramatially incorrect, wait, that's not right either...oh, forget it):
Remember when I said this book was pre-Wendy stamps?
I lied.
Unintentionally.
Remember when I said that I took this book to her class and asked her to look at it? That was the day I finally had the funds to buy two new sets of stamps, and VIOLA!, they were Wendy's Ticket to Art and Mail Art sets. So of course I promptly used them here on these pages. The background behind the bird, "find the adventure in everyday", and the grungepaper flowers are from Ticket to Art. The "remember, make art everyday" is from Mail Art. I think these are still my favorite sets.
The bird is actually a Sizzix die, inked and stamped. Two layers, so the top layer could be curled a little. Then I thought he should be a "messenger" pigeon, (use your imagination, work with me), so I gave him a little tag with a grungeboard pair of wings and heart. And lookee there, Wendy's "remember make art everyday" stamp kind of fit within the tag and you can just barely see it there at the top.
The roof was, once again, chip ran thru the Big Kick and a Cuttlebug embossing folder, painted with Lettuce paint dabber, sanded and inked. Is it obvious that I like that technique, as well as my Lettuce paint dabber? lol. Hey, I'm going for continuity here.
The stamped flowers on the right are actually Maya Road's stamps, from the Journey East collection, called Eastern Primrose, I believe. The leafs on the flowers are Wendy's stamp, too, but they were leftover from class, so I used them here. The center of the flowers are actually white brads covered with distress stickles. Then added a little button with some jute in the center of the leaves.
Yea, and if you have ever taken one of Wendy's classes, she may or may not mention that one of her pet peeves is using buttons with no threads or anything thru the holes. So I'm always careful when I use Wendy's stamps near buttons, that the holes aren't "naked". He He.
And yes, more random dots with the glaze pen. Good thing they come in twin packs, I think I totally used up one on this book.
I'm pretty sure I also lied on how many pages are in this book. I thought there were only four, but I think there are actually five. No wonder it took me forever.
And so the saga continues.....
Why don't I post on the weekends?
Well, I'm usually too busy trying to get everything done I need to get done with two days off.
So, I'm usually MIA in cyber world until Monday.
And you ask, why is she telling us this?
I don't know, thought people would want to know why I don't post on the weekends. LOL
Scratch out those thoughts, totally irrelevant to this blog. Sheesh, I've been watching too much Law and Order.
Okey, dokey, here's some more pages:
Ah, yes. Metal and fragments. Went a little nuts with a flourish stamp in Walnut Stain. I did mention my fettish with flourishes, right? LOL. Then, I tried the alcohol ink on fragments, and then stamped with black Archival and blotted off the black Archival, which leaves the stamped design. Then backed it with white paper so you can see the design and the alcohol inks. I tried this with my "other" black ink, didn't work. So, apparently, black Archival is the only ink you can do this technique with, or at least, that's what I have found.
Some grungeboard pieces from Tim's elements sets, painted with Lettuce paint dabber, sanded, then inked.
And I was DETERMINED to use up all those leather flowers, along with the Maya Road metal trinket flowers.
The roof was soda can metal ran thru the Big Kick with a Cuttlebug folder, inked with alcohol ink then sanded to reveal the design. Cut to the shape of the roof and glued with Ultimate glue. Don't ask me why, but I HAD to make sure that the design on the two roofs matched.
That was fun. I thought everything was supposed to be random.
Not so much in my world. lol. I like things straight and in even numbers most of the time. It amazes me that I can actually make art. I'm one of those, black and white, structured, perfectionist kind of people, so a lot of times I struggle with how things look on my pieces. I can hear people now....eeewwww......she's one of THOSE kind of people. I've really tried to stay to the design principle of using items in odd numbers, which is also very difficult for me.
Hence, three fragments on the left and five on the right.
I did mention that I DO NOT have an art degree, right? lol. I mean, come on, I can barely put together tops to match my blue jeans in the morning. Just ask my sister and mother about my sense of fashion, they'll tell you. I have none.
