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...yes, I'm breaking my cardinal rule of not submitting one piece for two challenges, but.... things have been a little hectic.
This will cover the Sunday Stamper Challenge from Hels, which is love or life (ok, I'm using a FORM of that word, live), and the Compendium of Curiousities Challenge from Linda, which is something to do with fragments.
I decided to "borrow" Linda Cain's idea of using UTEE on a piece of chip that was run thru the Texture Fades. It was bronze UTEE.The flourishes are chip covered with TTT (Tim's Tissue Tape, lol) and ran thru Tim's flourish die. The stars are chip painted with Espresso, ran thru the Paisley CB folder, and swiped with Black Soot DI. The arrow is chip covered with Rusty Hinge, and various embossing powders to make it look somewhat old and grungey. The LIVE is one of Tim's adage tickets. I used two of the On the Edge dies for the piece of black chip underneath everything, edged with Copper paint dabber. There you go, hope everyone has a great weekend, thanks for stopping by!
...
yep, theme this week, FACES. Go check out the other cool art, HERE. To be honest, I don't have a whole lot of stamps with faces. Shocking, I know. Flowers are a different story, lol. So, I wasn't sure if it meant I had to use a whole face, or could use just part of one, like eyeballs, or what. Not that the rules are strict, but I did want to keep in the realm of the theme, you know. Here's what I came up with:
As you may have guessed, all stamps are Wendy's. The background of the tag is the awesome distress ink with Perfect Pearls mix, Bundled Sage and the green patina PP, can't remember if that's the right name. But, it's very....green....and sparkly. I like it! Stamped on the background with Olive Archival, the rest of the stamping is with Archival black. Face and sentiment are on black chip for dimension, added some Enamel Accents, can you tell I REALLY like those? lol Oh, and some Black Diamond Stickles above her head there, on the feather type things. There you go, easy peasy super cheesey squeezey. (lunchtime)
Go Be Creative!
...heeee! Yep, it's time for another installment of the Compendium of Curiousities Challenge, week six, already! hosted by Linda, and sponsored by some generous retailers. The challenge is Multi Medium Collage. And, here we go, hang on! Kidding about the hang on, it just sounded fun:
Of course, I love botanicals, flowers, nature stuff, so I used some of the floral paper from Tim's Lost and Found stack as the background. Coupla Sizzix dies for the butterfly and leaves, and some grungeboard letters to round out the "bunch 'o mediums used". I was going to put a flower on there, but I wanted to surprise you. lol.
Whew! Another week under the belt, can't wait to see the challenge for next week....
Go Be Creative!
No, I don't know how one would pronounce that either. It was a stretch, I admit.
I recently joined the Ten Seconds Studio Yahoo! Group, it was started a couple of months ago by the lovely and talented Susan. Their first swap is an ATC swap, with, of course, TSS metal being the focal point. Scraps of metal are great for ATC's, so here's what I came up with:
I added some Beadazzles, some glitter, K & Company butterflies, some rub ons, some pearls, I don't think I've left anything out, lol. Oh, and the black ones are from the frame project, remember? They need to be shipped, so I'm off to the postie. Can't wait to see what I get back! Now...
Go Be Creative!
...I was determined...DETERMINED... I tell you, to get the frame project done and off the Island of Uncompleted Projects. So I set about this weekend to do just that. If you remember, I started playing around with Wendy's stamps and metal, and the embedded bling technique from Ten Seconds Studio, and came up with this:
I had also asked for your suggestions on how to complete it, as, let's face it, it needed something else besides the big black space surrounding it. You've always wondered what they meant when they mentioned the "black hole", well, now you know. lol Thank you so much for your suggestions, they were really wonderful, and for the most part, everyone had a different idea! That's what I love about you guys! sniff, sniff. Somebody, slap me, I'm showing emotion.
So I kind of combined a few suggestions, but in the end, just kept playing around till I came up with this, and called it DONE. It's basically a complete redo, and I left the mirror portion as it was originally, which, I might add, is very difficult to photograph, so excuse my arms and hands, lol.
