I Miss Trixie

Trixie

I miss Trixie. Trixie was very loving. She was really very smart, but if she didn't want to do something she acted like she didn't understand you, or didn't hear you or even completely ignore you. My daughter said she acted more like a cat than a dog. She was best buds with Betsy who we lost a year ago. Trixie and Betsy would take turns sitting beside me on the couch at night while I read or watched TV. We loved Trixie for 15 years. She passed away last Wednesday night as I comforted her.

My daughter wrote a wonderful memorandum for her. You can read Valerie's post here.

OWH Scketch Challenge 104

Sketch 104 along with inside of card

I was inspired by this week's Challenge sketch for OWH  Their mid week throw down was a color challenge to make a black and white card with a splash of color. I decided to combine the two. I've used another one of the OWH set by Hero Arts. CL583 "Right at Home". It's a sweet set with great sentiments, a house, a kite, a cloud and even a little picket fence along with a couple of little hearts. I also used one of the little outline hearts from CL 582 "Year Round Sentiments".

The black and white pattern paper was from the KI Memories value pack I used on last week's cards.

First I colored in the hearts with my red Zig Millennium pen and then I used glossy accents to add shine and dimension to them. On the inside of the card I also stamped another image in the lower left corner. The "You are my Home" adds a nice touch when you open the card. The little heart in the center of the O is part of the stamp. I stamped the image once in black and then once separately just coloring the heart with the red pen and then cut it out and glued it in place.

Now that my card is complete I'll upload a picture to the challenge page. A new sketch is posted each Sunday. Here is a copy of sketch 104. Here's the link to the sketch. If you are really up for a challenge they have a pdf file you can download that has their first 100 sketches. They also have a checklist and you can check off when you complete each sketch. Be forewarned that the list has boxes for 160 checkmarks. It's the OWH
 Sketch 
Challenge 
Checklist
 for 
2012. Here's the link to the sketch collection page.

A quick note. If you've been thinking about sending some cards to OWH now would be a great time. I just saw this message from Sandy on the Stars and Stamps blog:

"Through November and December, there was a small drop in cards, which was expected, and totally fine - but usually things start to pick up up more in January when the holidays wear off. Not so this year! I checked just this morning and we're at 9,633 cards as of today...which is a fraction of what normally would be coming in - to compare, last January saw 39,665 cards!"

You can see the whole message here.

More cards for the box to go out on Monday!

I was excited to received my free little Operation Write Home stamp in the mail today. I'll use it to stamp the back of my cards with the OWH logo. Since I don't work tomorrow I plan on making some more cards. Then I'll be heading to the post office on Monday to send off all my cards. Every card sent in helps!

Operation Write Home and Hero Arts

Sketch Challenge 103 for Operation Write Home

OWH Sketch # 103

Here is my entry for Operation Write Home Sketch Challenge # 103. I wanted to make some more cards for Operation Write Home with one of the stamp sets Hero Arts designed for them. I had actually won the stamps during the Veteran's Day blog hop but Hero Arts couldn't send them to me until they were released.  Now that I have them I hope to put them to good use.

When I saw the two stripes on the OWH sketch for this week, I knew I wanted to try the chevron border technique I had seen on Jennifer McGuire's blog a while back. She made a beautiful card with a chevron border running horizontally across the bottom of her card. She also has a video showing how she made it You can check it out here.

I really enjoy working from the sketches at OWH. They are simple and a great way to use your left over scrap paper. The paper you see here is from a KI Memories scrapbook value kit I have had for some time.  To check out the OWH challenge go here.

The Hero Arts Stamp set is CL582 Year Round Sentiments. Not only does it have "I thank my lucky stars for you" it has other great sentiments like "Hello Handsome" and "You're so Special to me" along with some classics such at "Happy Birthday", "I love you", "I miss you", "Thinking of you" and more along with hearts and of course Stars. It is a great set if you are looking for a good year round sentiment set. Guess that's where they got the title from.

In case you didn't know, Hero Arts has been having a blog hop each day this week. Yes, it started on Monday. If you want to see some beautiful card and leave comments for chances to win go here for the first day. Winners will be announced on the Hero Arts blog Monday January 16.

12 Tags! Day 4 and 5

Blustery Winds

Yes! My  Day 4 Snowman Tag and Day 5 Alcohol Ink Acetate Tag are completed and posted! Just Day 6 to go before I can be back working in order and back on track to complete Tim's 12 Tags for 2011.

December 4th it was snowing all day in Arizona where Tim lives and he was "Dreaming of a White Christmas" and it showed on his tag.  I love Tim's snowman tag and tried to follow it as close as possible. I love the look of the music paper with glossy accents showing through where the 25 is cut out from the snowman. The shiny, glossy white with blue tones and cracks is such a wonderful contrast with the aged paper. I can't imagine Christmas without images of snowmen and sounds of Christmas Carols filling the air.

I had learned the rock candy crackle and stains technique when Tim was a guest instructor in Jennifer McGuire's Inspiration Showcase class and I wrote a post about it here. I was so happy to see it used on this tag with the added step of using the white paint dabber first. During Inspiration Showcase, we did not paint the grunge before applying the rock candy. I must say I really love this look. I do not have the snowflake border die so I used the flourish die to cut out acetate. It looks to me like gusty swirls of wind.

Texture!

