Happy Holidays 2011

Loved making these little book trees this year. I'm absolutely covered with glitter, but well worth it.

I actually got a double bloom on my amarylis this year. First time in a long time, we'll have it through the new year I think. Some of my favorite holiday decorations too. I didn't put out very much though, as we have the master bath completely gutted to redo soon and stuff is piled everywhere.

A Wreath of Tags

I decided I needed a place for all the tags I've done over the last 5 years and chose a foam wreath as my base. I covered it with holiday fabric and then poked wire through and made coiled up clips that I could put a brad through to hold the tags on. I haven't done every tag over the years, but I do have about 50 on there with room for next year's too! Have a very safe and happy Holiday!

12 Tags of Christmas, Day 12

Ahhhh, day 12. It's been a fun journey through the 12 Tags of Christmas this year. Already looking forward to next year's journey.

12 Tags of Christmas, Day 11

I just loved playing with the melting pot for this one. Wish I'd had a more whimsical Santa stamp, but I worked with what I had. Kind of  a super easy technique for this one, but I like the vibrant colors you get.

The 12 Tags of Christmas, Day 10

Day 10 brings us to those lovely little faceted charms. Love the look of putting the foil tape behind them. Genious! I used a Club Scrap Christmas tree stamp for my background and then trolled around in the bling box for the rest of the doodads.

The 12 Tags of Christmas, Day 9

Just a little improvising for today's tag. I used a Club Scrap UM stamp from Written Word Remix for my back ground swirls. Pine Needles and Fired Brick Distress inks. I coated some grunge letters and swirl with black EP and added some bling. The lamppost and greenery were an RAK from my friend Monica which I stamped with some bg noise and embossed with Marcasite EP. Topped off with ribbon and pompom yarn from my stash.

The 12 Tags of Christmas, Day 8

This is one of my favorite tags this year. I kind of changed the umbrella man into a bit of a santa. Not sure I like him yet, but he's growing on me. I used some ClubSscrap background stamps from Retro and Workbench kits and then just started looking through the stash for bits and baubles to jazz it up.

The 12 Tags of Christmas, Day 7

My day 7 tag went so different that it turned 90 degrees and went horizontal! I had none of the supplies on the list for this one so just started rummaging through the stash for this one. The leaves are done with the the divider papers in my pastel sketch book. Kind of looks like unwaxed waxed paper and seemed to have the same properties of the glassine paper that Tim uses. Had some sparkly red mesh and pearl beads from a broken necklace, so those worked. The stamp is from a clearstamps sheet and polka dot sheer ribbon inked with Fired Brick Distress.

12 Tags of Christmas Day 6

I'm catching up on my tags and really enjoyed this technique. I swear it looks like vintage enamel work. Definitely going to play around with this some more. I don't really have any holiday embossing folders so I went with the post card one again. Added a little 3-d sticker and a charm, but mostly wanted to leave the tag open to show that great technique.

Tribute to a Wonderful Lady

 My grandma passed away last week at the wonderful age of 91. I spent many week ends with her and my grandpa as a child and she taught me so much. I am in Washington for her memorial service today and thought I would put up a few pictures of her.  This is me, my grandpa (who passed in 1985) and my grandma at Mowich Lake in the foothills of Mt. Rainier. I was 5.

Here she is with my 2 boys shortly after Will was born in 1991. My oldest is now 24 and happy he got to know her into his adult hood.

Here she is with a rare candid smile on her face. She was tough to photograph, always hiding from the camera.

And here is one of my favorite photos of me, my mom and her mom. We were always gabbing and drinking coffee when we were together and often went on spur of the moment shopping trips.







Goodbye grandma, I will miss you................

The 12 Tags of Christmas Day 5

Day 5 brings us that fun alcohol ink technique with a negative image. Well, no reflection stamps here so I just used some fun snowflakes and a stocking. Punched some holly leaves out of dark green and sheet music for the wreath and colored some bling with red pepper AI for berries. The little treble clef clip just looked like it went.

The 12 Tags of Christmas Day 4

So far, the tree theme is working for me. I used the big branch die to make an icy, wintry tree with some faded jeans and weathered wood distress stains. The flowers are K&Company and the snowflake is from Stickopotamus. I made the little bauble at the top with some jewelry beads and findings. I like that technique with the picket fence distress stain on the background. It really softens the colors.  Head on over to Tim's blog and check out the inspiration.

