It's The Grande Finale...

Of challenges at Linda's based on the book Compendium of Curiosities II by Tim Holtz. Linda promised a big sendoff and I can't think of a better way to honor Tim than by taking our favorite technique from either of his books and making a card to help Tim celebrate his upcoming birthday on January 7. Asking me to pick a favorite Tim technique is like asking most parents to pick a favorite child! So I picked a couple. I chose the Tissue Tape technique and used the Grunge Flower die. And I also used the Spritz And Flick technique which is so simple but makes a huge impact. There's also some random stamping and highlighting with my Signo White Uniball Pen. And I inked thru a stencil and highlighted that as well. There's Brolly Man cut from Stickyback Canvas and instead of his brolly shading him, there's a Grunge Flower instead!

I've had a great time participating in the challenges these last 8 months. Wonder if there's a Compendium of Curiosities III coming out at CHA Winter??!! We'll find out in a couple of weeks!

Melt Pot art

It's time for challenge 34 at Linda's and this week brings us to the end of our journey in the Fabulous Compendium of Curiosities II by Tim Holtz. Linda has promised us a HUGE send off for next week, so stay tuned for that!

The final challenge is using UTEE and the Melt Pot. And as you've learned by now, I can't divulge the details of the Melt Pot. One thing I can say is that I don't have the shrink plastic STILL! So I used a piece of packaging and other than the edges curling a bit, I think it worked out ok for my use.

Merry Christmas

                              

                                        Merry Christmas one and all.

Tim's Tissue Tape Time

Say that fast three times!

It's Challenge 33 at Linda's. This week we are delving into page 36 in Compendium of Curiosities II by Tim Holtz and it's all about his fabulous and versitile Tissue Tape. And this week, Simon Says is our sponsor and will be giving a $25 shopping spree to one lucky participant. Just in time for Christmas!!

I finally got Tim's Tattered Flowers die last week, so of course I HAD to use it for this week's challenge. After I cut our my flowers, using the technique as described in the book, I used four colors of Distress Ink to color them, then gently sqooshed the petals to give them some dimension. I needed an Anniversary card, so once I had my flower assembled I pulled out CTMH La Belle Vie paper pack and finished up my card with it.

Paper Rosettes

It's challenge 32 time at Linda's and this week we are working on page 63 of the Compendium of Curiosities book by Tim Holtz.

I needed a Thank You card, so I used the Rosette die to make a flower. It's kinda hard to tell in the pic, but I used Glossy Accents and Distress Stickles Dry Glitter Clear Rock Candy along the edges of my "flower." I LOVE the shimmer and sparkle it gives. Just that little something extra! The papers I used are CTMH Avonlea. And I used my CTMH Artiste Cricut cartridge to cut the leaves, which I folded in the center and pop-dotted to give them a bit of dimension.

12 tags of Nov winnings

 I was one of the lucky winners in Tim's 12 tags of 2012 for November. I received a package from Mario earlier in the week and it had a package of Tim's great Tinsel which is the perfect size for tags and cards and also Tim's Mini Holiday 2 stamp set. Both will get put to very good use!

Dec 12 tags of 2012

When was the last time I posted two days in a row?! Long time, that's for sure!

Tim has given us two tags to work on for Dec. You can see his fabulous examples here.

For my first one, I chose to use the Blueprint Christmas Toy Soldier that I think looks more like a Nutcracker! I used Victorian Velvet and Tarnished Brass Distress Stains to color my tag and once it was dry, I used the snowflake stamps from the Mini Holidays set and dipped them in Brushed Pewter Distress Stain and stamped them randomly on my tag. I colored the Toy Soldier using my Distress Pens and a waterbrush. I cut out Ornate Plate using the mirror paper and attached a ribbon and some holly. I've got lots of Christmas stuff in my stash and that's where the ribbons, holly and rub-on word came from. Nice to be using up some of it!

I'll be back later in the week with tag two. Don't want y'all getting used to me blogging every day!!

Distress? Not Really!

