Tattered Floral Challenge

I am enjoying the Pattern Play class and thought I would combine my day 2 card with Tim Holtz's Tattered Floral challenge.

 I seem to have a lot of paper and need a few more lessons in how to combine them. Day one had a lot of great ideas. Here is my first card in the this class.

Altered Boxes Eclectic Paperie Challenge

Altered Heart

Original 

  I decided to join in on the fun with Eclectic Paperie challenge to alter a box.   Lots of layers - tissue paper, gesso, dylusions ink spray, distress ink, perfect pearls and embossing, were all experimented with.

I finished off with a collection of flowers I have made over time ranging from embossed plastic to beeswax.  I am really happy with the way this turned out.

Prepped with tissue paper

Back side

Gesso, spray and stencils

Close up of flowers

I Hope You'll Dance

I made the bird cage using Tim Holtz's enameled stamping technique.  I really like how it turned out - it might be hard to see but they are tiny orange stars embedded in the cage.  The background was lightly distress stained and then stamped and clear embossed with a Dina Wakley heart stamp plus more  distress ink. An embossing folder at bottom seems to give the cage for the little  embossed birdie a place to rest. More distress stains and a sentiment mounted on grunge paper along with the tiny key and flower finish this off.

I will enter this in the Fall colors challenge at Frilly and Funkie.

30 minute challenge from Art Journal Cafe

 My sister Marjie Kemper is the guest artist at the Art Journal Cafe this  month and their challenge is a 30 minute spread. I like the time limit - it quiets the voices in my head that over analyze and worry that things are not working out ~ and I am happy with the finished project. 

New February Calendar page

I had so much fun completing the January calendar as part of Kate Crane's challenge.  I have decided to use 12 x 12 pages for this year  and will put the finished pages in an album. It was easy to keep the January page out and update as I went along.

For February I am letting my romantic side shine, I am a newlywed of 9 months and all I can say is "ain't  love grand"?  I used gesso and acrylic paints, distress inks, rub ons and stencils - just had fun with it.

Hope you have a great month!

2012 366 Challenge

The new year always brings hope and inspiration - time to try new things - spread your wings and fly. I think Kate Crane has wonderful inspiration for us, create a calendar  page at the beginning of the month (or the 16th if it is your first time and you are a big procrastinator like me :) ) and then journal throughout the month and post again when you are finished.

I recycled a flyer I received at work and stamped over it to get me going.  Hope to get on track and stay on top of it.  Thanks for visiting!

12 tags of christmas - day 3

My "day 3" Tim Holtz inspired 2011 tag

Oh what fun is it to play .... with the amazing 12 tags of Christmas inspired by Tim Holtz.  Day 3 concentrates on making a custom stamp pad; this fall I got to go to my first  stamp show  while I was visiting in NY ( so much fun to see so many products in person - my small town carries a limited supply) and I got a big piece of the stamp pad felt - just in case the technique surfaced again in this years tags.

I made my custom stamp pad using bundled sage, spiced marmalade and milled lavender; I decided to use clear embossing powder hoping that would help them hold on to their some what muted colors.  Then they went through the texture fade - I love how the stamps and matching folders work together! Some glimmer mist, some wiping off with baby wipes, distress on the edges and I was pretty happy with the background.

Not sure where exactly that poinsettia came from but I inked and painted and glimmer misted it up until I was happy with the results. The gold material under the flower was from a bag that a nice wine came in - made 4 circles out of it - folded and stapled  them to form a mat for the flower. I inked the mini tag with some soft pool shadow ink and then stamped the original custom stamp again following up with the sentiment.

Thanks for checking this out - would love to know what you think.

O Christmas Tree - O Christmas Tree!

Our Creative Corner has a Christmas tree theme challenge this week.  I have been experimenting with different kinds of inks (Ranger pigment vs distress vs Staz On) and working on my embossing technique.

Playing with Playful Flowers Stamp/die

I hae been wanting to get this Sizzix/Hero Arts stamp/die set. Using watercolor paper I embossed the flower in white and  blended  distress inks.  Now I need to work on my photography skills so you can't see my desk!

Wouldn't this be great to win!

Let's start at the very beginning...it's a very good place to start...

I have been inspired by my sister, Marjie She Who Stamps & Scraps and decided it was time to try my hand with a blog.  Have really been enjoying Holiday Card Boot Camp and am looking forward to sharing some of my cards.