When Life Has Other Plans

I've been absent from the weekly CC2C challenges for the past few weeks.  I hadn't missed a week since the challenge began but something came up and I couldn't find the inspiration.  After various doctor appointments and procedures, for something I thought would be relatively benign, I found out that I had endometrial cancer.  The doctor said that it was detected very early but when you hear the word "cancer" you kind of don't hear anything else after that.  A week later I was sitting in an oncologist's office hearing the words "aggressive" and "lymph nodes" which, when combined with "cancer", form a pretty scary picture.  Another two weeks later brings us to last Tuesday when I was wheeled into an operating room for a full hysterectomy and lymphectomy.  I haven't yet received the surgeon's final report but, post-surgery, he told my family that everything looked really good and he would be shocked if any of the pathology indicated that the cancer had spread anywhere else. So I'm going with that for now!

The piece below came out of that wholly unexpected experience.  I'm submitting it to this week's CC2C challenge, hosted by Linda at Studio L3, which is Kraft Resist.  The details can be found on page 41 of Tim Holtz  A Compendium of Curiosities Vol 2.  If you don't already have the book, please get it. You'll be glad you did!  I'm also submitting it to Frilly and Funkie where the fortnightly challenge is How Can You Resist?  And to Simon Says Stamp and Show-Inspired by Summer Distress.

The TH Sizzix In The Bag die was cut from TH Idea-ology Kraft Resist paper.  The Distress Inks used are Seedless Preserves, Victorian Velvet, Picked Raspberry, Broken China, Peeled Paint and Mustard Seed.  The opening was cut using the TH Sizzix Movers and Shapers Mini Tickets die. The flowers and scrolls are from the TH Sizzix Tattered Flower Garland and Festive Greenery Strip dies and the TH Sizzix Bigz Tattered Pinecone die.  The small label is from the TH Stamper's Anonymous Apothecary stamp set with the TH Idea-ology ChitChat stickers. 

On the tag I used Ranger TH Distress Stains in Picket Fence, Victorian Velvet and Pumice Stone.  This has become a favorite combination!  The stamps are from TH Stamper's Anonymous Artful Flight, Fairytale Frenzy, and Stuff to Say.  I used a piece of plastic packaging with the butterfly stamp in Ranger Archival Ink and then colored it with Ranger Adirondack Alcohol Ink.  I attached it to the tag with the TH Idea-ology Tiny Attacher.  For the finishing touch I added the piece of stained trimmings that was included with my order from The Funkie Junkie's Boutique and a TH Idea-ology Muse Token!

I hope you like it!  If you're still reading at this point I have some good news!  My local scrapbook store, Whim So Doodle, recently had a call for designers for their very first design team.  I hesitated to throw my name in the hat since I wasn't sure what would happen with the surgery and afterward. I waited until the last day and decided to go for it.  I'm so glad I did because I made the team!  It is my first time participating on a design team and I'm very excited!!  Wish me luck!

Thursday was a Happy Mail Day!

Look what was waiting for me last night when I arrived home from work!  Finally, a set of the new Tim Holtz Distress Markers!!

I was fortunate enough to be the random draw winner of a Frilly and Funkie challenge sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique!  I used my prize to buy this prize!  And Linda, the owner, included the cutest little bonus...a glassine bag containing a piece of beautiful white mesh burlap, corrugated kraft flowers/butterflies and some filigree metal pieces all tied together with some TH-style dyed ribbon!

Visit Linda's shop and buy for yourself some of the great things she has for crafting!  As a matter of fact, she's announced that her shop will have some of the new TH/Stampers Anonymous stamps available tomorrow at noon!  I'm going to try to snag some of those.  Wish me luck!

CC2C - Week 15

The technique for this week, chosen by Linda at Studio L3, is Enameled Metals.  The technique details can be found on page 56 of A Compendium of Curiosities Vol 2 by Tim Holtz.

Over at the Simon Says Stamp blog the theme is "What do you say?".  My little witch has something to say so I'm entering this there as well!

Since I'm still stuck on Halloween...this is what I came up with:

I was originally going to decorate the tag with die cuts but they didn't show up very well against the tag background.  So I turned to some clip art that I have and found this little witch with an attitude!  I think she pairs perfectly with the words!  The numbers are from Tim's Sizzix Alterations Wordplay die and the border is Tim's Sizzix Alterations Vintage Lace strip die.  I added an Idea-ology Trinket Pin and Halloween Muse Token to the ribbon.