The 12 Tags of Christmas Day 3

After baking all day and mulling over what I was going to do, I ended up going in a totally different way today. I really didn't have a stamp I wanted to repeat the color stamping and I don't have any matching embossing folders and stamps, so I started with the postcard folder on some black pastel paper. After running through the Big Kick I colored various areas with perfect pearls. Then found a desert "yule" tree and tacked that on with a pretty little cardinal sitting in the crook of its arm. The "peace"  is from some Kay & Company glitter rubons. And I just noticed I have a bit of a tree theme going on here for the first 3 days. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

12 Tags of Christmas--Day 2

Ahhhh, day 2. More improvisation here since I don't have the seasonal kraft, but I do have the regular seasonal paper and that worked pretty well, with some of my own stamps and clear embossing powder. I'm kinda liking that picket fence distress stain (first time I've used that). I have the tree die and not the deer so I went with that version and then found these cute little bead strung gold and silver light bulbs that looked great with the tree. Some brocade trim and brads in place of the border strip and a little gold dove charm round out the tag.

The 12 Tags of Christmas Day 1

The 12 Tags has arrived! Yeah! As you can see I've gone off on a little tangent as I didn't have many of the supplies for today's tag. If you want to see the inspiration head on over to Tim's blog and check out today's tutorial. I did the background on the tag following the tut, but using the cracked glass folder. I added some cut out snowy trees with a touch of glitter, a very glittery snowflake and a gold santa charm tinted with alcohol inks. The baubles are homemade from broken jewelry and the ho ho ho sticker is a K&Company from last year.

Hope you all are enjoying the kick off to the yule as much as I am.

Rosette Tree

Just playing around getting ready for the 12 tags to start tomorrow. Made this cute little tree out of red and green rosettes.

Found some pretty blue strips in the scrap bin and made a couple of ornament blanks too. They are so pretty with that extra little bit of glitter on the edges.

Can hardly wait for the tags to start!!

Themed Swap Cards

These are cards for our October and November themed swaps over at PAO. October's is Shoot for the Moon, Land on the stars. I used Club Scrap's Celestial stamp for the sun/moon with sunflower perfect pearls, Club Scrap and some handmade papers. The trees are a Rubber Stampede stamp with white ink and crystal embossing powder. The November theme is Under the Sea with a Distress stain background and ClearStamps scene, Club Scrap papers and harlequin fiber from my stash.

Almost time for the 12 Tags of Christmas. I'm ready! Are you?

A Wintry Lottery Piece

Our November Lottery over at PAO is to create something with metal, so I created a little winter scene in a repurposed tuna can. I added one of those battery operated candles through a hole drilled through the back. I used some VERY old holiday paper that had these cute snow covered trees on it, some sparkly snowflakes in the background, cotton ball snow, a snowman button and some pretty green trim.

We've been to WAR!!!!!!

So where the h-e- double toothpicks have I been? I noticed that it's been about 6 weeks since I posted on my blog. Well, alot happened in October. My dad had surgery to repair several abdominal aortic aneurysms so I was up in Washington helping out for a couple of weeks during that (surgery was successful and he's recovering slowly but surely). Then we had the long 2-day drive back to Arizona for the winter and had to prepare for the fall SCA event Southern Crusades, which we returned from just 2 days ago. To the left is our encampment with St. Felix, the chapter from UA that Will is the Seneschal for. You'll notice the 2 guard dogs in front of our tent. They had a good time too.

Here we have Will, center, fighting in one of the scenarios on Saturday. The fighting was really fun to watch and I believe Will's team was triumphant at the tournament. There was even a torchlight tournament on Friday night where Will came in 3rd and earned a very nice copper tankard as a prize.  

Had a beautiful clear night with a full moon and Venus rising together the first night we were there. The weather also held and we had no rain until take down on Sunday. Gorgeous fighting weather. 

I also took a couple of classes, one was how to make a viking hat (need to finish with some fur trim) and Egyptian Chain, which is in the picture above. We had a wonderful time and can hardly wait until the spring and Estrella!!!

We're starting to get the hang of this......

We've been out on the River about 5 times now and have a 5lb King jack salmon and a 4lb Wild Coho to show for it. Not bad. Still looking for that big Chinook, but we're getting better.........

Pine Needle Baskets

When we were camping at Lassen in August I bought a kit with instructions on how to make pine needle baskets. And we were camping right in the middle of hundreds of Ponderosa Pine trees. I collected up a grocery bag full of them and I've been making these cute little baskets while watching tv in the evenings. I've made 3 so far; these 2 here and 1 tiny one that sits on the dash of the car to hold change. They are so addicting and each one turns out unique. I scrapped this picture using several Club Scrap digi kits including: Adobe, Apothecary, Henna and Fossils.

Wing-ed Things

Finishing up some swap commitments. I really was having a block on this Winged Things swap and then got linked up with some flower tutorials and was off to the races, finally. I started with a Citra Solv background and then did some flower stamping with acrylic paint; then cut apart more flowers to make butterflies with a bead body and wire antennae. Voila!