Yep, covered the whole enchilada with metal. Well, with the exception of the outside 1/2 inch, which is covered with silver paint dabber, stamped and embossed with black EP. The IMAGINE word is Maya Road chip, covered with Lumiere paint, stamped and embossed. Added some more bling to the edges, too. I'm happy with it, finally, and even if I wasn't, it would stay just as it is...
The piece that was in the middle originally, you ask? It was turned into an ATC, but that's for another day.....now...
The Sunday Stamper Challenge this week - BELIEVE and/or JOURNEY, you can click on the link to see Hel's spellbinding piece of art, in the shape of a humungo book, and other fabulous entries.
I was so taken with my attempt at the Rusted Enamel technique from yesterday's tag, that I tried it again, with different colors. I also decided to use up some bits and leftovers from other projects. And since I was being so decisive, lol, I decided to use a mica tile from US ArtQuest, being as how I had seen Jessica use it on a project yesterday. I've had these a while, have used them a couple of times, but need to use them more. Jessica ran them thru an embossing folder, which I didn't think you could do, but I wasn't brave enough to try that, so I just stamped on it. lol.
Here we go!:
Probably should have done something to make brolley man stand out more, but actually, it looks better in real life. Wish I had a dime for every time that happened. I'd be rich and blogging from my log cabin on a mountain lake that I bought.
Now it's time for you....to....
Go Be Creative!
...finally got a little mojo back this weekend, found it baked out on the sidewalk and in desperate need of hydration after all the stinkin' heat here.
I was able to spend a little time in the studio...ahhhh..
The theme for this week's Tag Tuesday is/soon to be was, HEARTS. Not normally a subject I lean towards, unless it's a grungeboard heart with wings and a crown, lol.
I had received some embossed metal hearts as part of some swap goodies some time ago, and was wanting to use them, but it took me until this weekend to find them! Seriously!
Any hoo, (or is it any who? whatever) here's what I came up with:
And of course we're getting a glare from the metal. Insert long, audible, exasperated sigh HERE. I used some alcohol ink on the metal hearts. The flourish is grungepaper, inked and embossed with sporadic patches of an embossing powder my friend Jessie had given me called woven tapestry. And that's exactly what it looks like! Very cool.
I wanted to show you the base tag before I added everything, I used a technique from Tim's Compendium of Curiousities book, called Rusted Enamel. I changed it up a bit, and it came out, oh, so cool!
I LIKE it! I'll be using this one more often, I can tell you that! Well, hope to check out some more blogs tonight, gotta run (or "blurf" I guess, lol)
Go Be Creative!
...in more ways than one. lol
In the EWV (Everything Wendy Vecchi) Yahoo! group, the lovely and talented Susan is hosting a Collaborative Chaos tag swap, originally inspired by a piece of art that was the brain child of Tim Holtz and Jennifer McGuire. The swap had also been done by the All Things Tim Yahoo! group. Basically, there are different sized tags made, everyone swaps, and you get back 11 different sized tags to mount as you wish, the original piece by Tim and Jennifer was 12 x 12 inch, I believe. And the point of this whole exercise, you ask? I'm getting there, sheesh.
I got mine done, okay? lol
I was assigned the smallest tag size, which is 2 3/4 by 1 3/8 inches, yes, INCHES. As in SMALL. TINY. WEE. LITTLE. You get the idea. All I can say is, thank goodness I've been doing Twinchies and Inchies lately, to practice working on a small scale! lol Now, of course, these were Wendy themed, so, keep that in mind. Here's the components:
I performed the ever popular wrinkle free distress magic on the base tag. And also the crumpled piece of manila cardstock, which in retrospect is not so wrinkle free, 'cause I balled it up good after spraying it with Sunflower Sparkle Perfect Pearls, lol.
