Creative Chemistry-Day #5

Below are my tags for day 5.  Left to right they are Stained Kraft Resist, Stamping with Stains, and Marbled Stains.  The stained kraft resist and marbled stains are my favorites so far!  Funny thing happened...I tried to use Dusty Concord stain on the resist paper and it came out blue.  So I figured that had something to do with the color of the kraft resist.  I added the purple to that tag using the Distress ink pad and an ink blender.  I then used the same Dusty Concord stain on the next tag which was manila and it still came out blue!  So I'm not crazy and I have a Dusty Concord stain bottle that was filled with one of the blue shades of stain instead!

Creative Chemistry-Day #4

Below are my tags for day #4.  Left to right they are...Watercoloring with Re-inkers and Layered Misting.  I don't have an ink palette or very many distress reinkers so I squeezed the stamp pad and cover together so that some of the distress ink ended up on the inside of the pad cover.  Then I dipped the water brush in that.  That worked pretty well but the ink palette probably would be easier.  I didn't have cut and dry felt so I couldn't make the third tag!

Creative Chemistry Tags-Day #3

A few quickie posts...I was able to get caught up on the class content over the weekend.  These three tags are from day 3...left to right they are Alcohol Ink Agates, Archival Resist, and Stamping with Reflections.  I don't have any Reflections stamps so I used some other non-text stamps.  I didn't have good results with that so I ended up just embossing the tag and stamping directly on the tag!

Where in the World is My Vagabond?!

I'm adding this photo to enter the Sizzix Where in the World is Your Vagabond promotion.  In exchange for linking a photo you can receive a set of gauge keys and new stickers for the Vagabond machine.  I need the stickers as my first set didn't seem to adhere very well and some have come off.  Probably because of the Florida humidity.

Anyway, my Vagabond doesn't travel much...it sits on my craft counter ready to be used with all of the other awesome Tim Holtz products!

Sooooo...Where in the World is Your Vagabond???

Creative Chemistry 101 Catch-up!

Thanks to a clogged garbage disposal and no internet service I'm now playing catch-up on the Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 class.  I've been watching the videos at work on my lunch break but spent Tuesday night plunging my kitchen sink drain instead of playing with tags!!  I'm proud to say that thanks to some good advice found on Google I was able to clear the clog myself!  If anyone had walked by my kitchen window at the time they would have heard me yell "Woo-hoo!!" and cheer when the clog released.  What can I say?!  Sometimes it's the little things that mean the most!   And not having to call a plumber means I can spend that money buying more cool stuff to create with!  I hope to get my hands on some of those new Distress Markers and the new Alterations Dies that are due to be released any day now!

Enough small talk...on to my creations for Day 2 of the online class.  This is my first experience with an online class and I must say that I love it!!  You can work at your own pace and view the class content as many times as you need to.  Day 2 involved working with Distress Ink and water.  Here are my tag samples...

These are the only three tags I made.  I didn't get to experiment and only had time to make one sample for each technique.  I also completed two of the three tags for Day 3.  Hopefully I'll finish the remaining tag and the tags for Day 4 tonight and I'll be all caught up!  It's not too late to sign up for the class if you haven't already.  Just go here...http://www.onlinecardclasses.com/timholtz/class-info/.  You'll have unlimited access to all of the class content even after the class is finished.  Trust me...you'll learn lots of new things!  I have both of Tim's Compendium books but I've already benefitted from extra tips and tricks from the Master himself!

Party in a Card!

Long time no post!!  If I didn't have a day job I could post much more frequently.  But then how would I buy all of the cool stuff that I NEED!  Today I have a birthday card that I gave to my good friend Carol.  I like to think of it as a Party in a Card!!

I started with a gatefold card. The front is decorated with a scallop square and the words Happy Birthday.

 Inside I added a center platform for the pop-up and added Make a Wish.

When you pull down the platform the party hat, gift and sentiment pop-up in addition to the banner across the top. And no party would be complete without balloons! I used the Sizzix Bigz Zig-zag 3-D pop-up die on top to hold up the banner. I cut the die shape in half and glued the pieces to each side of the card. The banner was created with the Framelits Banners die sets and the Stamps of Life Banners4all stamp set. On the platform I used the Sizzix Bigz Scallop Circle 3-D pop-up die. For the finishing touch I "stickled it up"!  Because Stickles make everything better in my book!

Hope you like it!  I have a couple of Christmas banners to post as soon as I take the pics.  Yes, I know that Christmas is over with but I didn't have the time to finish them until Christmas was over with!  Hey, that just means I'm ahead of the game for this year!  Happy New Year to everyone!

I love Pop-Ups!

I've always had a thing for pop-ups or any kind of card or book that has things that move, flip, fold open, etc.  I've also always had a thing for Halloween! Maybe it's because I was born in October...or because I loved candy as a kid...I don't know...but the decorations and the colors of Halloween have always appealed to me.  So to prove that I actually do use some of the craft supplies that I buy...and to justify buying more...I pulled out all of the Halloween dies that I have purchased from Sizzix with the intent to make pop-up Halloween cards.  Of course, once I pulled them out I knew that in order to use all of them I'd have to make an awful lot of Halloween cards !!!  That's when I realized that the best way to use them...all in one project...was to create a Halloween pop-up book!  So here's what I came up with...

For the pop-ups I used several different Sizzix dies designed by Karen Burniston.  I had to be creative and alter the pop-up to suit my needs since I made the book first and then had to design the pop-ups to fit the pages!  Kind of backwards, I know, but that's how I work sometimes!  The only frustrating part of the process was having to leave the project unfinished and go to my day job!  It took several weekends to complete but I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.

Here are the supplies that I used:

Sizzix Dies- Karen Burniston Pop-up Bigz 3-D Scallop Circle, 3-D Bat, 3-D Spider & Spiderweb, 3-D Pull Tag Frame; Tim Holtz Alterations Gothic Boo, Candlelight Fright, Pumpkin Jack, Rickety House, Bewitching Hour, Branch Tree, mini Bat & Skull set, mini Cat & Raven set, Silly Jack-O-Lantern set, Scary Jack-O-Lantern set, Vintage Market strip, Cobwebs texture fades; Sizzix Bigz Ghosts #3; Bigz Sweet w/Skull; Bigz Treat Bag & Candy; Originals Witch Hat, broom & shoes; Originals Fence; Originals RIP & Tombstone; Bat strip; Candy strip; Sizzlit Skeleton; Sizzlit Graveyard Set.  Paper- Authentique, Fancy Pants Design, Pink Paislee, My Mind’s Eye, Making Memories, SEI, Cloud9 Design, Reminisce, Echo Park Paper, Karen Foster, Doodlebug Design, Recollections, Coredinations.  Stamps-Tim Holtz Stamper’s Anonymous; Stampabarbara; Pink Paislee;  Catslife Press; Technique Tuesday; Martha Stewart.  Stickers- Little Yellow Bicycle, The Girls’ Paperie, K & Company, Martha Stewart.  Punches- Marvy Uchida.  Miscellaneous- Ranger Stickles, Scrappy Glue, Yes paste, Maya Road bingo number, 7 Gypsies cable rings, We R Memory Keepers Crop-a-dile Big Bite.