Trying my hand at Tags

I have the hardest time making "artsy" pieces. I always end up quitting because I can't get the look I see on other peoples blogs. Well, no more!

I have decided that instead of trying to be someone else or having my "art" like someone's. I am just going to be me. Boring creations and all :o)

I will never learn to create if I'm constantly quitting. As they say, practice makes perfect! And Art should be enjoyable.

There are 2 craft websites I look at almost everyday but...I have never participated. They are..

1) Studio L3 - Grungy Monday Challenges and Balzar Designs

My new goal....Instead of looking and ohhhing and awwwing..I'm going to DO IT!

Grungy Monday - This weekly challenge blog focuses on the products and techniques of Tim Holz. There are so many creative people entering these challenges that I can look and ohhh and awww for hours!

The Grungy Monday Challenge this week is Grungy Monday 18

The challenge is to use the Tim Holtz Technique in his 12 Tags of Christmas 2009, Day 8

Here is my tag using the technique of turning vellum into parchment paper.




The tag background was cut from Pink Paislee's Nature Sanctuary paper called Butterfly Garden.

I used a vintage pocket book stamp from Anna Griffin and a text stamp from Tattered Angels for the parchment and inked it with Tim Holtz's Distress Ink.

The bird is a Tattered Angel Glimmer Chip I sprayed with Tattered Angels Coffee Shop Glimmer Mist.

I made the hat pin using a clear hat pin and inking it with a Copic Marker. The pearl came from my stash of old jewlery.

The chain is from Prima.

The 37 cents I cut from my Silhouette, inked it with Distress Ink, and used Rangers Utee several times to give it a glossy finish. I love playing with Utee!

The hole reinforcer is of course Tim Holtz! :o)

Balzer Designs - Julie Fei-Fan Balzer writes a journaling blog called Art Journal Everyday. She asks that you spend 10 minutes everyday journaling. This is a year long project but anyone can start it at anytime.
It can be painting, drawing, writing, lists, etc...She gives such wonderful examples and her blog is loaded with ideas and YouTube tutorials!

I do not have anything to show for this yet because I'm waiting for my gesso to arrive so I can prep my very first journal! I plan to spend 10 minutes everyday and I'll post this even if it's dog gone ugly! :o)

Stayed tuned for my "Artsy Experiments"!

Flying Unicorn Aug. Die Cut Challenge

Flying Unicorn has monthly challenges ranging from stamping, mixed media, cards, layouts, etc...They have great prizes and best of all they draw random winners. I love the fact that everyone has a chance to win!

One of the August Challenges at Flying Unicorn is to use at least 3 die cuts and alter at least one of those. I have been planning on using the gears die cut on my silhouette for a layout of my grandson. This die cut went perfectly with the Bo Bunny Grease Monkey collection I have in my scrapbooking stash. As everyone knows, I adore Bo Bunny. I have a whole cabinet filled with nothing but Bo Bunny!


I babysit my grandchildren during the time we were planting grass. We had a huge pile of top soil in our driveway. What boy doesn't love to play in dirt. So I have the boys some bowls, the water hose and just let them have at that huge pile of dirt.
My layout is using one of the pictures I took. How cute!



I altered 6 die cuts..










I cut the gear die cuts out using my Silhouette SD. I used Copic markers, Tim Hotz Distress ink and Tim Holtz Adirondac Ink to color the die cut gears.

I then embossed them several times using Utee Ultra Thick Melt Art Embossing Enamel. The first coat will give you a rough look. Such as this....






If you emboss it several times it will give you a a smooth glossy finish like this one...





I love playing with Utee! If you haven't tried this technique..be careful and do not touch it on the second and third coats until it dries..it's super hot!

After the die cuts were cooled and dried I added a few watch parts to the gears to give my altered die cuts a little more interest and texture.

Swirlydoos - Swirlygirls challenge - Match your style

For this Swirlydoo's challenge we were to take a photo of something in our home and use that photo as an inspiration for a layout.

Here is the photo I used:



As most of you know we purchased a house last year for cash. We have been slowly redoing it pay check by pay check because we do not want to get a loan and end up owing money for the house.
Hubby thinks is so funny that this lamp is my most prized purchase. He laughs that it's not the hardwood floors we saved for 6 months for, not the fountain outside that I begged for weeks for, not even the paint in the kitchen that I took back 3 times and then finally ended up mixing myself because I couldn't get the color I wanted from the store.
Nope, it was this little lamp!
I smile everytime I see it lit up.
See, we had a list a mile long for the electrican to repair, important things like the dryer outlet, ( I hung clothes out on the line for 9 month!) yep, even in the winter..that sucked! lol
anyway, we had a list that was long and the outlet for a pendant lamp over that sink was at the bottom of the list. Hubby made sure that it was worked into the estimate as a suprise for me. He called me and told me to go and pick out what I wanted. I was so touched! He is the sweetest! So everytime I turn on this lamp to do the dishes, I think of how pretty it is and how sweet he is...