Acetate and Alcohol Inks

The Acetate Tag proved to be a challenge for me. I use one of the stamps from Tim's Stampers Anonymous Reflections CMS111. This one is a lighter font and while it works great for other techniques the ink dries a little fast in this lighter face and it is not quite bold enough for the full effect when stamping with the Archival Jet Black to remove the Alcohol Ink. I decided to stamp over the text with Tim's harlequin stamp from Creative Textures CMS 004 also from Stampers Anonymous. You can still see the texture of the writing where the alcohol ink was not removed by the second stamp and the added texture of the layers of alcohol ink and the distressed harlequin pattern. Tim backed his acetate tag with a pure white tag but I blended some light layers of distress ink in Evergreen Bough, Shabby Shutters, Antique Paper and Vintage Photo on mine. It gives it a wonderful watercolor effect. The tree is from Tim's Seasonal Grungeboard pack and thouroughly inked with Shabby Shutters then embossed with Peeled Paint Distress embossing powder. The star is from his elements shape grungeboard pack. The German Paper at the bottom is diecut from his new Victorian Lace die. Both are heat embossed with silver empossing powder. the tree trunk is just a little snip of twine ribbon.

Of course Tim Holtz has completed all Twelve Tags and it has been a fantastic 12 days. Every day for the last 12 days I have been following Tim's and Mario's adventures with The 12 Tags of Christmas and Behind The Scenes. Even with all kinds of internet problems they both worked diligently to make sure they shared with us the joys of inking, stamping, exploring, creating, sharing and giving and the posting of The 12 Tags of Christmas. They are amazing.

12 Tags! Day 7

Alcohol Ink Glassine and Ghost Stamping

You may be asking "Where are 4, 5 and 6?" If you are, I admit they are not done yet. I am working on several of the tags but wanted to finish this one today because it is nearing the deadline for Grungy Monday 29. Yes, It's back! Linda has been faithfully completing all the tags in order and hers are beautiful. I on the other hand, have gotten behind. I had planned on completing several tags today but decided to concentrate on finishing my favorite Tim Tag to post for the challenge. This is it. I love these techniques. It has distress ink , alcohol inks, grungeboard, ghost stamping and embossing. I don't know which technique I like best, the alcohol inks on glassine or the ghost stamping. I have never heard of this technique before and loved the effect. Check out the techniques here on Tim's blog day 7. Check out Grungy Monday 29 here.

One more reason I enjoyed working on this tag today is that my daughter Valerie was home and she was my consultant while I was working on the tag. Valerie also enjoys scrapbooking and cardmaking. She helped me me with placement on a few items. When I decided that my leaves were just too big she helped me by scrunching them up for me and she also came up with the branch idea when I couldn't get the two muse tokens to hang where I wanted them too. And she always gives me plenty of encouragement.  Thanks Valerie!

Tim's 12 Tags Blinkie!

I'm so excited because now there is a blinkie you can add a to your blog to let everyone know you are participating in 12 tags! OK, I am getting a little behind but I am participating. I will be getting together with some friends on Thursday at my local Archiver's to work on Tim's 12 tags. We will be pooling our supplies to see if we might have a more complete selection to work with and having fun creating our versions of Tim's 12 tags. I know Carolyn has the Snowman die which is what I need for my next tag. I have the Mini Reindeer and 25 and the Tag and Bookplates die and the Alcohol Inks and packaging for the next tag. Mary Jane has ALL the distress inks (except the Fall Seasonal but I think she's working on that). You know the "Whole is greater than the sum of its parts" type thing. So right now I am gathering up my supplies, cutting  pieces and getting ready for Thursday while daily checking out Tim's 12 tags.

Tim is giving us until December 31st to post our tags and Linda Ledbetter at StudioL3 is giving us until December 11th to participate in Grungy Monday 29 and post our favorite tag from this years tags. So given my deadlines I am not behind at all. I'm just pacing myself.

Thanks for stopping bye.

12 Tags! Day 3

Really Different

Sometimes it's best not to have ALL of Tim's great products. Really? No, but if I can't have them all at least I am learning from the experience. It does help that I have been following 12 Tags since they started in 2007 and that I do have a lot of Tim's Stuff.

I love the Tag Tim created for day 3. Not having everything and wanting to follow his tag as closely as I could had me rumbling through my stash and coming up with some new ideas, drawing on things I have learned from Tim and a few other sources and mixing them all up and coming up with what you see here.

I did have the embossing folder Tim used but not the stamp. I did have some  Cut-n-Dry Stamp Pad Felt and reinkers but not the colors he used. I did have the alcohol inks and clear gem stones and pearls but not the Festive Greenery Sizzix die.

German Paper from Tim

What I did have was a mini stamp version of the stamp he used in year 1 when he created a tag on Day 4 using this technique and some german paper I won from him that year.

I inked my embossing folder on the side that had the recessed images with Iced Spruce and embossed my tag. This gave me the embossed image with the background inked.  Then I cleaned off the folder an inked it with Evergreen Bough turning a second  tag in the direction Tim used when stamping to get the bottom section of the tag. I pieced the two together and added the German Paper to cover the seam. Now I had my Tim inspired but different background for my tag.

Inspired from 2007

I decided for the Cut-n-Dry technique to use a stamp from Mini Holidays CMS 066 that was the mini version of the stamp that Tim used the first year when using this technique on Day 4. I didn't have the same color reinkers he used that year but I think the colors I had to choose from go well with the Iced Spruce and Evergreen Bough. Since I had my Cut-n-Dry custom ink pad, I was able to stamp the image several times and layer them just like Tim did way back in 2007.

Just a snip between waves and wavy twine

The silver bells I used were really old and a little brassy looking. I quickly transformed them to a beautiful silver using the Silver Mixative Alcohol Ink. The pine sprig is from the pinecone die and the holly leaves are hand cut. The twine was ribbon. The heat tool made it curly but it was too bulky for the tag so I clipped the stitching between the waves and pulled it loose. I liked the effect.