SteamPunk Tag

Hi everyone and Happy Holidays!!
I have been absent for a while now and I now want to try and get back into the swing of things again.  The "mojo" is starting to come back and I have the wanting to create again. I welcome each and everyone of you to stop by often as I'm going to try and do some more postings this month.

Today I have for your enjoyment (I hope) I tag I made for a dear friend.  I was going to do this for a monthly swap with Circle of Friends, but due to circumstances I wasn't able to join the fun.  I had this idea swimming in my head and one morning I woke up and just know how I wanted it to look and this is what I ended up with.

SteamPunk to means industrial, metal and funky, I sure hope I got some of that with this tag.
I started with my favorite tag and using the Timeworks masks from Tim Holtz and Tea Dyed Distressed ink I made my background using a couple of the masks.  I then, very lightly used Tea Dyed and Antique Linen Distressed inks and went over the whole tag.  Then using the building stamp from Tim Holtz set "RockStar" I stamped in a couple of building using a black ink.  Using a flourish stamp I have and some Aged Mahogany Distressed ink I stamped around the edges.  I added a few gears,a spinner and the metal tag, all from Tim's idea-ology line of products.  The nut that I added in the lower right corner came from  Home Depot and I colored it using a few different colors of Alcohol inks to make it look aged and a bit rusty.

Hope you have enjoyed todays tag.  Please stop by and leave a message anytime.

Hugs to all  -  Nancy

One Powerful Hour Challenge - Nursery Rhymes

This week at One Powerful Hour I have chosen the theme of Nursery Rhymes and I have chosen
Puss N' Boots and I have made my project on a 5" x 5" flat canvas.

For the background I painted the whole piece in a Navy Blue, but I really did it hap hazard so that the whole thing isn't really covered.  I then added some Gold paint and rubbed some of that off to give it more of a worn look.  The Puss N' Boots and Castle images are from a Collage sheets by Altered Pages.  I generated the Peacock, fish and words from my computer.  I applied everything to the canvas with Mog Pog and once that was dry I added glitter and buttons for extra shine and texture.  I hope you enjoyed my piece and that it inspired you to come up with your favorite Nursery Rhyme.

On another note this will be my last posting with One Powerful Hour for a while, it's time to move on to some other projects I would like to work on.  I would like to thank you all for joining with us on my challenges I have really enjoyed the experience and I hope you have also.  I want to thank Caroline for giving me the chance to work with her  - Caroline your work is really wonderful, you are a very talented artist and I wish you all the best in your future. I know we will keep in touch!!  Continue to always be creative.

Birthday Card

I have made another Birthday card for one of my friends at work, July and August are busy months for birthdays in our department.  This one was for Debbie and she is a really fun and bubbly lady so I though of "Party Girl" and went from there.

I went looking through my many many scraps, you know you can't throw those big pieces of paper away, and finally came up with the light lavender background and then I saw the beautiful Japanese print and just knew they would work together.  The images - the cut out girl, the birthday hat and the Happy Birthday  - are all from Altered Pages, my favorite collage sheet web site.  Once I attached the background to the card I used Distressed Ink in Victorian Violet (it's really lite, but worked well here, I also used a bit of Concord for a bit more color.  I added two torn pieces for the printed paper at put them to opposite corners, I then attached the girl with pop dots to add a little dimension to the card.  The fabric flowers are from DaisyD, yep I have had those around for a while - and I put a little Diamond Glaze on the to look like dew drops.  Finished off with the Tiny Letters from Cosmo Cricket, a bit of Stickles on the hat and a glitter flourish.

By the way - Debbie just loved the card!!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope I have been able to inspire you to be a little creative.

OPH Favorite Flower Challenge

This week at One Powerful Hour I have chosen the theme of "My Favorite Flower".  I seem to almost always have a flower somewhere in all of my designs since I can't have them in the house.  I have allergies to flowers and grass so I like to create pretty flowers that I can have around the house all the time.  For this challenge I have chosen my favorite flower - the Tulip.  I hope you will come and join us at OPH for this fun project and I can't wait to see your favorite flowers!!


