Winter Freeze?

Winter weather in Georgia is usually mild. However occasionally we have weather that makes the news 24/7. The weather has been the breaking news in Georgia yesterday, today and probably will be tomorrow too. 1 to 3 inches hit the metro area at mid day. Not that it wasn't expected, but the impact it made caught many by surprise. Expressways were quickly jammed, with some people unable to make it home at all. School closings varied by county. Where some were closed all day or closed early, some did not close at all. Some parents flooded the schools when they found out their school was staying open. In some areas, school buses could not complete their routes, becoming stranded or returning to the schools. Some parents had trouble finding out where their children were and some children did not make it home until today, staying in schools overnight. Governor Dale declared a State Emergency and everyone is urged to stay off the roads. Me and my family were fortunate enough to make it home before things got bad.

What that really means to me now, is I've watched the news much more than I usually do and I finally spent some time in my studio with my Distress Inks, Grungeboard, Big Shot and Tim's blog post for the January 12 tags of 2014. This is a really good thing because I decided this is going to be the year I was going to finally create a tag for each month and I was quickly running out of time. Once I got started I had a wonderful time.

Tim used his Pocket Watch die with a Circle movers and shapers to create a really amazing multi-medium focal point for his tag along with several other great techniques that I did not include in my tag. He does a fantastic job with step by step photos so generally I just post a picture of my tag and tell what I did different. You should check out his tag here. Like everyone else, I usually don't have the everything Tim has, so a few things had to be substituted.

You may wonder why my January tag has big red, white and blue letters that say DAR. My tag is a gift to my daughter Valerie. She is in the process of being accepted as a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her lineage is through her Dad's side of the family. Her 6x great-grandfather, Private John Cash of the Virginia Militia. (Yes, the same 3-x great grandfather of my hero, Johnny Cash.)

The DAR letters are from a Grungeboard alphabet pack, the tag at the bottom is die-cut from the larger of Tim's mover and shaper tags but I folded it in half to give Valerie a hidden journaling spot. I used the larger hole punch on the crop-a-dile to punch the holes on the cover of the tag where the brads are. They are the same diameter of the Tim's small brads and work like fasteners. "Journal Explore Life" and the small words are from the same Remnant Rubs, WORDS. For the background I used the STARS stencil blending with Shaded Lilac. I had used Brush Pewter Distress Stain for the background color, loved the shimmer.

Thanks for stopping by, and stay warm!

Another Month Another Tag

I can really relate to this quote and wanted to use it for my tag, inspired by Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2013 - August.

This month Tim Holtz created his August tag using masks. Now Tim has mask designs and he has sheets for making masks. This month he used the Masking Sheets to create masks for the stamps he was using on his project. He made 3 beautifully nostalgic travel tags and you can check them out here. Tim gives lots of detailed instructions, well written with photos each step of the way and for the most part most of the techniques I used to start my tag were from this post so I'll only be writing here on the additional supplies I used.

I selected stamps from a variety of Tim's sets to illustrate the quote. While the clocks were a fairly obvious choice the Mona Lisa was selected simply because it is the first time I used her. I love the way she is peeking over the quote. By masking the clocks, they remain lighter than the background and although they were stamped first the other stamped images appear to be behind them. I used a VersaMark pen and Fired Brick Distress Embossing Powder for the hands on the larger clock which added just enough pop to help it stand out. I enjoyed layering all of the different stamps for texture without worrying if the whole image would be visible. While not obvious,  I can see them and know they are there. The idea-ology flowers and leaves were altered by running them through my BigShot with Tim's embossing folders and then painted with Distress Paints. Fun, Fun, Fun!

As you can see, the quote was just a little too long for the width of the tag so I stamped it a few times in different colors and cut some of the words and inked the edges. I hung "when" off the edge of the tag to start the quote. I also used this technique for "first" then added some Fired Brick Distress embossing powder to the word "last". 

The Mask Sheets were first released at CHA 2009, Tim had made a beautiful Christmas tag with them in Day 7 of 12 Tags of Christmas 2009 and I had a lot of fun playing around with them at the time so I stocked up on them. They've been in my stash so I was happy to break them out and play with them again.

Remember you have until the end of August to participate in the 12 Tags of 2013 August.

July Tag - Inspired by Tim

Shimmer and Shine from Rock Candy Distress Paint

When Tim Holtz posted his July tag this month I was mesmerized. I loved the tag and loved his new technique that I had never seen before. This month Tim used a brayer to apply Distress Stains and the effect is amazing. Since seeing his tag, I've been playing around with different color stains on a white background and yellow and having a blast. Tim also used Rock Candy Distress Paint with stains. This is one of my favorite techniques and even though Tim has shown before and I can't get enough. If you want to see Tim's July tag and read his wonderful tutorial with step by step pictures click here.

Distress Stains applied with brayer.

I was reading and scrolling through Tim's tutorial, looking at all his amazing pictures as I usually do when I came to the end and saw he had posted the winners from June. I could not believe it when I saw my name. Mario even emailed me a new badge for my blog! When I told my daughter I won, she asked me what did I win. I told her I didn't know but it was one of Tim's products so it would be wonderful. If you haven't guessed by now I am a big Tim Holtz fan. My prize came today and I was right. Mario sent me Tim's Mini Blueprints 2 CMS 146. This set has 12 mini stamps including one of our Flag, The Statue of Liberty, USA and a Star. Perfect for the red white and blue tag I was trying to create for the July challenge. Needless to say once I started to work with my new stamps and following Tim's techniques, the tag took on a life of its own.

