More Cards for OWH

On my last post I had a link to the  Operation Write Home blog hop this week. You can still join it here. You can post comments through July 7th and still be entered into the drawings. It's been a while since I sent any cards to OWH and the blog hop inspired me to get busy. Here are 2 more cards I designed to send into Operation Write home to send to our troops.

OWH Midweek Throw Down

The first card I made is for the OWH Midweek Throw Down. The theme is Anniversary cards. After searching through all my stamps I found I did not have ANY Anniversary sentiments so I printed a sentiment on velum using a pretty script. By setting my word document to 4 columns and using some column breaks, I worked it out where I could print the sentiment 6 times on one sheet of vellum with the spacing I needed. Once cut into strips, I trimmed the left side with Fiskars Threading Water border punch and cut a dove tail in the right hand side.

The card base is Bazzill Bling cardstock in one of their lovely pinks. I inked up one side of a Tim Holtz texture fade folder with Close To My Heart White Daisy Ink pad. I really like the contrast of the dull white ink on this shimmery paper. The textured Bazzill weave really shows up. I heat set the ink with my heat tool to help it dry.

The rose stamp is one of my favorite flower stamps. It is a Anna Griffin stamp from the Roses Collection by All Night Media. I colored it with Berol Prisma Color pencils. I punched a scallop oval with a McGill punch and colored with Spun Sugar Distress Stain and placed it behind the pink rose to frame it and separate it from the background.

Stars and Stamps Sketch #01

I made the second card using a OWH Stars and Stamps Sketch and another one of the stamp sets Hero Arts designed for OWH. This one is called "All The Time" CL584.  This set has 2 different clock faces, two watch hands and 7 sentiments. I used Distress Inks to stamp the clocks in the background. Some are seasonal colors: Squeezed Lemons, Picked Raspberries and Salty Ocean. I also used Dried Marigold. These colors really go well with the bright pattern paper which is from my paper scraps. I used a water brush and Tumbled Glass Distress Marker to add a little blue wash to the big clock face. The sentiment is embossed with Zing White embossing powder on red cardstock. I only made 2 of these cards because that is all of this pattern paper I have. I think I may go through my scraps and look and see if I have any other papers in these colors. I really like the bright cheerful look. OWH accepts up to 30 multiples of each design. You can find out more about the 3 sets and how they help OWH here. 

Since I used Hero Arts stamps on this one I will also upload this one to the Hero Arts Flickr group as well.

Happy 4th

Happy 4th of July!

Operation Write Home is having a blog hop this week and you can join it here. They have joined forces with Operation Skriv Hjem their sister organization in Denmark. Alternating between the two countries you will see a beautiful selection of Red, White and Blue from OWH and Red and White cards from OSH.

To show my support for the bog hop and spread the word I have made my own Red, White and Blue card to send to OWH for our troops. I have been working on a batch to send in and hope to get it mailed by the end of the week. Once OWH receives them they will add them to the box filled with handmade cards from other card makers and send them to our troops so they card use them to write home to their friends and family. OSH does the same for Danish troops. The OSH blog are bilingual for the hop so you can read right along. I hope you join the hop!

For my card I used some of my favorite products. From Tim Holtz I used the Rays and Retro Circles Texture Fades embossing folder, Styled Labels Alterations dye and Red Barn and Blue Jean Distress Markers and Tumbled Glass and Bundled Sage Distress Stains, from Ranger Archival Jet Black ink and from Hero Arts one of the stamp sets designed especially for Operation Write Home. This one is called Right at Home and you can find out more about the 3 sets and how they help OWH here.

Hope you have a wonderful and safe 4th of July!

Tissue Flower Challenge from Studio L3

Tim Holtz idea-ology Tissue Wrap Flower

Well I thought I might miss the deadline for this week's challenge at Studio L3 but lucky for me the challenge has been extended for another week. Linda Ledbetter is the hostess. She always creates a great piece to inspire us. There are other 48 entries so far, so if you want to see more Tim Holtz inspired artwork check out her blog at http://studiol3.blogspot.com

The sponsor for this week is The Funkie Junkie Boutique (http://www.zibbet.com/TheFunkieJunkie).  