Happy 24! Paul

Happy Birthday, Paul! It's such a unique year as we were both born in the year of the Rabbit and that makes me twice as old as you. I dug up some great layouts featuring you as the star. The Inn at Spanish Bay uses Club Scrap's Gratitude kit; The layout with Gus in the snow is done with some digi freebies and CS Milestones; The trip to Florida is on CS Concrete Jungle and the one relaxing by the pool is on CS Anniversary Cruise. Hope you enjoy your day and all the College Football games.

The Mummy Strikes!

It's getting to be that time of year, when the ghosts and ghoulies come out to play!  Well, I know it's over a month away, but when you're swapping ATC's you kinda gotta get going a little early. This idea popped into my head at 3am the other day and I got a chance to put it into action today. I couldn't resist this Halloween themed tissue tape when I saw it at Michael's and I'd been mulling over how to make a mummy with it, when "make a wire form and wrap it" came to me in the wee hours. Some chain tie downs and a mica flake floor and it all came together.

And a big Happy Birthday (for real) to my son Paul! 24 years today! Ahhhhhhh, I can remember it like it was yesterday!

Transparent Tea Time Pendant

I got some of those new faceted fragments to play with for the current Grungy Monday challenge (21 I think it is). I also wanted to do a necklace for the September lottery at paperartistsonline so I combined the two and came up with this piece. It's a mini collage with a teacup theme and I incorporated a couple of the techniques that Tim describes on his blog. I used the oval facet and some of my newly purchased beads from my visit to Shipwreck Beads last month. ( If you're in the Olympia, Washington area at all--a must see--bring your wallet). It was a little difficult to photograph the facet since it has faux-etching on the top, but you can see the little teacup at the bottom. Tomorrow we're going salmon fishing. Hope we get a big one!

A Puzzling Dilemma........

I'm hosting a swap over at paperartistsonline and I spent the week end finishing up my pieces for it. I decided to go for a Tim Holtz inspired theme on mine and I have fallen in love with that new resist paper of his. I used an entire sheet on each piece. I love how it takes the distress ink so well and the resist just POPS! 

I also used some cutout images from the DCWV paper stack Tattered Time, another paper I'm finding I love to play with. When I was up visiting my crafty friends in Washington I got to use the big clock die and the tattered flowers die so I added some of those to some of the pieces too. They were cut from Club Scrap pops.

 

I also got to use a whole bunch of new ideology doodads that I've been dying to try. Those little light bulbs take alcohol ink beautifully and the little chain dangles remind me of pendulum clock chains.

And now for the dilemma--WHICH ONE DO I KEEP!!!!! In hosting this swap, I get to look at each and every one of these beautiful works of art (there are 48 in all), but I also have to decide which one's to swap out and which one's I get to keep. I only get 3 plus one of my own and I want them ALL!!!

A Wonderful Surprise!

We decided to head for the beach this morning. The sun was out, the wind was nonexistent (a rarity for the Oregon Coast) so a nice walk on the beach sounded great. We just get down to where the surf line is when what to our amazement a whole pod of whales is putting on a show just beyond the breakers. We stood mesmerized for almost 2 hours watching them spout and turn in the water. I wasn't able to see them through the camera, but by zooming into where they were and then watching above the camera for the spouts, I was able to get about 6 fairly good pics. At least you can actually see the whales in them. Not sure what kind of whales they were, but we think maybe, sperm whales.

The digital layout was created with the new Club Scrap kit Versailles, with some Castaway and Milestones thrown into the mix. It was quite a spectacular day.

Grungy Monday 17 A Rockin' Altered Spice Rack

 It's time for Grungy Monday and I just happened to be using Rock Candy Stickles while I was altering this old spice rack I found at the GoodWill for a whole $1. Cool find heh? And I was using lots of Tim Holtz goodies so I'm getting a two-for with Grungy Monday and the PAO monthly cybercrop this week end. Whoo hoo!

First, I sanded the rack to rough it up a bit, then painted with white acrylic paint. Next, I started covering the various surfaces with DCWV new Tattered Time papers and started adding charms and tags made from some Tim Holtz ideology doodads, some Graphic 45 stuff and some things from my stash that have been lying around for awhile.

I used Rock Candy Stickles on all the paper flowers and the butterfly at the top, although it is very difficult to see in the photos. I just wanted a little shimmer, which is the absolute beauty of the stickles.

 And here we have my new Art Medium Rack all loaded up with Embossing Powders, Twinkling H2Os, Perfect Pearls, Pearl Ex, and Distress Stains. Have a great week everyone! Get out there and create!