For this project I have selected a tag and embossed it with my Cuttlebug using a leaf embossing folder. Using a decorative scissors I cut the bottom of the tag for a bit of a lacy look.  I then used Distress inks in Bundled Sage, Rusty Hinge and Barn Door and applied these all over the background of the tag, using the green to bring out the leaves.

I cut out Tulips for some paper I had from K & Company and added Stickles in Fruit Punch to all the edges of the flowers. I attached them to the tag with pop dots to give a bit of dimension to the project.  Using my trusty Dymo Label maker I created the Tulip sticker.  I then added a few words on my feelings for the flowers and a couple of buttons.  To finish off I added the blue and red ribbons.

Circle Of Friends 2010 Journal Rotation

I have another journal to share with everyone - I did this one in June and I ended up really liking the way it turned out.  This one was for Cheryl's Journal and there wasn't really a theme.  There were a number of sayings in a little envelope and you had to pick one of them, or use one of your own, and create a page from that.  The saying I picked was "The sound of her wings".

Front

I knew I had a die to cut out the wings, so I cut them from embossed  Grungeboard and painted them gold.  I stamped the image on velum as I wanted some transparency in the piece.  The background paper is an artist paper from Summerset Studio - I love that there is a picture of a girl in the background and lines of poetry.  I added some vintage sheet music and stamped a few notes.  I also added "Can you hear the music?"  I added amber beads at the top for added texture

Back

On the back of the page I chose to add pictures of angels with wings and the caption of "Listen to the music."  With different sized circle  stamps I made some interesting patterns in two of the corners and added some swirls of crystals that were an amber color.

Birthday Card

Monday afternoon I found out that I needed a birthday card for a friend at work on Wed.  Well I came home with no idea of what I was going to do so I started looking through some of my papers to see if something would spike my interest.  I found this pretty bright stripe that reminded me of summer.

I cut the paper on the diagonal for a bit more interest in the background and then I wondered what I could put on the front.  I know that Tammy likes flowers so I started out with the largest flower, lite orange and pink (that's how I came up with the pink center) both from Heidi Swapp.  When I saw that one lonely flower on the paper I knew I had to find something else to go with it, so I started going through this little basket of flower pieces that I have.  I found the orange flower which was a little smaller and then the cream  one that I thought would work well for the center.  I added the pink stripe enter - it's a padded center from Heidi Swap that I have had for a very long time.  I added the bright jewels to the center for more dimension and color.
Using a Terra Cotta ink I stamped the Happy Birthday and the flourishes around the card.  All and all I'm pretty happy with the final results and Tammy and the other ladies at work really liked it a lot.

Circle Of Friends 2010 Journal Rotation

Last month I had Caroline's Journal and completed this piece for her.  For this Journal you had your choice of two templates for making a castle and two subjects to use - Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty.  She had included many collage images for you to choose from and this is what I came up with.

I chose this castle, it just seemed to speak to me, and I used the Cinderlla theme.  I cut my castle from Grunge Paper and I had this glitter embossed paper that seemd to work perfectly for this project.  I used Distressed Inks on all of the edges in Rusty Hindge and Wild Honey to give a little extra depth to the paper. After I attached the image I coated it with Rock Candy Distress Paint to give it that old crackle look. I have also used Distressed Stickles on parts of the castle.  You have to have a bit of sparkle in your work!!  I then added ribbon, beads and flowers to the project.

I really enjoyed creating this piece for Caroline and I believe it has finally started me back on the creative road.  I will thank Caroline for that and I really hope you like your page.

Circle Of Friends April ATC Swap

For the month of April at The Circle of Friends we were give the theme of "Dance"  I found this great image on one of my Altered Pages collage sheets and thought  it fit the bill perfectly.  It reminded me of a beautiful flowing waltz.

For the background I once again went to my trusty Alcohol inks - this time using Latte, Shell Pink and Raspberry.  I used this on Glossy Photo paper and I made this by placing a dot of each color on my applicator and doing a crisscross pattern on a larger piece of the paper.  I then cut it down into the ATC's.  Each one is a bit different, but all have the same colors.  for the image I cut it out and then coated it with Crackle Paint in Rock Candy.  It comes out clear, but with really nice crackles on it.  Once this was dry I attached it to the card and place a couple of crystals on the image.  I added a ribbon flower, a colored bead and the work Waltz on the side.