I always wondered what I was going to do with that particular stamp, that looks like a piece of torn paper, so I challenged myself to come up with an idea, so there you go. Anyone else used this particular stamp in a project? I also decided to tear it out of the paper, to truly give that "torn" effect.
Flower - Barn Red DI with Fired Brick distress stickles
Leaves - Bundled Sage DI
Hand - Brushed Cord DI, also on the paper fastener stamped piece
And here it is assembled, I used scraps of grungeboard under some pieces to give it more dimension:
I should have put a quarter down there, just to give you some perspective on size, but I just spent my last one at lunch.
And, I don't know if you noticed, but I had the brilliant idea, since the paper fastener stamp said "round head brass", I should actually attach a brass fastener. Brilliant. I'm sure no one else has thought of this. lol.
I was going to try to attach some other little sentiment or saying, but I just couldn't find room, and rather than ruin a good thing, I decided to leave it alone for once. And really, it's not quite so boring in real life, you just can't see the Perfect Pearls and Stickles in the picture.
Hope the swappers like it, I know I can't wait to see what everyone has made!
Go Be Creative!
The day I got my inchies from the inchie swap, I also got another surprise package from my friend, Electra. If you enjoy laughing hysterically, you must check out her blog. Not to mention, she makes great art, and a LOT of it is digital, it's simply AMAZING. Any hoo, I had mentioned in a comment on a post of hers that contained an ATC, on which was a moose, that I collect moose related objects. It's also on my bucket list to view one of the elusive creatures, live and in person. I don't know what the fascination is,
I just think they're cool. Maybe it's the fact that I can relate to their hugeness and their somewhat, shall we say, homeliness. rofl.
So, here's what the package contained, can you believe it?
I LOVE the ATC. She scanned an old postcard, ran it thru one of Tim's embossing folders, a little ink, a moose cutout (hey, did you draw that, Electra?) and viola! Moose ATC. I think it's the coolest ATC, ever. And the little brown pursey thing in the middle is made of wood, which she painted. Awesome. A die cut, a stencil, a stamp, and the green moose on the right, which I thought was just a keychain, also doubles as a bottle cap opener. I'm sure there's a brand of beer named "moose" that I could use that on, as I'm sitting in my moose stand, camera at the ready, watching, waiting...rofl. What isn't shown in the pic is an article from a magazine about moose, a newspaper article on a moose sculpture, and other related paraphernalia. How thoughtful is that? THANK YOU ELECTRA! It's so great to have friends that do these sort of things, without passing judgment on your choice of things to collect, lol.
So, what do you collect? (Besides art stash, I mean, lol) Do tell!
Heeee! Couldn't resist the rhyme. You can jive your way over to Linda's blog to see what the hootenanny is all about, and view the other awesome ART.
Technique this week involves Distress Embossing Powder (hereafter referred to as DEP).
And here we go:
I thought maybe the Faded Jeans color of DEP (memories),
would match the flower better, but it is a little darker blue in real life than the photo shows. I used Antique Linen DEP for the background, the stamp is Tim's Harlequin background stamp from forever ago. I use it a lot, though.
The flower is made from sewing patterns and old text paper, sprayed with Perfect Pearls/reinker mix. Old button for the center.
Vintage glass glitter for the little stars, and the big one was covered with text paper and edged with Platinum Stickles, which closely resembles vintage glass glitter, and much easier to apply to the edges of a project. Trust me.
Hey, still not too late to enter, you need to have the Timinator's Compendium of Curiousities book, though. Another, trust me, when I say that you won't regret buying it. There's some candy up for grabs too with your entry, so what are you waiting for?
Go Be Creative!!
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yesterday was a GREAT mail day. I received my inchies from the loverly hostess, Jana, who was very creative with the packaging. I LOVED it. Check it out, I think it's some sort of drink mix container. The inchies inside were mounted on a sleeve made from some pretty paper:
Prepare to be amazed by the talent of the artists here, I'll bet members of the USPS were:
I was blown away by the art that people created on a simple one INCH square. Seriously. Are these not cool? I am so happy I joined this swap! And a big THANK YOU to Jana for hosting, she put a lot of work into gathering, sorting and mailing! Thanks, Jana!