Time for Challenge 31 at Linda's and this week it's all about Ink Palette-Distress. And while it may sound Distressing, it's really more about using Tim's guidelines in Compendium of Curiosities II about using your Distress Stains in a whole new way!! To learn more, you have to buy the book. And really, after all this time, why don't you already own it?!

Every year for Christmas, I make both of my Favorite sisters and mom cards that they can give to friends and family thru the year. Normally by this time of year, I am l.o.n.g. done with them, but this year due to first procrastination on my part and then getting a job at Whole Foods Market, I've not made the first card for any of them! Good thing Favorite Jan and mom said they don't need any this year. So this makes one down and a dozen or so to go for Favorite Kathy!

I started with one of Roc Nicholas' funky, quirky animal images and used Tim's techinque as described on page 51 to color it. Then I used Dyan's Spray Inks to color my background. Then I sprayed water thru a couple of different stencils and finally inked the edges in Gathered Twigs Distress Ink. 

Reflective Christmas Tree

Challenge 30 at Linda's and this week it's time for Reflective Imagery which is on page 55 of the book Compendium of Curiosities II by Tim Holtz.

I decided to make a Christmas-y scene using an empty Velveeta Cheese box. I found some Christmas papers with trees on them and after applying a generous schmearing of Inkssentials Glue and Seal, I then applied Tim's Distress Stickles Dry Glitter Clear Rock Candy. The houses are all from Dyan's Right Up Your Street stamp set and I also applied the Dry Glitter Rock Candy to the roofs. The tiny tree is from Tim's Woodlands collection and it ALSO has Dry Glitter Rock Candy applied to it after I applied Sistress Stain in Crushed Olive to the tree. In the background is Tim's best (in my opinion!) release from Summer CHA and that's the little battery operated light! I love the soft glow it gives and how it makes the Dry Glitter sparkle! For the actual challenge part, there are two boys who have picked out their perfect Christmas tree and are taking it home on their sled!

Wish

It's challenge 29 at Linda's and this week it's Texture Fades, which is found on page 64 of the book Compendium of Curiosities II by Tim Holtz.

I wish you could see this tag up close and in person! I stamped the deer and hand cut it out (I know, glutton for punishment!) then used Dry Rock Candy Glitter all over it. The shimmer and shine is amazing In Real Life! The wreath is from Tim's Woodlands Collection and I used Dyan's Cut Grass Spray Inks to color it.

12 Tags of 2012-November

Only one tag left in the 12 tags of 2012. It's been a fun year and already I'm wondering what Tim's got up his sleeve for 2013!

You can see Tim's tag here. I used one of Tim and Mario III's collaboration Autumn Blueprint stamps for my image. The tag is colored with Distress Stains and Distress Inks. I had some leftover branches and a couple of leaves from a previous project on my scrap table, so I put them to use on this tag. I also used my favorite chicken wire stamp and had to add some white pen doodling as well!

Memories

Week 28 of Compendium of Curiosites II Challenges at Studio L3.  And just like the previous 27 challenges, we are working in the book of the same name by the fabulous Tim Holtz. This week we are sponsored by Simon Says Stamp and they are providing a $25 shopping spree to one lucky participant. I'm also linking up with the Ranger blog for their "Use Distress Stains" challenge. This week, it's all about Reflections Stamping and that technique is on page 65 of the book.

I started my tag with Pumice Stone, Broken China and Brushed Pewter Distress Stains in puddles on my Kraft Sheet and drug the tag thru the colors and let it run, then dried it with my heat gun and then splotched it thru the colors again. I love the shimmery effect the Brushed Pewter gives the tag! I used one of Tim's Haberdashery stamps and used the Reflections Stamping technique on it.

Imagine

It's week 27 of Compendium of Curiosities II at Linda's and this week it's Pallette Alcohol Ink. That technique can be found on page 52 of the book by Tim. This week, we are sponsored by The Funkie Junkie who will be offering up a $25 gift certificate to one lucky player.

I dug thru my stash o' metal and came up with a dragonfly, leaf set, "diamond" bling and charm that I set about coloring with my alcohol inks. I used the three Autum Seasonal Distress Inks (that are now a part of the PERMANENT Ranger Distress Ink Palette!) and also used the Spritz and Flick techinque on it. I used a chevron stamp and random stamped, then used a Dyan "weedy" stamp and added some white highlights. The charm, which is kinda hard to read even with the words highlighted in Picket Fence says, "reality has limits, imagination is boundless."