I tried to mimic the stained glass effect using the chicken wire from Dusty Attic that Jen convinced me I needed.. I did need it!
I glued a piece of plastic to the chicken wire and then colored that plastic with copic markers that matched the colors in my lamp, I then poured glossy accents on top and let it dry. It really looks like stained glass! so so cool!!




Everything in the LO (excep the twig)either came from Swirlydoos kits, made with things from the kits and/or Swirlydoos store. I know you guys are probably getting tired of my raves about Swirlydoos but girls...this kit club rocks!

Once Upon A Springtime Altered Canvas

My craft room walls are so bare. I finally have everything organized and now I need to start working on art for the walls.
Hubby is supposed to hang the TV on the wall for me. Which I may add hasn't been done yet! I decided to create an Altered Canvas to go on another wall.

I used Graphic 45's Once Upon A Springtime because it has the same colors as my craft room and I just love this line! The colors aren't showing as good as they should. It's been cloudy and gloomy here for the last 4 days!



The small Butterflies are from Maya Road. I misted them with Sunkissed Peach Glimmer Mist and Sunflower Sparkle Perfect Pearls Mist. Then I added a little bit of copper glitter glue to the edges.



For the leaves, I cut them out on the Silhouette. Then I outlined them with a Copic Marker, added some veins on the inside with a watercolor pencil and used a little of Ranger's Crackle Accents on the top.

Swirlydoos - February Round Robin Challenge

I decided to play in the Feb. Round Robin Challenge at Swirlydoos. The kit this month is "Things Remembered" and it's so beautiful! I don't know how Krissy does it but her kits are to die! She has a knack of picking things out that coordinate beautifully and always has the latest "must have" trends!

John's mother died last year and I thought this was the perfect papers and embellies to do a page of her. You always here horror stories of Mother-in-laws but this woman was like no other. She was the sweetest woman I've ever known. I do not believe I've ever heard her say a bad word about anyone. I loved her dearly.

The Round Robin Challenge is a 4 tiered scraplift. One person makes a scrapbook page, then the other person scraplifts it, then the next scraplifts that last person and so on.

Here was my take:



I hand made the flowers using paper from the kit and the brown ones were made from the add on cardstock from the kit. You can find the instructions for these flowers Here (in the tutorial section at Swirlydoos).
I added a little Diamond Dust to make them sparkley :o). The centers were brads from the previous Swirlydoo kit "Retro Tapestry).



The Dusty Attic chipboard was a part of the Feb. Things Remembered Swirlydoo kit. I misted it with Tattered Angels "Sunkissed Peach" glimmer mist which also came with the kit and also some Tattered Angels "Robins Egg" Glimmer mist I had on hand. I also toped that off with a coat of Glossy Accents by Ranger. The dots I made with Liquid Pearls "Ocean Mist" which came with the Jan. Retro Tapestry Swirlydoos Kit and then I added a metal charm and a dot of "Bisque" Liquid Pearls I had in my stash.



The bird was a stamp I bought from Basic Grey, I stamped it on some chipboard and cut it out. I used the same glimmer mists that I used on the key and then I smeared a little of the Ocean Blue Liquid Pears on top of that. The feathers behind the bird came from the Feb. Swirlydoos kit also!




My Swirlydoos March kit is on it's way and I can't wait to see the goodies that are in this one! Stay tuned!

U and I - First Layout using Swirlydoos to die for Jan Kit!

I have joined kit clubs in the past and was disappointed every single time. You'd always get pieces of this and pieces of that and the quality of the items were terrible!I swore off ever joining one again and haven't for years. That is until I saw Swirlydoos kits on another blogger's site.
I went to the Swirlydoos site and looked at past kits and was just wow'd over at how beautiful they were. So..being the lover of beautiful things I decided to give a kit club one more chance and joined Swirlydoos.
I was still a little skeptical until the mail lady dropped my Jan kit off at my door.
Talk about stunned! The kit was drop dead gorgeous! These kits are not the regular...waste of my money kits! There was not one thing in the kit that I did not love! Full 12x12 beautiful papers, to die for embellishments (hat pins, awesome red flowers, journaling tags, beautiful chipboard, even liquid pearls)! Every thing in the kit coordinated together beautifully! You get enough items to create several layouts and still have some left!

Here is a picture of the Jan kit.