As usual I didn't have everything that Tim used, so some of the things I did a little differently. I stamped the images (instead of die-cutting an image) on Grunge paper with Archival Jet Black Ink and after the Rock Candy Distress Paint had dried applied the Distress Stain with a brush to the flag because of the smaller details in the stamp. I applied the stains directly to the other images with the dauber. I trimmed out the images with my tonic scissors. I stamped the flag and statue in black on the background so I wouldn't lose the blueprint lines. Then glued the cut out images on top using Glossy Accents.  The white stripes in the Flag and the highlights on The Statue of Liberty were added with Picket Fence Distress Marker. I also used some paper from Tim's Seasonal Paper Stash and Pewter Distress Crackle Paint on the Grungeboard stars and the Idea-ology star.

I had so much fun working on my tag. I hope you check out Tim's tag and participate in the challenge for July.

OWH Sketch #177

Sketch # 177 from OWH

Operation Write Home has a new sketch challenge each Sunday. I really like this one and wanted to see what I could do with it. The challenge for me isn't following the sketch, it is deciding what to put in that little white square. I wanted to make a love card so I started with a big heart. This is a stamp I've had quite a while. It is from Hero Arts. I love the stitched look. I stamped it 3 times shifting and rotating it a little to give it a bolder look. I wanted to stamp my greeting in the center but didn't have a sentiment that fit. The "I love you" sentiment from my Hero Arts stamp set Year Round Sentiments is on one line. I knew if I cut it apart it would fit but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Especially since the "I" would be so small.  So I inked each word separately and I used my Fiskars stamp press to help me line it up while I inked and stamped each word one at a time.

If you want to check out Sketch #177 and take the challenge, or just see what the other cardmakers created click here! They also have a sponsor this week, so if you do join in on the fun, you just migh win something. Check it out!

Thanks for stopping by.

Tim's 12 tags of 2013 - June...

I love my Distress Markers and I love seeing what people are doing with them. Tim Holtz has a series he does that is called 12 tags of 2013. As usual, he has an excellent post this month. It is filled with great techniques for using his distress markers. He even uses distress inks and stains. Tim always has loads of details and photos to make recreating his techniques amazingly simple. It you'd like to see him work his magic click here.

 After seeing Tim's post I decided it's time I got busy myself. I had a wonderful time lost in the world of creating. Between checking the directions on Tim's blog, trying the techniques and starting over a few times using different stamps, I lost track of time.

I followed along but used different colors and stamps. The Butterfly stamp I used is available in the CMS146 Mini Blueprints 2 set. The quote is from Tim's CMS mini classics 062 and the quotes on the background of my tag are from various Tim Holtz stamp sets. All of his stamps are from Stampers Anonymous.

I did dress my finished tag up a little. I added some Idea-logy pieces and used some Distress Paints on the ARTFUL token and the spinner, the chain tassel is attached with a brad and the ribbon is altered with distress paints and stains. I've seen these techniques on Tim's blog before and enjoyed trying them out. The hardest thing was waiting for the paint to dry on the metal.

Little Yellow Bicycle Poppy

To Thank our Heros - my first Any Hero Cards

I met with some of my friends at my local Archiver's to scrap. They scrapped, I worked on cards for OWH. I'm overdue for sending in cards. I was working with my scrap papers and decided I wanted to get something new to work with. When I saw the "Poppy" line from Little Yellow Bicycle I fell in Love. The colors are bright, cheerful and summery. The flowers, butterflies and embellishments are adorable. I started with 2 pieces of double sided paper, a pack of journaling cards and a sheet of washi tape. I also picked up some of Ranger's Adirondack Red Pepper embossing powder. The color is perfect for this paper line.

I had 5 stamp sets with me. Tim Holtz's Way With Words from Stampers Anonymous, my OWH Hero Arts sets (CL583 Right At Home,  CL582 Year Round Sentiments and CL584 All The Time) and WTG Godspeed by My Favorite Things.

The artwork on the paper inspired most of my cards. It is double sided, so I was able to get quite a few cards with different looks. I used a few punches, a few pieces of card stock and orange vellum. The popped up Poppies were cut from the pattern paper.

This final card was inspired by a card Lin at Sending Hugs made using Washi tape to create the background. You can see her card here. This is the reason I bought the package of LYB Poppy washi tape. I wanted to try this technique out. The flower is from the pack of journal cards. The orange is varnished so I stamped the clock face with StaysOn. Since the flower is irregular in shape I used a watercolor to fill in the outside circle on the clock, then went over it with Versamark and clear embossing powder to even out the inner circle.The hear in the center is embossed with the Red Pepper embossing powder from Range. I made these cards and the ones from Jane E's sketch and still have a little pattern paper left over.

OWH-Thinking of Jane

Using OWH Sketch 175 inspired by Jane E

Jane E's sketch 175

Recently OWH had a post to honor Jane E who was recently deceased. She sounds like a wonderful, generous woman who enjoyed making cards for Operation Write Home to send to our troops. I wanted to create a card using her sketch. I love her clean and simple design and I followed it closely. Here is the link to her sketch and here is a link about her that showcases more of her beautiful cards.  I was very touched by their post honoring Jane. It was very inspiring to read about Jane and her dedication.

The paper I used is by Little Yellow Bicycle and the sentiment is by Hero Arts from a OWH stamp set.

In case you aren't familiar with them,  Operation Write Home is a great non-profit organization who send handmade cards to our troops overseas.