GOOD NITE 2011! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This will be my last post for 2011.  I am thrilled with the progress I made this year.  I completed 600 layouts and 225 cards as well as several art journal pages and various swap projects.  I just did my first project for Mojo Mondays which was my 225th card.  Thought I would post it here:

Tomorrow I will be posting my first challenge of the NewYear on Colorful Creations...let's just say it will be something VERY different.  And then I will be taking a few weeks off from my scrapping to make our BIG move to Delaware.  Hopefully 2012 will bring many new adventures.

CHRISTMAS, NEW YEARS AND NEWS

Christmas Eve this year was not as festive as it normally is but we did have dinner out which is part of our usual tradition.  Christmas day I went to Michael's, met the rest of his wonderful family and had a really great day.  Now the New Year is nearly upon us.  It will be a big one for me and my children as we are relocating by mid-month to Delaware!

It will also be a big one for Colorful Creations where I am a member of the fun and fabulous Design Team.  They have converted their blog to a sketch site starting in January.  There will be a new sketch on the 1st and 15th of every month.  Great prizes too.  Be sure to head on over and become a follower and get ready to enjoy some truly awesome sketches to help inspire your scrapping fun!

Card of the Day!

One of my cards was selected by Angie at ScrapScene to be today's card of the day.  You can see it here.  I was so excited to be selected.  She has been doing a card of the day all month and there have been some real beauties.  Be sure to check out her site.

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 12

Today is the Grand Finale of the Tim Holtz 12 Days of Christmas tag series.  It was great fun to participate even though I chose to make cards rather than tags.  Today, I took my inspiration from Tim's tag as far as the colors - a beautiful blue, white and silver and many of his products but mine took on a totally different look.  First I started with Broken China Distress stain for my background and I covered that with the Music Tissue Tape.  I took a cereal box and covered it with Aluminum Duct Tape and ran it through an embossing folder and die cut letters for PEACE.  I stained the letters with blue alcohol ink then I mounted them on black cardstock shadows.  I stamped an angel image and embossed it with silver.  I cut it out and also mounted it on black leaving a very narrow border just to make the angel stand out more the way the letters had.  I added some blue gems in the centers of the snowflakes.  I made a rosette with a piece of lace, added a silver ribbon flower and put them both on a piece of silver tinsel.  I really enjoyed working on this one.  I have participated everyday and I am really going to miss it tomorrow morning.

Hope you have enjoyed viewing my cards.  Tomorrow I will decide who is getting which one and address them and get them out in the mail.

Have a peaceful blessed holiday season!

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 11

Today Tim did a very Jolly Santa on a beautiful blue background. He used a melting pot, shrink plastic, alcohol inks and UTee to make embellishments.  I had a very busy day today and only got to working on my tag this evening.  I did not have any shrink plastic (or a melting pot) so I used packaging and UTee and very small diecut leaves and a tree branch. I colored them with alcohol inks.  I did my background with several shades of blue Distress inks and stains on glossy cardstock. The background still looked too plain so I ran it through a holiday embossing folder for some texture. I stamped my Santa and HoHoHo in black on glossy cardstock.  I used red Distress ink and Walnut stain Distress ink on blending foam to color Santa and his reindeer.  I used Forest Green Distress stain to color the HoHoHo.  I added a bit of white Liquid Pearls for the snow on top of the letters.  I used foam tape to pop up the Santa and HoHoHo like Tim did.  Up in the corner I added my plastic Utee branch and leaves.  I added a few red pearls for the holly berries.

It's not my favorite but here it is:

Can't wait to see what Tim comes up with for the Grand Finale tomorrow!

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 10

I simply loved Tim's tag today.  I didn't have any fragments though and had some glass baubles and squares but none that would work with any little vintage photos I could use. To start I used a kraft colored sheet of cardstock and stamped some music onto it. I then stamped some holly in the corners and embossed them with UTee and added little red brads for the berries. To improvise the ornaments I ended up using 2 button brads and a large chipboard embellishment with a vintage feel to it and coated them thickly with Diamond Glaze to give that glass covered look.  For my word I had used gold stickers also covered in Diamond Glaze.

Here is the outcome:

I'm not really happy with the way this photographed.  The small circles have candy canes and a gingerbread boy in them.

Hope you have enjoyed looking!  Thanks for leaving a comment!

MORE JINGLE BELL CROP TIME TODAY!

Don't forget to check out the Colorful Creations Jingle Bell Crop!  We are having a blast with the games and cute quick projects!  Don't forget I will be posting mine at 6pm EST.  Hope you will come and play along!