Back to the pages....more random dots with the black glaze pen. Perhaps too many, lol.
Ok, more ramblin' thoughts and digressions tomorrow......
I keep having to look back to see where I'm at on the pages....lol.
I'm not terribly thrilled how these turned out, but everything is glued down now, soo.......too bad.
As you can see, I used the biga** keyhole and key from Tim's grungeboard shapes. Painted it black, sanded and inked, and some Perfect Pearls. Added some Ideaology and some eyelets to resemble hardware on the keyhole. The heart is grungeboard too, inked with Fired Brick and covered with Glossy Accents. The phrase? Well, I knew I had to use the Key and Unlock in there somewhere, so this is the phrase I came up with. I'm usually not that sappy, really. But it seemed to fit. There's a Maya Road stamp in the keyhole, with a dew drop. Then more dotting around the edges. Personally, I think the black on the key and keyhole is kind of overwhelming, and I should have stamped the background before gluing them down. Well, after all, it is a live and learn process. Could add something over top of them, I guess.
This weekend, plan on getting some UFO's finished (Un Finished Objects), so hopefully I will have pics next week, although one is for a swap, so I really don't want to give that away yet.
Oh yes, checked the tracking on my win from Tim, and it's on the truck ready to be delivered! I'm hoping it will be there when I get home, but the way the weather has been, I have my doubts. If I do receive it today, maybe I'll actually have to post this weekend! Ha! If not, I will see you on Monday, have a good one!
Glad I could make everyone laugh yesterday with the "gassy necklace", lol. You have to admit, it was pretty funny.
On to more pages....
Here is the back of 3 and front of page 4, just like the title above says:
Let me describe the pages from left to right.
The roof was a piece of chip (a.k.a. couple of layers of cereal box, cracker box, whatever) ran thru the Big Kick with a Cuttlebug folder, painted with Peeled Paint Lettuce paint dabber, sanded and inked.
The butterfly wings are from Tim's grungeboard set, along with the antennae, which are actually grungeboard flourishes fitted together to LOOK like antennae. Everything was painted with the Lettuce paint dabber, sanded and inked, then rubbed some Perfect Pearls over all of it. Probably Heirloom Gold and the Copper color. Are you ready for a story about the butterfly body?
Dewbird drives a semi for a living, I guess that's what you call it. He's an independent, meaning he doesn't work for a particular company, HE'S in charge of what he hauls and so forth. So, he's driving along one day and gets a flat tire. After he gets the repair done, he brings home the object that caused the flat, a really rusted off bolt, and I grab it and say, "Hey, so sorry about your flat, but I think I can use that.." He gives it to me, rolls his eyes, and walks away, "consider it an early Christmas present".
Yeah, right. So there you go, butterfly body. Let me tell you, that bolt must have been around for a while the way it looks. Good for me, though. Took a lot of Ultimate glue to glue that sucker down. Kind of heavy (no, really? a metal bolt?)
On the right page, the letters are from Tim's grunge set, painted with black crackle paint and rubbed over with Perfect Pearls.
Here's a close up of the flower:
A couple more of those leather flowers and Maya Road metal trinket flowers, all stamped with Staz On Black.
And to finish everything off, random dots with a Sepia glaze pen.
I think the butterfly is my favorite piece from this book. Ok, off to shovel more snow. Kidding. Already did that this morning. About 6 inches of the stuff, and now the wind is supposed to kick up. Great. I hate driving in that. Well, stay warm, wherever you are, I'll be seeing you tomorrow, hopefully....
Before I get to some more pages from my book (for those new here, I'm not publishing a book.... drat, but an altered book I made), here's sumpin' you might find a little humorous, I know I did.
Remember the Ideaology necklaces we made on the cruise? The one that had the Word key and keyhole?
Ok, remember how we used dictionary paper to cover the back of the keyhole?
You know how you should kind of check the words you are using before gluing it down?
