Challenges!!

Scrapping Everyday Miracles has a couple of challenges going this month and I tackled the sketch challenge. The sketch is by the talented Tracey and the scrap twist was to use distressing. No problem, it went really well with my theme! Jon loved to rip up magazines and would make the hugest mess. He's pretty good at distressing things; I think it's a natural talent. Here is the sketch:

I flipped the sketch but mostly stuck with it. Here is my layout:

The second challenge is the Tattered Floral Challenge on Tim Holtz's blog. You need to use the Tattered Floral die (love this die!!) and make layered flowers out of any materials you choose and then use them as part of a project. I made my flowers out of aluminum tape covered cardstock and pages torn from a magazine. I used alcohol ink to colorize the metal parts and make them look grungy. Here are some extras that I'll use on another project (they are rather addictive to make!):

Go check out the challenges and see what everyone else has done. There are some really inspirational projects linked up!

12 Tags of 2013

Well January slipped by without me getting to complete the first tag. It's now way past Valentine's Day but at least it's still February! I present to you my version of Tim Holtz's second tag of 2013:

I don't have his new Queen of hearts blueprint stamp so I scanned a real card and played with it in Photoshop. After running a few filters on it I was able to print it out on cardstock and then "watercolor" it using Distress Pens and reinkers. I'm going to try to get all 12 tags done this year and figure out some sort of display for them. Good luck to me, ha ha. ;-) Be sure to go check out his blog to see the techniques used in creating this. That Tim shares a wealth of information!!

Scrapping Everyday Miracles Challenge #24

I finally was able to find some time to scrap and I got a challenge done (just in time!) for Scrapping Everyday Miracles. Their January challenge was to scrap a sad moment. I chose Jon and his infamous "pickle face" as the subject. The tag on the bottom also pulls out and has more hidden journaling on it about the challenges we're facing with him. For a twist we had to include a bird somewhere in the layout. I used a "birds on the wire" stamp with a faux batik resist technique. Go check out the scrap challenge and see all the great DT examples and what others have linked up there!

It's the last challenge…

of the Compendium of Curiosities challenge over at Linda's blog, Studio L3. It has been so much fun even though I didn't get to complete as many challenges as I would have liked to. For the grand finale, we could use any techniques we wanted to from Tim Holtz's Compendium of Curiosities books and make him a birthday card (today is his birthday!) Here is my take on it and I used all sorts of messy and fun techniques:

Thanks Linda for being the greatest challenge hostess and I have so enjoyed all the challenges and opportunities to get creative. =)

Wait! I'm not done yet…

Ack, I can't believe that December is almost over. I still have so many Christmas crafty ideas that I wanted to do. Apparently I need to get started in August to get it all done! Well, here is a last little decor piece that I just finished.

 I made the insert part unattached to the glass base so I can switch it out for other seasons (oh, the wheels are turning…) The Thimble Domes come in a set of three and are from Willow House. If you want to get some, don't wait because Willow House is closing out it's home decor line and will only be selling jewelry in the future. I used the Tim Holtz tattered pinecone die and lots of glitter. Everything is better with glitter, especially Christmas decorations. Well, enjoy the rest of the year and welcome 2013!! See you in January unless I manage to sneak some more crafty time in. ;-)

More Christmas project fun

An online creative group I'm a member of had a little contest where you had to create a Christmas tag. The theme could be anything, it just had to be a #8 size tag as a base. The winners were just announced and I didn't win anything but it was a great excuse to make a fun project. I decided to go with a steampunk theme and created a "mechanical" tag. The graphics wheel with the snow fairies does turn but with finger power and not by the gears. That would have been quite the card engineering feat and I didn't have time for that. But I think it looks cool. ;-)

I'd go into details about how I constructed all this but I need to go wrap some presents - haven't done any yet! yikes! Merry Christmas everyone!

Compendium of Curiousities 2 challenge #33

I got a chance to do another challenge over at Linda's Studio L3 blog. I can't believe that the CC2 challenge is winding down! It's been so much fun. Every week Linda posts a challenge to use one of the techniques shown in the book A Compendium of Curiosities, Vol. 2 by Tim Holtz. This week you needed to use Tissue Tape as shown on page 36. I added a pleated strip to the bottom of the card on the left. I love that stuff!

Be sure to go check out the blog to see all the other art people are linking up. This week there is a prize offered by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks to them for their sponsorship!