I'm Ready for Diminutive Vessels

It's almost here........the 2011 planetpatchwork.com New Year's Day mystery quilt. I've chosen my color palette and done my cutting. Now, to wait for Saturday morning when the fun begins.

Scribbled & Stained Vines

These are for a swap I'm hosting at paperartistsonline and this month's theme is vines or leaves. I got a couple of TH dies for Christmas and decided to use the flourish as my vine and then did some punch art leaves and strawberries. I thought they looked just scrumptious on the backgrounds I had done for this week's Compendium of Curiosities Challenge over at Studio L3 so I combined the two. Cool, huh? I used Stormy Skies, Peeled Paint and Forest Moss distress inks, some handmade green paper for the vines and scraps for my punch art. Bazzill ocean paper for the card base.

Happy Holidays!!!

A safe and happy holiday season to all!!

On the Twelfth Day of........

and I finally got it done!!! Whew!! I was afraid I wasn't going to make it before the end of the year. Boy did the time sneak up on me. Had to put my last tag on hold so I could get the baking done and packages shipped off on time, and finally got a little time last night to finish up my tags. Made a few substitutions, but it follows Tim's steps for the most part. The background collage are cutouts from K&Company holiday papers; the calendar is from Club Scrap's Academy kit; I hand cut the ornament and embossed some metal letters with gold EP.

On the Eleventh Day of.......

only one to go........Well I started off drawing my own tree on grungeboard, then realized that I'd done a mirror image and then saw that my dictionary page had a cool picture on that side anyway so a mirror image was going to work well and then I went and did my border on the WRONG side. Arrrrrrrrrggggggggg! Oh well, I like how it turned out anyway. Used a Written Word (from Club Scrap) plastic word instead of a stamp and some rafia instead of jute.

On the Tenth Day of..........

.....and I have caught up! Yeah!!!! I used the original holiday grunge snowman cut out of swirl grunge and the cracked glass embossing folder as I don't have a snowflake one. And just by chance I seem to have used a piece of plastic that got that frosty look. Cool, huh?

On the Ninth Day of.......

still trying to catch up........Day 9 is soooooo elegant. I love the rich golden colors of this one. I had to pleat my own flower; went through the button stash; found some gold and red netting and epoxy letters. Also made a couple of baubles from broken necklaces.

On the Eighth Day of.......

and I am catching up. My LSS did not have any of the holiday masks, but they did have the film for making your own so I thought I'd give it a bash. I'm not as happy with it as I'd like, but not bad for a first try at cutting my own. I'm much happier with my hand cut houses. LSS didn't have the die for that either :(. I'm definitely going to give that cute little lamp a try too. I've got one more to go to catch up for the day. Don't know if I'll finish tonight, but going to get started.

On the Seventh Day of....

and I'm behind again. Isn't it amazing as we get closer and closer to the end, the tags get more and more elaborate and time to do them shrinks smaller and smaller. Oh well, part of the chaotic merriment, I guess. Here is my day 7. I found some sticky back canvas and hand cut my petals and leaves. Used a fragment for my charm and a dimensional sticker for my bird. Otherwise, it's pretty close to the original Tim Tag.

On the Sixth Day of.........

Well, we're at the halfway point. The 12 Tags always goes way too fast. I don't have any of Tim's dies and I have a little Sidekick so not much to go with there. I cut out my reindeer from swirly grungeboard and used the embossed swirls as my raised effect. Embossed the Great Outdoors JR tree, which is my FAV!! with dark avocado embossing powder, then colored with the Forest Moss distress ink. I did acquire some tissue tape the other day and gotta say, LOVE IT!! I also used the greeting stamp from Club Scrap's Reflections kit and that beautiful swirl from Ivory Elegance.

On the Fifth Day of.......

I know, I know.....it's day 6 and I'm behind. I actually got my day 5 99% done last night, but it needed to dry overnight. This tag had so many wonderful layers to it and I had most of the elements or a good substitution. My Santa stamp is by Inkadinkado, the holly stamp is from Club Scrap's Evergreen kit. I had a nice chipboard book plate to grunge up and even some metal letters, although I just used white embossing powder instead of the paint and UTEE.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Way back in June we started tearing apart our bedroom to get ready for paint and new flooring. I'm happy to say that the floor is in. Whoo Hoo!!!!!! We made the big push over the Thanksgiving holiday and layed all the tile; Roger finished up the moulding today and we got new slats for the vertical blinds (the Arizona sun was not kind to the one's we had). We also found a really gorgeous piece of redwood to mount over the window. We have another one to go over the slider......but that's tomorrow's job.

On the Fourth Day of....

I thought this one was going to be easy peasy, but I couldn't for the life of me get that AI technique to work on my fragment. Gave up and just left the snowflakes black. Dug up lots of bling from the stash and I'm happy with the result.

On the third day of.........