I thought I had looked at it, but it must have been a very brief look.
As I was getting ready for work one morning, I was looking at the back of the keyhole while I was drying my hair (yeah, I was actually trying to STYLE it, lol) and I just busted out laughing. Only I would have this on the back of my necklace, look closely and read the words, what you can see, anyways, and you can put it together:
Must have been the definition of the word BLOAT, or something. Bowels, turgid, flatulent, distended, gases, empty. Who knows. Pretty funny, eh? Good thing it's on the back, although it does make a pretty interesting conversation piece.
"Hey, wanna see what it says on the back of my necklace?" Yea. That's good dinner conversation right there. Maybe it could be a necklace for a Beano commercial? lol.
Too funny.
Ok, on to the book, now that you have all had a good laugh.
Here's the BACK of page 2 and front of page 3:
The background paper has crowns on it, see? That's what started the whole King thing. Then I happened to have a crown stamp, which I believe I had gotten as a free stamp when I bought an issue of the Craft Stamper, an awesome mag from the UK. One of the blog peeps I follow, Hels, was just published in the latest issue, on the cover, no less. Big congrats to her! I don't buy many issues unless there is something specific I want, because it is a tad expensive. Disgressing...
I used Broken China crackle paint on Maya Road letters on the left page, and also on the grungeboard crown, sanded the crown a bit and blended some walnut stain distress ink on it. Topped it off with some dew drops for "jewels". And a couple of stars that have some distress stickles on them.
The right page has some more Maya Road chip letters, inked and stamped, ahh, I'm sure the color was Peeled Paint, lol. Then the flower at the top went like this: cut out a grunge flower from a Sizzix die, inked and stamped, had a leather flower laying around and stamped on that with Staz On, then topped it off with another fav, the Maya Road metal trinket brass flower, which was also stamped with Staz On. Attached them altogether with a brass brad.
Ok, more pages tomorrow!
Well, these two inside pages don't have much to them. I'm about to tell you why, whether you want to know or not, but I'm pretty sure it will become evident.
Before I digress any further, the paper I used throughout this whole book was the Bohemia line from...I think....My Minds Eye? I'm sure someone will correct me on that if I'm wrong....I went a little nuts buying it when I saw it in..
the clearance aisle at HL. (Surprising, I know)
Yeah, I know, the frame is ugly around the little windows. Let's move on, shall we?
I stamped some flourishes on the paper with walnut stain ink. I LOVE flourishes. I kind of collect flourish stamps. I bought Tim's Fabulous Flourish stamp set for the 12 tags of Christmas (got it about halfway thru) and it's already gooked up with paint and ink so much that it looks like it's been around for 10 years. I can say the same for the Berry Tree stamp from Wendy. Can't remember what set it's from, but I use that A LOT. Oops, digressing again....
Stamped a little proverb on the roof of the left side, you can barely see it there.
Dots with the famous glaze pen from Sakura...again.
I found that the little square fragments fit perfectly in the "windows", but then I thought, how in the wide world of sports am I going to attach those in the window?? All I could come up with was to attach them to the next page, so that when the book was closed, the windows fit right inside the front cover. You can see this in more detail on yesterday's post. As it turns out, the book has so many chunky things in it that it won't close anyways, so a lesson learned there, I guess. But I put some rub ons that I had...
from the uh, clearance section....
behind the fragments and a matching rubon on the chimney.
So, that's why these pages don't have much dimension to them. I must say that the paper I chose goes very well with my fav inks, Broken China, Peeled Paint and Vintage Photo.
Ok, there's the next two pages, not my faves after doing the front cover, but there's more chipboard out there... I just know it. You have to let go and move on, man.
Well, I have a couple of projects going right now, none completed. So no pics yet, sorry. In the meantime, I'm going to show you an altered chipboard book I did early last year. Was that 2009??? Crikey, batman, time flies.
