There is a Contest going on thru the 25th over on the Ranger blog. And of course I had to try my hand at it! The challenge is to use Ranger products in Valentines Day colors. And while my tags aren't Valentines, I do have a couple of co-workers having birthdays this month so I used the colors and opportunity to make a birthday tag for each of them.
I started with Tim's new Distress Paints in Fired Brick and Spun Sugar on the tag and misted pretty heavily with water to get the paints to move around. Then I dried the tags and used one of Dina's stencils with Picket Fence Distress Paint and one of Dyan's stencils with Barn Door Distress Stain. Added a bit of black to the tag with a spray ink top smooshed into some of Dyan's Black Marble Spray Ink. I then used one of Tim's new Mini Blueprint Stamps on watercolor paper and used my Distress Markers to color everything but the flame and that is Stickles for that bit of bling! I used Fired Brick and Black Soot Distress Paints to paint the numbers with and left a bit of the silver showing on each. The 17 and 26 are the dates of the two girls birthdays. I used Tim's idea for using a piece of Tissue Tape folded in half and crumpled to make my "ribbon" with.
Tim is using a bunch of new products from CHA on his gorgeous February tag. Stuff I don't have. Yet! So never one to let that stop me, I used what I did have. The heart is from a now retired CTMH set called Love Language. I did use Distress Markers to color in some areas on the stamp to make them pop out a bit. I used my new Distress Paints in Fired Brick, Spun Sugar and Black Soot to color my tag with. And can I just say how much I love the fluidity of these paints. Oh My but they blend and spread so well!! And unlike Distress Stains and Inks, once you heat dry the layers, they will no longer re-wet when you add additional layers and/or water. I also love how they color the wrinkle ribbon. I used some Bakers Twine I had and ran my blending tool with Vintage Photo Distress Ink over it to give it an aged look. And since I didn't have any of the cash keys, I used a bottle top instead. Sorry about the glare. Inside the bottle cap says I Love You.
This was our CTMH January special. I wasn't going to order it, but decided what the heck and I'm glad I did! Dang but it's cute! I filled the tubes with M&M's and will be sharing them next week with friends at Whole Foods Market.
I had the pleasure of taking a Dina Wakely class last week at Whim So Doodle in St Pete. If you've never taken a class with Dina and ever get the chance, I highly recommend you do. Not only is Dina a great lady, but she's also a "no rules" sort too, which makes her A-OK in my book!! Also joining me was my new "craft class" buddy Donna Gibson and we got deliciously inky and painty together.
We made an interactive art journal-y piece that I finally got finished up yesterday. I find it quite amazing that some of my layers of paint from class over a week ago are still sticky. Hoping that as the acrylic cures that the sticky-tackiness goes away. The lady on the front is my first foray into Dina's "magic pencil" as she calls it. It's pretty cool in that it goes on like a pencil, but once you wet it, it turns into more like ink. The trick is not to wet all the lines but to leave some of them still looking like pencil. As we were finishing up for the night, Dina was telling us to make one something that would be the "flow" between all of our pages. She like circles. And she spotted a piece of art on the wall that had birds on it. And she said, "Take this picture. You think you can't draw but I bet all of you think this bird is cute. You can draw this bird. Just try it." So I did! He is the bird at the bottom right hand corner of the third picture. The little yellow one. So the birds are my "flow" from page to page. I came home and drew three different size birds. I cut them out and used them as a template and cut about a gozillion out of old book pages and a page that we also created in class with acrylic paint, spray inks and stencils. I used the magic pencil around them as well. There are also a few bird quotes on the pages. Dina uses a big loopy script on her art that you can kinda make out a word here and there, but not every word is meant to be read. So I tried to follow that lead and mine aren't necessarily going in the "right" direction, but that's the way I wanted it to be. Oh, and the orange piece on the second page? That spins and has four different stamped images around the circle.
Had a great time, Dina. Come back and see us soon!
Yes, I'm still here! Had a bout of the plague-y crud that's been going around and had some back/right hip issues for a while, but thankfully both are better now. Work is keeping me busy (and out of trouble!) but I am loving being back in the work force.
It's almost time for the Spring/Summer 2013 Close To My Heart Idea Book launch to customers. Feb 1 is the big day! Once again, I am participating in Upline Susan's swap and I have two paper packs to share with you. First up is Buzz & Bumble. I love the browns and yellows in this pack. The bee is from the stamp set that comes in the Buzz & Bumble Workshops On The Go paper pack and the "honeycomb" hexagons are from the Honeycomb Flair stamp set. The bee hive reminds me of the old wax stamp impressions that we "useta" use on letters that we would write and mail. There are 4 different impressions in the Buzz & Bumble Assortment and also 4 flowers and 4 little bees.
And second we have Surf's Up. This one is bright and summery with blues and greens and yellows. The Pinwheel is part of the Surf's Up Assortment and there are 2 pinwheels, 2 rosettes and 4 buttons with designs stamped on them in this collection.
So glad to know Tim is going to continue his tag a month for 2013. I look forward to doing them each month and seeing what others have created as well.
I normally go way off course from Tim's sample, but I had seen this quote the other day and knew that I would be using it for something in the upcoming future. So what better "time" to use it than on this very tag and stay pretty close to his interpretation?!
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!