One Powerful Hour Challenge - Military Women

This week at One Powerful Hour I have chosen the theme of "Military Women".  I found this wonderful image from Altered Pages and I just had to find a way to display it and honor all our Military Women that help to protect our country.  The image came from a sheet called American Beauties #500 and my image was printed on a transpariency. 

For this project I have used a 5 x 7 canvas and come to find out this ended up being a very challenging surface for me to work with.  I had a lot of problems with some of the inks drying.  I started by using H2O's in blues and painting the whole surface, I let that dry and then painted some white to just add the look of clouds - I don't think that worked very well.  I used some Modeling paste to create the stars and I had also used it to do some designs on the lower edge of the canvas, but ended up not liking that so I scraped it off which left some interesting white spaces on the canvas.  I then used Adirondack ink in Bottle and stamped flourishes all over the edges.  Now this looks good, but this is what I have has so much trouble with drying.  I've heated it, blotted with paper towels and it's still not as dry as it could be.  I finally just went ahead and added everything to create my finished piece.  To the stars at the top I have added Stickles glitter in red, blue and gold.  The hat, medal and insigna are from K & Company.  I have added shading to them by using Distressed Ink in Wild Honey.

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 Powerful Hour Challenge - Patchwork

This week at OPH the challenge is "Patchwork" and Peggy has done a beautiful piece to give us all inspiration.  My piece is one that I did to support Breast Cancer.


This is a piece I did for a friend, it is made from all different sized pieces of GrungeBoard.  Some I stamped on and some I just embossed and then added either ink or paint.  I even did a bit of stitching on some of the squares.  I added the pink ribbon using a heart shaped brad.  Once I had all the pieces decorated I glued them to a heavy card stock.  The size of this is about 4" x 4".




Thanks for stopping by for a look
Hugs,
Nancy

Birthday Card for Kevin

I know I haven't spent much time here adding some of my projects so I am going to do a little catch up this week.  This is the card that I made for Kevin's birthday earlier this month.

To make the background I used pieces of old dictionary pages  and glued them to my cardstock.  I then used Distressed Inks in Tea Dyed and Antique Linen and applied them all over the page.  Once that was dried I used Distressed Crackle Paint in Rock Candy painted over the whole card - I wanted a vintage cracked look and that's pretty much what I ended up with.  The image came from Altered Pages and I paired that with a gold digital frame - I set that all on the red cardstock as I thought that would really pop against all the browns.  I also added a bit of red at the top and bottom of the card.  The letters are chipboard from Cosmo Cricket.

I have to say I like the way this came out, and Kevin was very happy with it!!

One Powerful Hour Challenge - Easter Tag

This week I am the designer for  the Challenge at One Powerful Hour and I have Chosen Vintage Easter.  There are so many wonderful vintages out there for Easter I just had to use at least one of them.  I have used an image from Altered Pages from a sheet called Easter Greeting #711.




For the base tag I used some of the new Distressed Ink colors - Wild Honey, Tumbled Glass and Victorian Velvet. I applied the Wild Honey all over leaving a few bare sections and filled them in with the other two colors.  I then used Walnut Stain and stamped my Dragon Flies randomly over the tag.  Once that was dry I applied Distressed Crackle paint in Rock Candy - you can't tell from the picture the the background is shinny and has lite crackling throughout.  I let that dry overnight.  For the metal flower I used Alcohol Ink in Raspberry and Bottle to color the flower and the leaves, I then attached them to the top of the tag.  I cut out my image and used Stickles in Picket Fence for the Bunny, Yellow for the flowers and Gold for the designs in the egg.  In person the tag is very sparkly and that's just what I wanted.

February 2010 COF Swap

For February we were to make an ATC using the theme "Childhood Memories".   As a little girl I was always out riding my bike so when I saw this vintage image of bike riding I just had to use it.

For the background I used my Cuttlebug and the Steel Plate embossing folder.  Once it was embossed I rubbed several colors of Distressed in over the pattern to bring it out,  The Image is from Altered Pages and I attached it to the background, then I created the bottle cap image.  To make the bottle cap purple I used Alcohol ink in Raspberry.  I added the picture and then filled the cap with Diamond Glaze.  I know it's hard to see it here, but it does look much better in person.  To balance out the little picture I added beads to the top corner and the opposite lower corner.  I hope everyone likes their card.

Thanks for stopping by for a quick like at my latest work.  I now off to get a birthday card done for my hubby - his birthday is Wed - yes I know I'm cutting this really close.  LOL!!!  Have a great day all.

Valentine Card For A Friend

A friend asked me to make a Valentine for her Mom and this is the card that I came up with.

I used two different pink patterned papers and for the center background I used Alcohol Inks in Raspberry, Shell Pink and Pink Sherbet. I placed a drop of each color on my felt applicator and on Photo paper I kind of

swirled it down the paper. I came out with this great curvy background and I thought it worked well with the whole nature of the card.

The image is from Altered Pages, I cut it out and placed it on the background paper using foam dots to give a bit of a raised look. I added the pearls and small hearts to finish the Valentine theme. There is also Distressed Stickles on the little hearts for that touch of sparkle!!

OWOH - And We Have A Winner

I randomly picked number 67 and my congratulations go to Melissa Speegle as she was number 67 on my blog giveaway.

I want to thank everyone that visited my blog during this wonderful Magic Carpet Ride and I really hope you will be journeying back now and then to see what I am up to.

Again Congratulations to Melissa and please feel free to stop by her blog at:

http://korbengrey.blogspot.com/

Have a wonderful day everyone and thanks for stopping by.

Hugs
Nancy

One Powerful Hour Challenge - Pink & Brown

This week for One Powerful Hour I have chosen the theme of Pink & Brown. Not long ago a friend of mine sat down with me and we had a really good talk about a lot of different things, but things that were really important to both of us. For her kindness I created this card just to let her know how much it really meant to me. Thanks "T"

I love pink and brown together so that's were I started with this card. The base of the card is a brown cardstock and then I added the pink and brown background. On a cream paper I stamped the Thank You in a Chocolate ink. The glitzy accents started out as silver and I added Alcohol Ink in Shell Pink until I got a nice pink color to them. I know it's hard to see it here, but in person you can really tell they are pink. I added the frosted flower to complete the look.

Thanks for stopping by this week and I hope you'll join us at One Powerful Hour and show us your best Pink and Brown creation.

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.

One Powerful Hour Challenge Friendship

This week at One Powerful Hour the challenge is "Friendship". This is the tag that I have made for the theme.

The image I used is from Altered Pages "Bits and Pieces III", I sized it to fit my tag and then covered it with Rock Candy Crackle Paint from TimHoltz - it gives it a really nice vintage look. For the base of the tag I used Distressed Ink in Faded Jeans and Shabby Shutters. I took the two ink pads and pressed them on my craft sheet a couple of time and then sprayed them with water. I then placed the tag on top of that and then carefully removed stamp around the edges in Faded Jeans. I attached the image and applied a bit of ribbon on the top and bottom edges of the image. I added a little bling using Dew Drops, printed out Best Friends using my Dymo Labeler and finished off with the ribbons.

GrundgeBoard Plaque

This is a plaque I created for a friend to let her now just how important our friendship really is.

The base of the projects is a page from a GrundBoard book from Tim Holtz - I love the shape of this book and I will be using it for many different projects. For the background I glued on sheet music paper and then added Distressed inks in Antique Linen and Tea Dyed for a more aged look. I sanded all the edges and applied Stained Walnut for a bit more color. Using a flourish stamp and Distressed Embossing powder, both from Tim, I embossed two of the corners. I added the word tickets to which I added a bit of Distressed Tea Dyed ink. I found this picture on line so I don't know it's origin, but I printed it on Sticky Canvas from and added a bit of blue around the edges. I added the flowers and bling to finish off the project.

Thanks for stopping by to have a look and don't forget to come back January 25 for the One Heart One World Give-A-Way. I'm working on my give a way as we speak!! LOL

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