Background story: I had been reading Wendy's blog for over a year and had taken one class with her. I had purchased the Maya Road Home Ring Book:
I was thinking to myself one day (lucky I wasn't thinking out loud, that can get scary at times), I'd like to try altering that, no patterns, just putting my spin on it. So keep in mind that this is my first attempt at altering something of this magnitude, yea, 8 flippin' pages, front and back. It was also pre-Wendy stamps. It took me what seemed like an arting eternity. I actually took it to a class I had with Wendy to get her advice on it, because it was about 2/3 complete. Of course she said it looked fine, a couple of pages needed something here and there, etc. She's so nice.
Here's what I did with the front cover:
Can you tell I like Maya Road products? Really?
The colors of distress ink I used were: Broken China, Peeled Paint and probably Vintage Photo. Another..REALLY??? I will never give up these colors..NEVER...I tell you.
The roof is a piece of chip I cut out and ran thru my Big Kick with a Fiskars Texture plate, painted with some acrylic paint, dried, then sanded off the raised areas and inked with distress ink. I used the Fiskars Threading Water border punch to make the scalloped roofline, accented with Dew Drops.
The scroll on the roof was in a package of chip I had bought...on clearance. Another REALLY??
The letters are Maya Road, inked and stamped.
A grungeboard piece for the flower stem.
The flowers are Maya Road, Trinkets Metal Elements:
Love those. Stamped on them with Staz On and various stamps.They bend easily, and fit together nicely. Here's a closeup:
The chimney is covered with Distress Stickles, it was supposed to look like brick, lol. The doorplate is from Tim, and the knob is actually a colored brad.
Then I went a little nuts with the Sepia glaze pen and dotted around everything.
The thing I didn't like? The window frame. I think I tried distress embossing powder with an embossing pen, and it didn't turn out like I thought. I should have just cut out a piece of chip to make a new window frame, but I didn't. So, there's the front cover, I'll post the next installment tomorrow..till then, friends...go get creative!
All I can say is....HOLY CRAP!!!! You should really check out Tim's blog. He had a contest that ended at midnight last night, whereby you sent him a picture of all of your completed 12 Tags of Christmas, and then a randomly picked entry would win this huge prize. Sadly, I didn't win the Grand Prize, HOWEVER, unbeknownst to anyone, Tim decided to pick 15 Artist Choice winners as well, and.....I just can't believe it..........I was picked! Or rather, the "Have a Cool Yule Dude" Tag did. I'm just reeling. And quite honestly, being picked for Artist Choice means more to me than if I would have won the BIG ONE. But, congrats to Karen for being the Grand Prize Winner!!! Oh, and of course, all the other Artist Choice winners, some of the names I recognize from my All Things Tim Yahoo! Group.
See, I didn't even check his blog until about 11 a.m. this morning, knowing that I would have a fat chance of winning the big prize. I rarely win those things. Even when there is only one name to draw, I still don't win. lol. But then, I'm scrolling and reading his post, OMG, 15 more winners, I wonder who......OMG, THERE'S MY NAME!! Actually, Dewbird saw my name before I did, as I was reading.....then, let the screamin', hollerin' and jumpin' up and down begin! Rocky even started jumpin' up and down and barkin'! If only there had been a video camera there to capture the moment. Well, maybe not. I'm not wearing any makeup, slobby "it's my day off so I don't have to wear anything decent" clothes, you know. I'm just stunned beyond belief.
Then I looked at all the other entries that were chosen. Now there's a humbling experience. Some of those pieces were so darn creative. CD's, actual scrapbook pages, wow, just stunning work. I can't believe the cool dude is in amongst those works. But, who am I to argue??? I'm just as happy as a clam. I was going to take a little catnap this afternoon...but...I don't think I can sleep right now......I feel a celebratory pizza comin' on tonight. No cookin' for this chick. That there would have been anyways. lol. Well, I've already received lots of congrats emails, thanks, peeps, you're the best.....
Here's to a great New Year, let's make more time to be CREATIVE!!!! Because you never know what good things might happen!!!