 

Suede?

Or not? It's week 26 at Linda's and the challenge, Crumpled Kraft Suede, can be found on page 60 of Compendium of Curiosities II by Tim Holtz. This week, The Funkie Junkie is giving one lucky player a $25 gift certificate.

This is actually one of the tags I did at the Dyan Reaveley classes earlier this month at Whim So Doodle. So since I started it at a Dyan class, I decided to use some of her things AND some Tim things on it as well.

This will be going to my Favorite Youngest Nephew to use as a bookmark. And there will also be one for his younger sister, my Favorite Only Niece!

And a job update for those that are interested!

This past week was a bit more book lernin' along with lots and lots and lots of cleaning. Followed by more cleaning! We have log sheets that any and every time we clean something, it has to be logged. There are 18 of us in Produce. We had to wash and sanitize all of our knives, cutting boards, baskets for the organic produce to go in on the sales floor, everything. Do you think any of the 18 of us remembered to log it? Nope! Sure didn't. So we had to re-wash and re-sanitize Every.Thing in the dept. Bet none of us will forget to log anything again! And now I have a 4 day weekend before hitting the ground running on Wed to get prepped and ready for the big Grand Opening on Thursday. Can't wait!

Doubles

If you've come here (or if I've come to you via you Following me!) for art, today you will be disappointed. I have an egg picture and that's it! Had a couple of the brown egg layers lay double yolk eggs and one of the chocolate egg layers is finally laying! So I have that one pic to share with you today.

I've had quite a few emails asking me how my NEW JOB training is going. And I'm taking the lazy man's way out and blog posting about it! Then instead of typing the same thing over and over, I type it once and send everyone who's emailed me the link!

I did not realize how much about produce I did not know! And it's not so much about the produce itself that I didn't know but more about safe handling procedures. Whole Foods Market (henceforth to be known as WFM) is the world's largest seller of organic and all natural products. Not everything in WFM is organic. There are many conventional items. As more farmers switch to organic farming (defined as produce that has been grown without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or chemical or synthetic fertilizers) and they are approved by WFM's buyers, the amount of organic produce will increase. WFM tries to buy local when and where it can. And Florida is an entity unto itself in the WFM world! We are our own region all by itself. So "local" in FL can mean strawberries in the spring from Plant City or tomatoes in the fall from Immokolee which is down by the Everglades.

The first two days was learning all about the WFM way of doing business. We are Team Members, not employees. We don't use last names. From our Store Team Leader to the dishwashers and maintenence people, first names only. Even the CEO/founder is John. We were given several exercises where we had to problem solve, first verbally then non-verbally. And with each excercise, we changed Teams so we could learn to work together. We all did our safe food handling certification. We each have a card and we have to have it accessable in the store if we are on duty should the Health Inspector ask for it. So if it is not on my person, it has to be in my purse in my locker and not in my car in the parking lot.

We were given a tour of the store with each dept having something that they make (or in Produce's case, an organic banana!) We were each given a T-Shirt to wear on Grand Opening day and on any other day that we want. So if it's Tuesday, I can wear my shirt. I don't just wear it once and stick it in the bottom drawer never to be seen again. We were each given a reuseable WFM shopping bag made completely of recycled water bottles. And in that bag, we got a coffee mug, a water bottle, 365 Brand (WFM's store brand) breakfast bars, Organic Salt & Pepper potato chips, trail mix, Organic bar soap, a WFM "globe" skooshie ball, fruit leather, milk and dark organic chocolate bars, 2 different beef, pork or chicken marinades, gum, recipe cards. There's more, but I don't remember it all! The bag was over half full by the time our tour was over! Then they turned us loose on 3 different food trucks in the parking lot for our dinner. Oh, and one dessert truck with CUPCAKES!!! Even gluten-free cupcakes. There were gluten-free and vegan dinner options from the food trucks as well.