I do believe this is the best money I have ever spent on my crafts and I see myself being a member for a very long time!
They even have a forum where you can talk to the other members. I have spent hours there looking at tutorials, you really should check out the tutorials on making your own flowers! AMAZING!!! I can spend hours on end looking at the talented work of the other members, and they share their knowledge freely, telling everyone some new trick or technique they've tried. I could be wrong but I do not think you have to be a member of the kit club to be in the forum.
So here is my first layout using some of the Jan Swirlydoo Kit.



The only items that were not in the kit were the flowers, butterflies and the swirl. I am saving the beautiful red flowers for a layout of me and my sweet hubby! he he he

The flowers are prima, I added some of the fiber in the Swirlydoos kit and added a dew drop.


The little butterflies I made myself (cut out on my silhouette, added glitter, and a few jewels).


The butterfly on the left I printed from a whole sheet of butterflies submitted on the swirlydoos forum by Lisa. Oh my goodness, she has pages and pages of the most beautiful butterflies! Even birds! All for free, just print and cut! I just printed it, cut it out, added a little glitter and of course a few jewels.



Now, I'm off to create another page using my kit!

I won the Bo Bunny Lottery!

During Christmas, Scrapbook and Cards Today blog was having a give a way every day for 10 days. I entered day 4. Bo Bunny's! I'm sure your not surprised because you guys know how I adore Bo Bunny! he he
Well I won..yep!
So I was thinking this morning that it should be about time to receive my prize, then I was thinking.. well.. they are probably getting ready for the huge scrapbooking convention..
UPS pulls up and wow it came today! Talk about esp!
Anyway, so I open the box and ohhhhhhhhhh my goodness!
This is what they sent!

ok I'm squealing right?? well that wasn't all..
They sent me a leather purse also! B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L!!!

We are fashioned by what we love - Webster's Pages Hollywood Vouge

I just received my order of the Webster's Pages Hollywood Voque set. Oh talk about beautiful papers!
I'm trying to go from my simple scrapbooking style to a Vintage style. With Webster's Pages amazing papers and embellishments it was a breeze!



Here is a close up of the darling silhouette I just had to dress up :o)

Scrapbook Stamping with Nichol Magouirk

My New Years Resolution is to scrap all the pictures I have saved from 2009 and 2010 for scrapping..yes, I know bad huh?

At 2 Peas in a Bucket they are hosting a free scrapbooking class by Nichol Magouirk for 2011~ Yes, you read that right I said free!! The class is called Scrapbook Stamping with Nichol Magouirk. What a great way to jump start my creativity!

She is posting monthly lessons for the entire year! You can even print out a pdf of each lesson which includes a sketch, tips and techniques along with a monthly challenge.

I have been scrapbooking for years! But the first lesson I learned something I didn't know....be sure to check out her class!

January's Lesson features simple stamping: adding words - phrases to journaling blocks, title or sub-titles.

The challenge this month was to to add stamping in the form of a stamped title, sub-title, text stamped border, etc on a layout.

Here is my creation:




I created the title using the Letter Stamp Kit by Words & Crafts and the sub-title with Close to my Heart clear stamps - "So Sweet"

The scanner kept mis-alinging when I tried to stitch so the left is cropped off a little more than it should be!

One layout down....only 72 more to go! :o)

Bo Bunny's Card Challenge Tuesday

I have been absent a long time. We bought a new home, a complete "do it yourself-er...and believe me...we've been doing it our selves! Oh, the stories I could tell!

Now, I finally have my scrap room painted, cushions and pillows completed, new floor down, and I'm almost finished organizing!

Need I say Love it?! So back to crafting it is! Oh yeah!

My first card of the year is for the Bo Bunny Card Challenge Tuesday at Bo Bunny's Blog. Everyone knows how much I adore the Bo Bunny lines!

This challenge was to use the sketch below.



I am starting on my Valentine cards so I decided to use the Bo Bunny Crazy Love line that I just purchased and have been dying to play with!

I made this for my husband who I can honestly say is still my very best friend! It is a little dark because we haven't seen the sunshine in 2 days..I'm so ready for spring!




Card Details:

Designer Paper:
Bo Bunny - Crazy Love Stripe and Crazy Love Kisses

Cardstock:
Bo Bunny - Blush Dot
Bazzill Basics - Candy Apple

Embellishments:
Bo Bunny - Crazy Love Jewels, Crazy Love Brads, Glitter Crazy Love Dimensional Stickers

The key hole I cut out using my silhouette and decorated with some old ribbon and crazy love jewels. The key was from my stash and I don't remember the manufacturer.

Stamp: Bo Bunny Crazy Love Stamp