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 9

Well, mine today looks nothing like Tim's.  It was inspired by the double embossing and the new holiday distress inks and a diecut but...I had several failed attempts doing the red and green with a stamp so I decided to use the inking embossing folder technique from the other day.  I inked my folder in gold.  I used the Evergreen Bough over the raised parts then covered the whole thing with versa mark and Utee.  I cut a Gingerbread boy from chipboard and stained it using Wild Honey Distress Stain.  Then, after that was dry I used my ink blending tool to add some Walnut Distress Ink around the edges.  I added 2 green pearls for eyes, traced the mouth with black gel pen and put white felt rickrak on the hands and feet.  I covered the rikrak with White Liquid Pearls to make it look more like icing on a cookie.  There were two little hearts which I used some red glitter and Rock Candy Stickles on.  I mounted it on my card which I had edged with the Evergreen Bough ink.  Added a border of black rikrak trim and I was done.  Here's my version of today!

JINGLE BELL CROP STARTS TODAY!!!

Please stop by the Jingle Bell Crop over at Colorful Creations.  The Design team has prepared some fun quick make and takes and there will be games and prizes.  It starts today at at noon PST (that's 3pm for those of us on the East Coast!)  My project will post on Saturday at 3pm PST (6pm EST) and I promise it will be fun, quick and easy and will be useful for your holiday gift giving.

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 8

Welcome to Day 8!  Today Tim did a Steampunk theme.  Although I think the look is very interesting it is not really my style.  Ironically, the card I did today turned out to be one of my favorites.  I had a clock die cut and some gear diecuts that I colored with the Metallic Paint Daubers and then used Walnut Distress stain on top.  I had the Graphic 45 Steampunk pad which I have had forever and hadn't used so I was happy for an opportunity to use something from there.  I chose the Steampunk Debutante.  With the wings and the Christmas theme I figured she would be a good punky angel.  I didn't have the picket fence paint dauber so I used the silver instead and stamped a background image on my card.  Then I took the 3 shades of Holiday Distress ink and my blending tool and colored my background.  I took a music stamp and ghosted in a few places.  I got all these items adhered to my card and finished off with a snowflake, shiny black chipboard 'JOY' and 2 antique metal buttons.  Here's today's card:

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 7

I would have to say Tim's tag from today was my favorite.  I can't say the same about my own.  I did not have the glassine paper but I had a roll of paper that seemed similar.  I did not do well with the inking.  I hand cut the holly leaves as I don't have a holly die.  I stamped my Merry Christmas and embossed with black embossing powder but it did not get raised and shiny like it should have so I added UTEE over all of it after cutting it out.  When I used crackle the other day I couldn't get it to crack.  Today, I could not keep the UTEE from cracking.  I opted to do a red background with the new Distress holiday edition and some Cranberry colorwash spray.  I added a mist of water and dried it.  I used cereal box covered with gold paint dabber to cut the Sizzix Bare Tree which I cut apart.  I used Snow Cap Mixative and Rock Candy Distress Stickles on the branches. I knotted a piece of tulle. I decided to use a rosette die centered with a rhinestone to add to the mix.  I used some gold ink on it and then assembled it and inked it with Red on the folds and edges.

Here is the result:

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 6

Good Morning Day 6!  Today, Tim used foil, embossing folders, paint, and embossing powder to make a great metal sign look to the tag.  Be sure to check his out here.

I used some more of my huge roll of Aluminum Duct Tape on some glossy cardstock. I used a Sizzix Santa embossing folder. I didn't have that many colors of acrylic paint so I substituted Sharpie markers and some Stickles for some of the colors.  When I used the Walnut Ink it made my whites too brown so I wiped off, re-whitened my white spaces and used clear Versa Mark to prep it for the Utee Clear Embossing Powder.  Since I am making cards rather than tags I then took my card and covered it with a red and white patterned paper and then adhered my 'faux metal' Santa tag.

Here he is:

Hope you enjoyed another day of my card version of Tim's wonderful tags!