I really enjoyed making this tag. After I located a birdstamp I was off to the races. I had no tissue tape so I decopaged some sheet music onto my grungeboard, then stamped the bird with staz-on and cut him out. I used cranberry, red pepper and raisin alcohol inks to color the bird. My branch is a Stampscapes stamp. I created my own little collage with some very old stickers. My tissue tape flower is really masking tape that I stamped script on with stazon and then made the flower just like Tim showed us. The birds nest is some olive colored fluffy fiber hot glued on and the background script and snow are both done with Club Scrap stamps--the script is Earth and Herbs and the snow is both Winter Wonderland and Friendship stamps. Looking forward to day 4 tomorrow.

On the Second Day of........

Ahhhhhh......day 2 of the 12 Tags of Christmas. I went a whole different color scheme with this one so hop on over to Tim's blog if you want to see the inspiration. I actually made 3 tags today. I started with the reindeer one and then decided that stamp wasn't bold enough so I dug out my holly leaf and berry stamps. I didn't have any cut 'n dry felt so just had to wing it. The deer is from ClearStamps; the holly and berry are JRL Designs; the swirls and Peace on Earth are Club Scrap Ivory Elegance and Evergreen kits. I used Peeled Paint, Pine Needles, Fired Brick, Aged Mahogany, Victorian Velvet, Frayed Burlap and Walnut Stain distress inks. The little gold charms have been in my stash a very, long time and I have no idea where they are from.

On The First Day of........

It's that time again. For those of you who follow Tim Holtz and his 12 Tags of Christmas you know exactly what I'm talking about. Today is day 1 and it has quite the tag for the big kick off. I had to improvise a little since I don't have dies or a die-cutter, but I do have alot of grungeboard, so I made do with tracing and doing a bit of freehand cutting to get my house and picket fence. And for my tree, I used the tan twisties from Club Scrap's Friendship kit. I just love the fun art Tim creates for these 12 days. Just click on the Tim Holtz link to the right if you want to go check out this year and previous year's tags. The fun has begun!

A Blast of Alcohol

After giving up on the challenge last week (I just didn't like anything I had created) I was overjoyed to see that this week's CCC from Studio L3 involved my favorite--Alcohol Inks!!!! Literally, this week's challenge is a BLAST! You'll have to get the book and turn to page 52 to find out what that's all about. The jellyfish card uses Wild Plum, Sailboat Blue, Bottle Green and Stream AI's and the sea turtle card uses Bottle, Stream, Meadow, Eggplant and Sailboat Blue AI's. Both use image stamps from Club Scrap's Castaway kit and sayings from By the Seashore Remix. The cardstock is mostly from CS as well, (Stratosphere, Haberdashery, Castaway).

All That Jazz

The new Club Scrap kit (All That Jazz) is out and is it ever GORGEOUS!!! The versatility of the kit is incredible. I have yet to do one that has a music theme. It just goes with everything. This one is of my parents in 1987 on their 25th anniversary cruise.

This one is me, I'm thinking about 1997, just hanging out in my parents' backyard watching Paul and Will play.

And this one is a family pic we took in 2004, all wearing our U2 t-shirts; I tweaked the photo a little with a fresco filter. Isn't this a great kit?

Industrial Grunge Drawer Front

The Compendium of Curiousities Challenge over at StudioL3 this week sent me back into drawer front mode. I love working with grungeboard and this is a great technique. I was going for a tarnished pewter look for my "Hardware" drawer. I used silver mixative and Weathered Wood distress ink. 5 more to go and then it will be finished.

Extreme Mask CCC #19

This week's CCC from Studio L3 is called Extreme Masking. It was a really fun technique and I intend to try it many more times. In honor of my grandma's 90th birthday coming up in November I decided to make a special birthday card for her with the technique. She absolutely loves fall colors and I thought the combination of Wild Honey, Barn Red, Peeled Paint and Pine Needles was perfect with the Club Scrap Arts & Crafts mask. The quote "Let us dance in the sun with flowers in our hair" from the Nature's Retreat kit seemed appropriate as well. Hope you all have a wonderful and safe Halloween!

CCC Dauber Resist

Once again, I'm cutting it close. If you want to join in the fun, hop on over to Studio L3 and check out the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge. You'll need the book (you need it anyway, hehehe). This is such a fun and quick technique. I really should do it more often. And I used my 3 new distress inks too. Barn Door, Victorian Velvet and Wild Honey. The brown matte is from Club Scrap's Bridges kit and the print bg is from K&Company.

A Fun, Fantastic Day with the SCA

I We had a great time visiting Will and Brianna in Tucson a couple of weeks ago. Will had an SCA event that he was fighting in and this was our first chance to get to see him in action. It was FABULOUS!! I, of course, had to do some scrapping afterward. I still have a few more pages to do, but here's what I've got so far. I used alot of Ornamental and Concrete Jungle kit items from Club Scrap for these.

