COF 2010 Round Robin Journal

The Circle of Friends is once again doing a Journal Round Robin with I think nine of the ladies.  This year I have chosen the Theme of "Circus/Clown".  Because I was running late to get my journal on it's way I wasn't able to get a page done on the inside, but I did get the cover done.  I have used a Grungeboard book page for the cover and I covered it with an orangish paper.  To that I added some Circus stamps from Tim Holtz.  The letters for the title are from Cosmo Cricket.  I can't wait to see all the wonderful pages that everyone will add to my book.

One World One Heart

I want to welcome you to my blog and to the One World One Heart Blog Event. Please pick up your coffee or tea, have a seat on the magic carpet and enjoy your journey. I know your going to see lots of wonderful art work along the way. Please feel free to have a look around my blog to see some of the art projects I have been working on.

Last year I stumbled onto the One World One Heart site while blog surfing and was startled by all the blog sites that you could visit. I started my way down the list and was amazed at all the wonderful artists out there that wanted to share in this event. This year I wanted to share too, so I have created this little plaque as a token of my friendship to one lucky person.

This plaque is made from a base of a 6 x 6 Grungebook from Tim Holtz. I have covered it with a pastel stripe paper from Basic Grey and added many of my favorite things - the phrase is done with my Dymo "Friendships bring the world closer together". I thought that said a lot and gives meaning to what we are doing with this event. My bird is painted with Crackle paint and then covered with Distressed Stickles - he's really pretty in person. This images are from Altered Pages and I have added swirls of bling for my accents. Again thanks for stopping by and taking a look at my give-a-way.

If you would like to be part of my give-a-way you need to leave a comment and it needs to include your e-mail address so that if you should be the winner I can contact you to get your mailing address. This give-a-way will be open to all bloggers from today, January 25th, until noon (12:00 PM) on February 15th. I will then draw a winner and post it to my blog later that afternoon. As soon and the winner responds I will get your package out to you ASAP!!

I hope you have enjoyed your stay here and that you'll return often to see what I may be up to with my art. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day filled with art.

One Power Hour Challenge

This week at OPH I have selected the theme of "Congratulations" My husbands niece graduated and received her MBA in November and this is a plaque I made for her. Please join us in this weeks journey and congratulate someone special in your life.

My plaque starts with a base of Grungeboard taken from a Grungeboard book, I love the shape of the pages in this book. I glued background paper to the Grungeboard and then added Distressed Inks in Tea Dyed and Vintage Photo for a more aged look. The stamp and the image are both from Tim Holtz and they fit perfectly for the person this was going to. The Congratulations is done with my Dymo Labeler. I added the flowers, leaves, ticket message and bling to finish everything off.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll join us in the fun this week.

Page Swap with All Things Tim

I have joined a Page Swap with my online group All Things Tim. Instead of passing around books which can take over a year to get back, 20 of us are creating pages involving lots of "Tim Stuff" and then sending them to the host. She, in turn, will then send each of us 20 different pages and we can put them together as a book in any way that pleases each of us. I thought this was a great idea - we will all get lots of wonderful pages in lots of different styles. The theme for the pages was Vintage, but you could do any kind of page you wanted. I have a couple of Tim's new stamp sets and one of them is The Big Top so I used the Circus as the main part of my project. I have also used the set called Fabulous Flourishes in the background.

The pages are 6 x 6 and I started with a heavy watercolor paper that I sprayed with a lite

green Glimmer Mist. Once that is dry I added Distressed Ink in Tea Dyed to get rid of the bright white, then I added bits of color using Distressed Inks in Mustard Seed, Marmalade and Faded Jeans. On top of that I added some Alcohol Inks in Lemonade, Pink Sherbet and Pool using Blending Solution to blend them together. Once everything is dry I put on a very thin coat of Brushed Bronze Crackle Paint, as soon as I get that on I used a Flourish stamp on the wet paint which gives you a reversed stamped look as it takes the paint away. When that is dry I stamped the clowns, and the word Cirque which is stamped in red and black. Using Watermark ink I stamped the number board and embossed it with Fired Brick embossing powder. I added a rub on clock and gears and spinners. The circus poster is printed on a sticky back canvas and I added Distressed Ink in Tea Dyed to add age.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look and I would love to see your comments.

COF Journal

I just sent off my latest journal - the theme on this one was to make a tag using "Momisims".  All those wonderful bits of knowledge Mom knows and tries to give us, and when we're young we think it's all a bunch of mumble jumble.  We later learn that Mom was pretty smart after all!!

 

For my tag I used "When one door closes, another door opens".  Life is so full of going out one door and  going into another.  Our lives are always changing and we shouldn't be afraid of that change. 

For the background of my tag I used a color wash of Twinkling H2O's in Mandarin Blush then I used a Mask from Tim Holtz in the shape of a crown and I used Distressed Ink in Shabby Shutters.  I found the pictures of doors on line and I attached them only on one side so they can be opened - there's a surprise under each one.  I used little beads for the door knobs. For all my words I used this new paper I have that is brown with colors underneath and it's made for sanding.  Once you emboss it you can sand it and the other colors comes through.  I used one strip that was brown and orange and another that was brown and green and I ran them through my trusty Dymo labeler.  I then added a couple of word bubbles.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!!

Guest Designer for "One Powerful Hour"

This week I have the privilege of guesting on a great friends challenge site "One Powerful Hour".  Caroline is in the mist of a huge move across country so I thought this would be fun to do and a way I could be a little help to her.  