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 5

Happy Monday!  Today is Day 5 of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas and I thought at first I was going to be able to get the same effect but sadly not...but I did find a great improv for it.  Tim started off with a clear plastic sheet and glossy cardstock.  I had clear packaging and glossy cardstock as well as alcohol inks so other than the reverse stamp I figured it would be a piece of cake today.  I used my Red Pepper and Cranberry alcohol inks to cover the plastic.  Then I decided to do snowflakes for the resist technique because they would look just as well in reverse.  I tried the ink technique and blotting it off and it just smeared the color.  I tried it with the alcohol blending solution and it removed everything in the area.  So...time for a new idea.  I used Snow Cap Mixative and stamped the snowflakes.  So far so good - I had white snowflakes just like Tim's white words.  That was UNTIL I put the ink side down on the glossy card stock.  I now had darker snowflakes but the effect was still there.  I didn't have leaves for the wreath so I decided to do a tree.  For my tree I took aluminum duct tape and adhered it to cereal box.  I ran this through a textured embossing folder with swirls then I ran it through a Sizzix tree die.  I took 2 shades of green alcohol ink and inked the tree and 2 shades of brown and inked the stump.  I decided I wanted a bit more shading to the tree so then I stamped my Icy Pine Distress ink over that and adhered it to the plastic.

And Voila! here is what resulted:

I hope you can see the snowflakes...in the picture you have to look a lot more carefully than at the card itself.

Thanks for looking!  Have a great day!

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 4

For today's tag I actually had some of the right materials - in different colors or types/styles but closer than I've been on any other day.  First take a look at Tim's and then I will tell you all about mine.

To start, I didn't have grungeboard but I did have a Sizzix snowman die and snowflake die which I cut from a cereal box.  I didn't have the white stain so I used white gesso.  I cut the scarf and hat from felt.  Next I coated the snowman and snowflake with clear crackle accents as I didn't have the rock candy crackle paint.  I didn't get the nice crackles that Tim did but it does have an icy glaze to it.  I didn't have the Picket Fence stain so I used Faded Jeans and Broken China.  I misted my card front and dragged it through the stain.  I added more Broken China stain as I wanted a bit deeper of a color.  I then took some snowflake stamps and stamped on with Faded Jeans stain. I used Snow Cap Alcohol Ink to stamp a white swirl.  Finally the snowman and snowflake were dry and I was able to adhere them to the card front!

Here's the result:

I hope you are all enjoying Tim's Tags and my cards.  Please come back again tomorrow for Day 5.

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 3

Today is day 3 of the Tim Holts 12 Tags of Christmas and I didn't have any of the items needed to do what Tim did so I improvised.  The theme of the day seemed to be using various colors of ink and embossing.  I didn't have any holiday colored re-inkers to make my own felt so I decided to ink a holiday embossing folder with the 3 colors of Tim's Limited Edition Distress Inks.  After embossing my paper I took a gold ink pad and swiped it over the raised areas.  Then I took versa mark and swiped over it and added some gold Perfect Pearls and heat set.  For my 3D decoration I took a pointsettia chipboard dimensional sticker as well as some Sizzix leaf cuts.  I mounted them on a piece of music banner that I had accordian folded and covered with Walnut Distress Ink.  I finished that up using crackle accents on the leaves and attached it to the center of my card.  Since I am making these cards I couldn't use a jingle bell as the only ones I had were a tad too large.

It doesn't really have the same effect as Tim's but it did inspire me to make another card so I'm a happy camper.

Here's my version:

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 2

Today was the second day of the Tim Holtz tags.  See Tim's tag here.

I decided to do a card again.  I had to substitute for a lot of the materials again.  For my background, I used music stamps on kraft paper, resist ink, and Distress Stain Broken China over a Crafters Workshop swirled stencil. I don't have a reindeer die or sticky canvas so I used a reindeer stamp on kraft paper with walnut stain Distress ink.  I mounted it on chipboard, cut it out and used pop up tape under it.   I made the wreath with a pipe cleaner colored with Distress Ink and Green Stickles.  I added a shooting star sticker and added red brads to the gold borders which I put on the top and bottom.

And here's mine:

I hope you are enjoying my take on Tim's wonderful tags.  At the end I will have a series of Christmas cards all set to mail out just in time!

THE TIM HOLTZ 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 1

Yesterday was the first day of Tim Holtz series 12 Days of Christmas tags.  Everyday he introduces a new tag with various techniques.  You can find everything for day 1 here:
Tim's tag day1

I decided that instead of tags I would use the techniques to make 12 cards.  We are supposed to modify with our own supplies when we don't have what Tim has used.  Instead of the snowflake embossing folder I used Swirls.  I did not have the Noel so I used a Sizzix Angel.  Instead of the banner I stamped some music and distressed it using Distress Walnut Ink.  I don't have the pine cone die so I used the rosette die and some small sizzix leaves.  I colored these with the limited edition Distress Holiday Inks.  I did the background of the card with the limited edition inks too and added a Martha Stewart border punch.
Here is my version of Day 1: