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.

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.

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

For more info see my sidebar.

One Powerful Hour Challenge Dancing/Dance

This week at OPH the theme in Dancing/Dance and I have this tag that I had made some time ago so I thought I would share it with everyone. The funny thing is my image ended up being the same one that Caroline used - hope you don't mind Caroline. LOL!!

I really like making tags and when I found this image on a collage sheet from Altered Pages and I thought of dancing the night away that it would be perfect for a tag.

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.

November Swap COF

For the November Swap at the Circle of Friends the hostess sent us some stamps and we were to use them to create anything that inspired us. We received two sets of clear stamps - one with two flowers and one with butterflies and a bird, some of my favorite images. But I must say I was really challenged with this project and it took me almost three weeks of looking at the stamps and looking at the paper I wanted to use to get inspired. It finally all came together and here is the final result - a small hanging inspirational card.

For the base card I used this great paper I found at Reddi Arts, a shop

here in Jacksonville, FL, it is a recycled brown Rough Sketch paper, but I wanted to find a way to use it in this project. I used Distressed Ink in Spiced Marmalade all around the edges of each card and a bit over the whole piece. Using a watermark ink I stamped the flourish in the background and then added the saying and bird, both from Tim Holtz clear stamp collection Artful Flight using Pearlescent Chocolate Brilliance by Tsukineko. I glued the art piece to an really pretty orange cardstock to make it a little more sturdy and then added the little corner pearls from Basic Grey.

For the flower I stamped it on Grungepaper and cut them all out, added Distressed inks in a variety of different colors - for this one I used Faded Denim and Mustard Seed in the center. Because the Grungepaper is soflexible I used a toothpick and wrapped each petal to give it a bit of curled dimension. I added Distressed Stickles in the same colors on the flower and at the edges of the petals I used Picket Fence Stickles. To glue the flower I only used glue dots in the center so that the petals are free and can be "fluffed" to add even more dimension to the piece. Here's a close up of the flower.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope I have inspired you to create,

Oct. Monthly Mailer and One Powerful Hour

I mailed out my Monthly Mailer on Thursday and I wanted to add it to my blog so here I go. This months theme was Halloween and I did this tag. One Powerful Hour is also doing a Halloween theme and I thought this would be perfect. For the background of the tag I used Distressed Inks in Tea Dyed and Spiced Marmalade and then once I scruffed up the edges I used Walnut Stain on all the edges. On top of that I used Crackle Paint in Old Paper. The pumpkin is from Grungeboard and I used Distressed Stickles in Spiced Marmalade to lots of sparkle to the project. I stamped Happy Haunting the the Bats with black Archival ink. I took a few of the jump rings and linked them together to form a small chain and I attached that with a Trinket Pin. I had a couple of sparkling bats and a moon brad and I attached them to the top of the tag. I finished off with a cute Halloween ribbon. "BOO" and I hope you all have a fun Halloween!!

A Friends Birthday Card

This week Ricky at work had a birthday and I wanted to post and let you what I came up with for this one. Ricky loves planes and history and as I was looking through some Graphic 45 papers that I have I found this tag of a blueprint of The Spirit of St. Louis and thought - perfect. So I scanned it, enhanced it and made it a good size for a card and then went looking for an original picture of the plane. There's the card I finally got put together on Thursday night, his birthday was on Friday.

I found this great picture of the plane with the pilot and I printed it on a piece of Sticky Back Canvas and then I added a little Distressed Ink in Antique Linen. I know It's hard to see the the background

paper I used is sky and clouds, it really did look good together. I used the Antique Linen around the edges of the card also. Then I added the name and a few stars with Distressed Stickles on them and this is how it all came together. Oh by the way he really liked the card - YEAH!!

Circle Of Friends Sept ATC Swap

Sorry I haven't updated in so long - between being sick for a week and loads of work at the office I haven't been in the craft room much over the last few weeks. I'm hoping to get a few things worked on over the week end and getting a few more things posted for you to see.

For September and and October at COF we are doing an Advent ATC Swap. Numbers 1 - 12 are due by the end of Sept and numbers 13 - 25 are due at the end of October. We are all using the same set of papers from Basic Gray - Wassail, but from there you can make them completely your own. I sent off my Sept set last week and I have been working on the second set for Oct in

between working on a few other projects - I'll get to those in another post. I thought I would post a few of them over the next couple of posts.

For number 1 I used a Mask from Tim Holtz and Distressed Ink in Tea Dyed for the background. The Santa is an image from Altered Pages from a collage sheet called Glass Slides Christmas. I added Distressed Stickles in Fire Brick to the background for a little added sparkle. I stamped the number One and added a button to finish the piece.

For number 2 I used a printed background, a couple of fabric stars, a one inch Fragment, again from Tim's collection and a really pretty green jewel brad. I found the number 2 tag and paired it with the brad. Under the Fragment I used a Christmas Greetings image from Altered Pages from a collage sheet called Inches Christmas

For my third ATC I used a Grungboard number 3, three Christmas Trees and a cute red and green ribbon and bow. I used Distressed Ink in Old Paper around the edges of the card and just a bit on the card to give a more of an aged look. The 3 is painted with a shinny paint and I added three green jewels for that added sparkle. I also added a little green Stickles in green to the trees.

Well, there you have my first three cards - I will add more in the next post and I promise it won't be such a long wait for that one. Thanks for stopping by - I love sharing my Art projects with you all and I hope I can inspire you to go make some Art!!

ATT Monthly Mailer

Over at All things Tim we are doing a monthly mailing to a new friend and to share our artwork. This month I am sending to Lori and I have made a tag, which is usually what I do as I so love to make them.

For this tag I used a mask and Tea Dyed Distress Ink for the background. I added a butterfly stamp in the middle and then masking that I stamped a Script stamp in Olive Green. I painted the butterflies using Alcohol inks and then used three square Fragments. The large pink butterfly is made of Grungepaper and was painted with Worn Lipstick Crackle Paint. I added a bit of Fired Brick Distressed Ink to the edges and pearls & crystals to the body of the butterfly. The word Dreams was embossed on a black sandable paper and I added Glossy Accents to make them look more like letter bubbles. I added a bit of vintage paper and a little green ribbon at the bottom of the tag.

I was looking at my blog and realized that I forgot to add the Monthly Mailer for July so I'm going to add that here also. This tag was done for Liz.

For this tag I did the background using Tea Dyed and Worn Lipstick for the background, then I stamped one side using a Dictionary stamp and black ink. For the lower right corner I embossed script with my Cuttlebug. the wings are embossed using Weathered Wood embossing powder. I added the saying, which is embossed in red and a Philosophy tag for interest. The edges of the age are done with Walnut Distressed Ink.

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.

Birthday Card

We celebrate birthdays in my little accounting world at work in a big way. There's only 7 of us let now, over the last few years the number has been going down. When I started there were 12 in the department and over time we have been slimmed down to the great group that we now have. Anyway, for every one's birthday we decorate their cubical in a big way, balloons and lots of party stuff - want to make sure everyone knows it's their birthday. LOL!! Then we all go out for lunch, at the birthday person's choice and at 3PM we always have some kind of birthday desert. Makes for a fun day. Here is the card I did for Debbie this week:

The background is really more of a green, don't know why it scanned in this color, but anyway I used my wonderful Cuttlebug I embossed some sandable paper with the Birthday Embossing Folder. After sanding to bring out the embossed words, I then also added a bit of Twinkling H2O paint to a few of the debossed words for added color. I like the way that worked! I added some Distressed Ink in Tea Dyed around the edges and then attached to the background with pop dots. I just wanted it to pop out a bit. I added the silk flowers with jewels for the centers for a finishing touch.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to have a look at some of my other projects. I hope they give you some inspiration for your next project.

Please feel free to jot down a comment, I'd love to hear your feed back.

Christmas in July ATT

UPDATE - Yesterday was the end of this contest - the tag with the most votes would be declared the winner. Drum Roll please ----- Yes I WON!!!! I am so excited to have won my first contest with ATT. The winner receives an autographed tote bag from Tim Holtz, Yeah!! and a bunch of "Tim Stuff". Oh, I can't wait!!!

For the Yahoo Group "All Things Tim" I made this tag for a contest they are having this month. You had to find one of the Christmas Tags that Tim demoed in 2007 and 2008 and create an "everyday" version of that tag using the techniques that Tim did, but with your own theme. My choice was Day 1, 2008. I love working with the masks and the Distressed Inks.