Now, doesn't that inspire you to GO BE CREATIVE, and make some inchies of your own?
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wow, and it's Sunday even. I just posted last week's theme on Friday....
theme this week....BLUE...
Very simple tag to meet this week's challenge, as I'm still working in the studio on the "BIG O"... I'm shooting for a deadline of, oh, I don't know, the end of the year. rofl.
Yep, it's blue alright. Flower is grungepaper that the lovely Alexandra had sent me from Scotland. I think the stamps she used were Graphicus, which is based in the U.K., am I right, Alexandra? I LOVE those. I'm rationing them out, I have a few left. The stamp set I used is Maya Road, Eastern Primrose, I believe. The sentiment is Wendy's. Some white enamel accents and white pen for highlights, oh, and the black dots are enamel accents, too. Seed beads for the flower centers. The background of the base tag is the wrinkle free distress technique, you know, where you just smash some distress ink on the craft sheet, spray liberally with a Perfect Pearl/water mix, and smoosh a tag in the colored goodness. I believe I used Dusty Concord, Broken China, and there's a little Walnut Stain, too.
Short but sweet, there you go!
Go Be Creative!
...
I'm going to ask for your opinion. I heard that chorus of groans....
Theme this week is RHINESTONE, as in, cowboy. I loved that song. I love all the "classic" country, probably because it's all I heard when I was little. I clearly remember the day when I was, oh, about 8 or 9 and I accidentally broke my Dad's Johnny Cash LP. It was not a good day for me. rofl.
So, I've been wanting to try Wendy's stamps on metal. First hurdle, done. I also wanted to try the technique shown on this week's Taco Tuesday Video, where Cheryl and Megan embed gems into the metal, I think the word "embezzled" was mentioned. Too funny. Even if you don't like metal, you should at least watch a video, they're hilarious! Here's the link to this weeks video. Second decision, done. So why not put both into one project? Well, I got most of it done, but then came the "now what do I do with these pieces" decision, (and it was also time for bed), which is where I need your opinion. I did have an unfinished wood frame that had a small mirror in the center, so I decided to paint it black and insert the background metal piece there. But the frame needs something, besides the flower, and I just can't decide what.
..
and for those just joining us...that stands for the Compendium of Curiousities Challenge, hosted by Linda "get the Led out" better. Heeeeee...
This week's challenge was to yield a result that looks "shabby chic"....
I kinda cheated and started with black chipboard from the beginning.
Other items I used:
Paint Dabber in Pool - I LOVE this color, especially on BLACK. Makes me think of water, which, as hot as it was today, would have been a welcome relief....
Tim's stamps - Floral Tattoo, Nature Discovery, and Just Thoughts (I think, lol)
Sentiment was embossed with Stream embossing powder, highlighted with white pen. The edges of the sentiment are swiped with silver pigment ink, Encore brand.
Some black ribbon, lace, and pearls, oh, and a little grungeboard birdie, to complete it.
And yes, an On the Edge die, Scallops.
There you go! If you haven't checked out the challenge already, please do! There are even PRIZES being given, if that's not incentive, I don't know what is. Well, ok, a Reese's giveaway would get my attention...
On to another matter...
Does anyone out there have the new I-Rock from Imaginisce? It looks interesting to me, a great way to affix bling and have it be PERMANENT. If you do, please let me know how you like it.
This past weekend was a holiday weekend here in the States, and we were BUSY. We were invited to three cook outs, of which we took total advantage of...YES, three meals I didn't have to cook, oh, and always great to see friends and family...lol
We completed a home improvement project that needed to be done, i.e. basement window replacement involving glass block and mortar, I was the stone mason, rofl.