Yesterday was getting our Produce Certification. Yep, ya gotta be Certified to work in any dept in the store! They want you to be educated about what we sell because the typical WFM customer knows what we sell so you are expected to be educated as well. Lots of info! Safe temp handling procedures. Steps to take if I am cutting conventional fruits as opposed to organics. Yep, they are both handled differently! You clean and sanitize one way for conventional and another for organics so as not to disrupt the integrity of the organics. The list is endless!

Next week we will be learing how to properly close down the dept at night. Also we will be trained and certified on operating the pallet jack, baler and juicer. There will be other training as well, but these were the only things we were give "sneak peeks" of.

I'm tired. Or shoud I say, my BRAIN is tired! But it's a "good" tired. It's nice to have some interaction with people again. I had gotten used to being here in my bubble every day. But you need that human contact!

Thanks for listening to me ramble! And here's a couple of pics. I took one of the front and back of my shirt!

 The two in the back are the double yolkers and the one up front is from the chocolate layer. See how much darker it is?

 Front of my shirt.

Back of shirt. Bottom, which is sorta hard to read says Nov 1, 2012

Fruitful love

Challenge 25 at Linda's and this week it's all about Ink Palette-Perfect Pearls. As always, we are based on the book by Tim Holtz. This week our sponsor is Simon Says and they are offering a $25 gift certificate to one lucky player. You can find the challenge on page 53 of Compendium of Curiosities.

I bought myself a couple of Tim's Classic Favorite's stamp sets when I was at Whim So Doodle earlier this week for the Dyan classes, so I HAD to get some ink on them!  

Caged Bird

This caged bird is fixing to break free! Tim has another wonderful post for the 12 Tags of 2012. This one uses his new Distress Stickles DRY Glitter. Yes, Dry! So you can use your alcohol inks and dye it any color you want. It's got small, medium and large pieces of glitter so you get a beautiful effect with whatever you put it on.

I decided that my bird was going to be breaking free from the bonds of it's cage, so it's head, wing and tail have already emerged from the cage and soon it will be free to soar to new heights.

Which is something I'm getting ready to do soon. After 8 years of being home with a few medical setbacks and then the tanked economy, I was recently hired at a new Whole Foods that will be opening on Nov 1 in north Tampa. I will be the melon bar/salad girl. I have orientation next week and hopefully then will find out what my schedule will be for the next few weeks. I'm excited to be rejoining the workforce and Whole Foods looks to be a very forward-thinking corporation. I am looking very forward to spreading my wings and soaring along with my bird.

Dylusions at the Doodle-Day Two

What an inky good day it was! We all started with exactly the same class kit and every one ended up so vastly different! This is gonna be another heavy picture post, so lets just get started!

 Dyan's going thru her book, showing us the different things we will be doing.

 Class kit. Before any ink or paint has been applied.

 Somebody's got inky flingers! And they only get worse! A true Badge of Honor for me! Most of what was on my hands came off when I washed my hair last night. But the stuff under my nails and around my cuticles will be there for a while.

 Painting and inking in process. Spread out so it will dry.

 Tags used to "mop up" the paints and inks on my Kraft Sheet. Nothing goes to waste in Dyan's classes!

 Faux Alcohol Ink technique using Dyan's Spray Inks and Glossy Cardstock.

 Oh yeah, it was inky!! I'm not skeered!

  Ranger apron I won in one of the prize giveaways. Woo hoo!!

 My first finished page. At least I think it's done!

 Front and back covers. It's hard to tell, but the cover is sprayed with Perfect Pearls Mist for a sparkly shine.

 Ink sprayed page with ghosting technique thru a stencil. The tag folds up.

 Paint Dabber technique.

 Faux Alcohol Ink technique.

 Another Spray Ink with ghosting technique thru a stencil.

Kraft Resist cardstock used as a mop up page cleaning inks off my Kraft Sheet. I wasn't real happy with it at first because it didn't completely cover all the brown cardstock. But it's grown on me and I really love it!

All of the pages will have tags and other ephemera on them. There will be lots of space to journal or just leave it blank. Whatever suits my fancy!

Dyan is coming back to teach again at the Doodle. And I will be there!