I have chosen the theme of "In Flight" and I have created this tag.  All the stamps are from Tim Holtz as is the Distressed Inks and the mask I used in the background.  I used some of my new Twinkling H2O's so the background is very sparkly - you can never have to much sparkle!!

To start the tag I made two color washes using Twinkling H2O's, in Dutch Iris and Heavenly Bamboo - I painted the top half of the tag with the blue and the bottom with the Bamboo. When I applied it I used a very light tough and made it kind of streaky. Once that was dry I used Distressed Ink in Weathered Wood lightly over

 the blue and Tea Dyed over the Bamboo. I ruffed up the edges and used Vintage Photo all the way around. When all this was really dry, I used a flourish mask and Worn Lipstick all over so there is a light pink touch to the whole tag. I stamped the bird twice - once with embossing ink and using black embossing powder on the tag, and then on a second tag, or heavy paper using Staz-On in Olive. I added a bit of H2O's in Mango Mamba to this stamping and then cut it out, used foam tape and placed it over the embossed bird, I also curled the wings a bit to give a look of flight. I stamped the saying with the olive ink and I used Timber for the branches. I added a few buttons and I embossed "In Flight" in the upper left corner in Egyptian gold so that's real sparkly also. I know it's really hard to see in the picture. I added a few ribbons and there you have it.

Thanks for stopping by for a look.

Husbands Birthday Card

I completed Kevin's Birthday card last night - his birthday is today.  I know - I always seem to come in at the last minute.  But he really liked it so that's what counts.  

The background was made by using the Timeworks  mask from Tim Holtz and Distressed Ink in Tea Dyed.  I also added Distressed Glitter in Shabby Shutters.  The bicycle image is from Altered Pages and I matted that on a  brown and then green cardstock.  The two sprockets are held together with a heart brad and I added a multi green ribbon at the top and bottom for added color to the card.  The ribbon is from Really Reasonable Ribbon.  The Happy Birthday was created with my Dymo using another green cardstock.

Thanks for stopping to take a look and have a wonderful day!!

 

Valentine Card

This is the Valentine's Day card that I gave to my dear hubby.  I was working on it every morning before I left for work and I put the final touches to it last night.  It's really hard to see here, but on the red card I used  the Flourish Mask from Tim Holtz and FireBrick Red to leave a really pretty pattern on the card.  Cupid is from the Seasonal package of GrungBoard and I painted it with Pewter Crackle paint, the tiny heart is from there also and I painted it with FireBrick Red Crackle paint.  The ribbon is from Really Reasonable Ribbon. All the little hearts and cupids I found in a package when I was looking for something else - LOL!!!

Oh - and he loved his card!!  

Theme Thursday - Tags

This week the theme at Theme Thursday is Tags - I love to make tags so here is my entry for the week: Dance  -  I was thinking of New Years and I found this great image on a collage sheet from Altered Pages   and I thought of dancing the night away.  The background is done using a border mask from Tim Holtz and distressed inks in Broken China and Faded Jeans, once I removed the the mask I used Tea Dyed all over and Walnut Stain on the edges.  I added Stickles glitter glue to the dress and the crystals are colored with Wild Plum Alcohol ink.  The buttons have a bit of Alcohol ink in Cranberry, Stream and Gold.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look.

Friendship Tags

I created a couple of holiday tags for friends this year and I thought I would share them.  They are both done using techniques from the 12 Day's of Christmas from Tim Holtz.

  This first tag was done using techniques from day two, using Alcohol inks, the angel is stamped and embossed with black.  I added the cloth stars and a couple of beads.  The work on the chain says "believe".

This second tag was using techniques from Day 11.  The colors here didn't copy as nicely as I had wanted them to - it is really more blue.  The Fragments have snowflakes embossed in clear on the back and with them being on the blue they really show up nicely.  I added some stamped flourishes with white dots to accent them. 

Thanks for taking a look and feel free to leave a message.

Christmas

Well, it's high time I get a few Christmas things up here.  With working such long hours and trying to get my walking in every night, I just seem to have very little time for working on the crafts that I love so much.  

Any way, here are two ATC sized cards that I did for a swap at DoodleHaven.  For each of these I stamped the designs with embossing ink and then sprinkled Distressed Embossing Powders in all different colors to suit the design.  I then heated with my heat gun.  The stamps are from Tim Holtz.  I mounted the designs on holiday green paper which is folded to create the cards.  

Tag done in the Tim Holtz fashion

Yes, you all know I love Tim Holtz and all his products. Here is a tag I did for a friend using some of his products and techniques.  The background is colored using Distressed Inks in Tea Dyed and Antique Linen, I the stamped the words on the right side and the background stamp over that using Coffee Bean.  The hummingbird, flower and "f" are all Grungeboard.  For the "f" I painted it with Crackle paint in Pine Needle and Soot, the flower is painted with paint dabbers in a green and pink and then I added Distressed Stickles glitter glue in Worn Lipstick. I stamped the hummingbird on the grundgeboard, cut it out and sprinkled various colors of Distressed Embossing power. The oval Fragment is colored using Alcohol inks in blues, greens and yellows and then I stamped the hummingbird over that with black Archival Ink and then using a soft cloth wipe the ink off - this leaves your image on the fragment, this is a technique I saw at Tim's Blog 

Scroll down to the August Tag and there you will see full instructions from Tim.  The little letters were made with Dymo and sanded to bring out the colors.

Thanks for taking a look.