For the challenge I followed Tim Holtz's instructions on page 37 of "A Compendium of Curiosities Volume II" and made a tissue flower. Of course I wanted to use it as an embellishment for a tag so I could also use my new summer seasonal distress inks. These flowers are super easy to make and I love working with Tim's idea-ology Tissue Wrap. It is sheer and silky and so durable.

I used distress ink and perfect pearl spray on the tissue flower and tag. The butterflies are embossed with Distress Embossing Powder which works as a resist to the Distress inks. I used alcohol ink on the idea-ology wing. The black ink is Archival Jet Black.



I have both "A Compendium of Curiosities Volume I and Volume II". These books are a great reference for Tim's products. Great information on what they are and what they do. Both volumes have a great technique section with step by step photos, a great Gallery of Ideas and the final page is a list of suppliers. With beautiful photos and gorgeous design I find these volumes to be compendiums of inspiration.

Compendium of Curiosities 2 Challenge

My Curiosity Pocket Watch

Linda Ledbetter's Compendium of Curiosities 2, Challenge 9  is to check out Tim Holtz's A Compendium of Curiosities, Vol II on page 35 and then use his instructions on how to embellish the pocket watch and make your own little masterpiece.

Linda has been hosting a new challenge each Friday since Tim's Creative Chemistry Class ended. This is the first one I have made time to participate in and I did have fun working with Tim's Pocket Watch. Of course I love working with all of Tim's products. I even used his ball chain for the butterfly's body.


This weeks challenge was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp

So if you'd like to give this a try check out Tim's book. You can also check out Linda's site to see the other submissions and Tim even has a video on the video page of his blog.


Thanks for stopping by.

I've Graduated and I can post!

Yea! My internet is finally back up and running. Now I can finally post my tags from the Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 Online Card Class I took. Yes, I completed all 25 tags in time to upload them by the April 9th deadline and my modem crashes. It is a long story I won't go into but now I have a brand new modem and my high speed internet connection back! Yea!


Day 1 was Discovery and Understanding. Great information on the understanding the properties of inks and paints. The actual tag techniques started on Day 2. So here are my tags and if you want to see how it's done consider taking the "Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101". You can check it out here, and check out the other classes offered by Online Card Classes here.

Graduated - All 25 Technique Tags!

Day 2 - Distress Ink Intro

Day 3 - Archival Ink Uses

Day 4 - Re-inkers and Maintenance

Day 5 - Spray Inks and Stains

Day 6 - Distress Markers

Day 7 - Embossing Basics

Day 8 - Paint Primer

Day 9 - Perfect Pearl

Day- 10 - Dimensional Mediums

I've Graduated!

Yes! I've completed my 25 Tags for the Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry online class from OnlineClassrooms.com! It has been an amazing journey and quite a challenge for me. I have all the tags posted here but if you want to learn amazing techniques you should sign up for the class. It is probably the closest I will ever come to taking one of Tim's live classes. One thing I was not expecting was a final pdf file with 30 gorgeous cards created by some pretty amazing artists using the techniques we learned in class. Now I have more inspiration than I know what to do with.

unfortunatly, half way through writing this post, my internet went down. I have been trying to finish this post on my phone without success. I will have to add the photos tomorrow from some public wifi.

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Creative Chemistry 101-It's never too late.

If you want to learn more about Tim Holtz or his products and techniques there are a few things you can do. You can visit his blog, you can buy a copy of his book or take one of his classes. Now you can even sign up for his online class "Creative Chemistry 101"

I signed up and have enjoyed every minute. You can work at your own pace and you learn so much about how these amazing products work.  Great videos and print outs. I have watched all the videos and started working on the tags.

I've only completed 6 of the 25 so far but when I finish I will have a great swatch book filled with wonderful techniques. You can even print out labels to attach to the back of your tags that Tell what the technique is and how to achieve it. These are the first 3 from day 2. "Blended Spritz and Flick", "Brushless Watercolor" and "Wrinkle Free Distress". One thing I really like about this class is that whether you are a beginner to the world of distress or have been learning from Tim for a while (like me) you are going to learn something each day.

Even though the last lesson for the class was Friday and the final post with more examples was yesterday you can still sign up for the class and work at your own pace. Once you sign up you have a lifetime membership and can access the site at any time to review info or watch the videos.

You'll be seeing some more tags from between now and April 9th because that's how long I can post them to the class gallery. Fun! Fun! Fun!