I purchased some way cool spinner racks from a local gal who was selling the rest of her scrapbook store inventory, so I repainted them, and as you all know, once you start reorganizing, it never ends. So I was out in the studio the rest of the time, tearing stuff apart, redoing, etc, etc, blah, blah, and guess what? It's a mess and still not done. Yeah, we call it the "Big O", (organization). I'll get there, if I don't end up pitching everything out the window first!
Go Be Creative!
..over on the All Things Tim Yahoo! group, Stephen is hosting a tag swap, the only stipulation being that Tim's new texture fades embossing folders be used somewhere. I took the definition of "somewhere" and changed it to "everywhere". hee. From the moment I saw this swap, the first idea that popped into my head was "patchwork sampler". From there it snowballed into a texture fade extravaganza. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think they came out pretty darn cool. It was one of those moments when you're creating something and you want to shout to the world "I did it!, I made something cool!" Instead, I just took a moment of silence to bask in my own glory, and sat and stared at the finished project for a while. rofl. There may have been a Reese's involved, I can't remember.
I also wanted to do something a little different with the colors, so I went with Adirondack pigment inks in the Brights. Oh yeah.
And remember the sewing machine I have "borrowed" from my Mom? Put that through a major test, which it passed with flying colors, albeit a couple of broken needles. (thankfully not a burnt up motor, yikes)
There is also metal involved, a LOT of it. You ready? Here we go:
I thought four was enough to show, rofl, but there are two others that say Imagine and Believe.
The black pieces are Ten Seconds Studio Rock Star black metal. The rest of the pieces are grungeboard.
On the grungeboard pieces, I went DIRECT to the grunge with the ink pad BEFORE embossing with Sailboat Blue, Watermelon and Clover pigment inks. Let dry thoroughly, then sanded the embossed areas and inked over with a darker colored distress ink. Sewed all pieces down to the tag, which was painted with black acrylic paint.
I had these little metal frames that fit perfectly over the FREE on the Bingo embossing. I then foolishly covered the Free with glossy accents, which in retrospect I wish I hadn't done, as it made it darker and not so visible.
The metal words are something I purchased, oh, on clearance somewhere, thought they stood out more just leaving them as is, plain silver. I stapled them to the grunge before sewing.
Ok, here's the great part, those metal wing things at the top? GARAGE SALE crap. Some sort of silvery thing I think somebody used for a wedding or something. I used black paint to tone down the silver and hung an Ideaology charm from them.
They are actually quite substantial, I couldn't believe how heavy they were, especially when it came to the mailing part, lol. Well, that, and I put some heavy paper on the back to cover up the sewing, brad ends, and so forth.
Hope the recipients like them, and I can't wait to see what tags I get back!
Now...be safe, have a good weekend and.....
Go Be Creative!
...theme this week....SUMMER. You can check out the other wonderful entries HERE. I have to admit, this one kinda threw me.... until.... I remembered I had some wonderful Webster's Pages paper that I scored on EBay. Love Webster's Pages. Used some paper from the Sweet as Cherry Pie line, doesn't get more summery than cherry pie, does it?
It also conjured up the memory of me, standing on a ladder when I was oh, about 14-15, juice running down both arms, picking those dang pie cherries off the FOUR trees we had, then pitting them with a hair pin, all for a pie that was inhaled in about 5 seconds. Yeah, 8 hours of labor for 5 seconds of gratification, doesn't get any better than that....
I just used paper on this one, a little ink round the edges, a strip of old text paper, which I also covered the stars in, inked and used Platinum stickles round, and the bottom edging on the tag is a leftover from using two of Tim's On the Edge dies, inked with Broken China distress ink.
I also used some Rock Candy Stickles on the butterfly and the cherries, hence, the, ah, sugar-y look. More sparkly in real life, of course.
You know, sometimes I just don't like to put anything on the tops of my tags, I like them just the way they are. That, and, I didn't have anything that was really speaking to me for an accent on this, as it is so busy already.
Kind of patriotic, too, with the stars on it, what with the fourth of July coming up and all. It was all part of the master plan. (I lie like a rug...)
Go Be Creative!