Musical Fragments

I'm back in the swing of things. Just could not get my act together last week. I needed a vacation from getting back from vacation............huh? I decided to make a pair of earrings for the Fragment Charms CCC over at Studio L3 this week. Very simple, but I am very happy with them. They are a surprise for someone........and that's all I'm saying.

Heritage Photos on Scholarship

The new Club Scrap kit came out last week. It's called Scholarship and has beautiful watercolor backgrounds and lovely school themed sketches. It just called to my heritage photos. The first 2 are of my grandfather and his older sister and their cousins in about 1917. The lower one is one of my mom's class pictures, I think 1952.

Have a great week, everyone!

We're Having So Much Fun

We are having a blast on the Oregon Coast. Hard to believe vacation is almost over. We've caught 24 crabs and eaten handful after handful of huckleberries. It's poured buckets of rain and had beautiful sunny days, and a squirrel running across the roof that has driven us nuts!! We're keeping our fingers crossed that we've fixed the leak in the roof and we have new hardwood flooring in the back room and out to partway through the kitchen. We've also taken a couple of beautiful hikes, which I'll scrapbook this week and post as well. Have a great Wednesday, everyone!

CCC AI Agate

Well, I thought I was down for the count on this one. Thought I packed grungeboard, but couldn't find it, thought I had some fabric scraps along, but no dice. Tried it on some thick chipboard and it turned out like $#!@. Then I saw some hardwood flooring scraps leftover from our project in the back room and decided to give it a go on that. I may add a little to it when I get home to my plethora of supplies, but I'm happy with it so far. I used bottle, stream, lettuce and meadow on the bottom; red pepper, butterscotch and latte in the middle; and stream, stonehenge, denim and eggplant on the top. 2 new Stampscapes stamps for the image.

Crabbing Fun!

We are having a blast at our little cove in Oregon. The crabbing on the Siuslaw has been fantastic. The weather has been off and on. A couple of beautiful sunny days and some knock down, drag out, frog stranglers too. Wouldn't trade it for anything though.

Happy B Day Paul

What to do, what to do? I tried to anticipate what the challenges might be for the

CCC over at StudioL3 this week since I'm on vacation and have limited supplies. Completely forgot to bring ANY of my masks. However, I did want to make a card for my son's 23'd birthday yesterday and came up with a little improvise. I took my little stick man stamp from Club Scrap's Polynesian kit and stamped it on a double layer of packing tape, then cut out the mask. Unfortunately, it tore on the very last image I tried to create, but the card turned out kind of cute anyway. Have a great weekend everyone. And Happy Birthday, Paul!!

Grunge Rose

This week we're making grunge flowers from our wonderful CCC books. You should hop on over to StudioL3 and see some of the gorgeous art being created for this challenge. I hunted and hunted for my grunge paper this week and couldn't find it, but I did find a rose all cut out from TH's 12 Days of Christmas tags from last year, so I went with it and decided to make a holiday brooch. The ribbon really brightened up with the flash, it is much more wine colored in real life. Have a great week everyone!

Hey, Hey......it's Adobe!

This was just a stop for the night at Zion as we were driving from AZ to Washington one year. The colors were spectacular.

A beautiful sunrise at our property in Snowflake, AZ. One of the rare occasions it actually got snow, but it sure was pretty.

One of our favorite camping spots on the Oregon Coast is at aptly named Sunset Bay. You're almost guaranteed a gorgeous sunset every night. (well, that's if the sun is out, this is Oregon)

That's the name of Club Scrap's new kit and it's absolutely GORGEOUS!!! I've been looking through a ton of picture files the last few days and every few minutes I come across one that is perfect with these designs. Guess it helps that I live in the desert, but I find that it goes with just about anything.

Some Fall Magic

Just finishing up my last ATCs for a swap using each month of the year as the theme. Only criteria being the intial letter or name of the month somewhere on the ATC. I used some Tim Holtz stamps and a little Club Scrap, the bases are all K&Company paper and then just some bling from my stash. Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday week end. Thanks for stopping by.

Chipped Enamel Drawer Front

Well, I got my act together early this week and finished another drawer front. I'm halfway done and now I'm wishing I had more. This is for the Chipped Enamel Compendium of Curiosities Challenge posted over at StudioL3. And, lucky me, I have 18 colors of Distress Embossing Powder. I used Milled Lavender, Dusty Concord, Tattered Rose, Mustard Seed, Dried Marigold, Shabby Shutters, Pine Needles, Broken China, Faded Jeans, Fired Brick, Aged Mahogany, Weathered Wood, Tea Dye, and Antique Linen. I love this stuff! I used some TH metal foliage, some metal letters, an old metal token and book plates. This will be my metal doodad drawer. Hope you all have fun making chipped enamel this week!!!