For my tag I used the Timeworks mask and Distressed Inks in Worn Lipstick and Broken China in the background. I distressed the edges of the tag and applied Walnut Distressed Ink. The butterfly and word "time" are Grungeboard, for the word I applied Worn Lipstick ink and Distressed Stickles. For the butterfly I embossed it with a paisley design with my Cuttlebug and then applied Straw ink all over and Walnut around the edges. On the wings I added Distressed Stickles in Worn Lipstick and Broken China. I added a gear and a spinner to the masked area to represent "Time".

Birthday Cards

A friend asked me to create a couple of Birthday cards for her sister and I thought I would share them with you.

This first one is from my friend to her sister.  I used a brown cardstock for the base of the card.  The image is from Altered Pages and I have matted that with a piece of orange cardstock to which I added a bit of Distressed Ink and I distressed the edges just for some added dimension to the card.  The Happy Birthday ribbon came from Really Reasonable Ribbon and then I added a sheer brown with white dots ribbon to the left side.  The crystals were clear and I added some Alcohol Inks to them to create a multi colored design.

The second card is for my friends Mom to give to her daughter.   This was a fun card as I got to use my new Cuttlebug, oh I really do like this little machine!!  The background is a light teal and to that I have added a rose color ribbon and on top of that I added a tiny brown with blue stitching to create a new layered ribbon.  The stamp  I used is by Tim Holtz and can be seen here, just scroll down the page a bit.   I stamped it with Black Staz-On ink on to Watercolor paper then I added a bit of color using Twinkling H2O's.  I matted this on a piece of brown Sandable paper that has a peachy rosey color on the reverse side and it can be seen on QVC.  I ran this through the Cuttlebug and then sanded the raised images so the color would show through.  I have to say this paper is such fun to work with.  To this I added a few buttons and a silver butterfly, I added some Alcohol Ink to this for just a little touch of color.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope your inspired to go create something wonderful!!

Mother's Day Card

I just finished this card for my Mother-In-Law so I wanted to get it posted for all to enjoy.  The image is from Altered Pages collage sheet Edwardian # 838.  I used a bit of Twinkling H2O's in yellow, green and pink to give just a hint of color and sparkle. I used a cream and pink background paper to which I added Distressed Ink in Tea Dye for a more vintage look. I matted the image on a green cardstock and added beads to the corners.  A little white and silver ribbon is on the top and bottom.  I added a bit of  the Tea Dyed ink to the ribbon also.

Thanks and have a wonderful Mother's 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.

Elvis ATC's

I recently received a collage sheet full of wonderful pictures of Elvis and I took two of the images and made these ATC's.

For the first one I have these tiny deck of cards so I took out a King because we all know Elvis is the King of Rock and Roll!!  On the green background I used Distressed Ink in Pine Needle and I added a bit of ribbon that's stapled with green staples.         

On the second card I used GrundgePaper and cut out the letters and then painted t

hem with Twinkling H2O's, I know it's hard to  see in the picture,

 but the letters do have a sparkle to them.  I added a bit of ribbon and used Distressed Ink  in  Tea Dyed around the edges of the card.

COF March Journal

This month I had a journal from Cheryl that was an Altered Book and the theme was "Mystery". I had a really hard time trying to come up with a good subject so one day I went on line and just Googled mystery and the first thing to come up was Alfred Hitchcock - now growing up I watched this weekly program all the time and I think I have see most of his movies.  So that's where I got the inspiration for this page.

The first thing I did was cover a page with Distressed Ink in Soot - I wanted this to be a dark layout.  I used a black and white paper and some black and white ribbon  for the center of the page.  

I cut out this picture of Mr. Hitchcock took a GrungeBoard crown and painted it with Crackle Paint in Pewter and added some green jewels.  Well, you have to have some bling you know!!  Alfred was Knighted in 1980 by the Queen of England.

 I stamped his name on some paper with a bit of color to it and then added Distressed Ink in Tea Dyed for the more vintage look.  The saying was made using my trusty Dymo Labeler.  I use heavier paper with a white core so that when I sand them the letters stand out white.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look at my work.