I just received my order yesterday from Simon Says Stamp containing some of Tim's new Halloween stamps!  So, no, I'm not finished with Halloween yet.  But I bet by the time Halloween actually does comes around I will have moved on to Christmas!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Show and Tell

I thought I'd share a couple of things I made before I started blogging.  Most of what I create is given away but these were made with the intent to keep them.  The first is an accordion fold book containing old photos from my father's side of the family.  It contains pictures of my father, James, his brother, Herman, and sister, Susan, as well as his parents.  My grandmother was called Nana.  I never met my grandfather as he passed away before I was born.  The cover paper set the theme of birds and nests. My first initial, D, is on the brad in the center of the flower on the cover. The "T" on the back cover is the first letter of my maiden name, Turner. Many of the sayings were cut from pages of an old book.

The next is a scrapbook of my dachshund, Sweet William Luvomine, or Willie for short!  I made this while I was recuperating from hernia surgery.  I hauled all the supplies out to the couch and worked on a lap tray.  Should have taken a picture of that ~ NOT!!  I don't do much scrapbooking but I love making memory books.  I had bunch of cute pictures of when he was a puppy and had accumulated dog-themed papers, stickers, rub-ons and magazine clippings.  It was good to have something to work on and I love how it turned out!

The last item is a canvas.  This is actually a duplicate of one I made for someone who had lost a loved one to cancer.  I added a button, with a crystal accent, on this one but the original one had their loved one's initial in place of that.  The canvas was painted with a pale butter yellow acrylic paint.  I then wiped vaseline on certain areas and painted over that with light blue paint.  Once dry I wiped off the areas where the vaseline was and the blue paint came off to reveal the yellow underneath.  Then I dry-brushed the entire canvas with gesso. The images were stamped on tissue paper with archival ink and then applied with Paper Mod Podge.

Thanks for stopping by!

CC2C - Week 14

Hello Everyone!  For this week's challenge the technique chosen from the Tim Holtz book, A Compendium of Curiosities Vol 2, is Gilded Kraft Glassine on page 39.  It wouldn't be right to show you the details of the technique so if you want to see them you need to buy the book here!

The challenge is hosted by the Linda on her Studio L3 blog.  Our sponsor for this week, with a $25 gift certificate, is Linda at the Funkie Junkie's Boutique!  Thanks to both of you ladies!  I'm also entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes challenge.

I've had the TH hot air balloon stamp for quite some time and wanted to use it for this challenge.  This is what I did...

I started out with a 5"x8" piece of manila cardstock and applied Ranger Distress Inks in various colors. It would probably be easier for me to tell you which inks I didn't use as I just kept adding and blending until I liked the colors!  Then I used the TH SA Mixed Media cling rubber stamps and added the honeycomb and dot textures. The other images are the TH SA balloon, of course, as well as TH SA Fairytale Frenzy (words), Visual Artistry City Central (cityscape) and Lost & Found (birds).

For the balloon I created the gilded Ideaology Kraft Glassine and then stamped the balloon five times. The pieces were mounted on cardstock, cut out, folded in half and glued together to give the three-dimensional look. I realized that smoothing out the glassine to glue it to the cardstock did take away from the technique and I almost gave up on the design and started over.  But I was really feeling good about the way this would turn out so I stuck with it!  The saying was stamped on manila cardstock and then cut out and distressed with Ranger Walnut Distress Ink.

The cardstock is mounted on a 5"x8" papier mache' plaque that I had in my stash.  I marked off the sides and painted them with black and white acrylic paint before mounting the manila cardstock piece to it.





I had to cut a small hole in the back in order to put the Ideaology clock key on the top. I added the Ideaology box corners and sprocket gears with Ranger Glossy Accents. The Ideaology "Dreams" word key is hanging from a garment pin attached with small brad and glossy accents.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping to take a look!



Franken-Jack!

Happy Monday to you all!  I hope you had a crafty weekend as I sure did.  I created a little something for week 2 of the Frilly and Funkie Altered Metals challenge.  It's not "Frilly", or vintage-inspired, but I think this qualifies as "Funkie", don't you??!!

I've been in Halloween mode since I made the Configurations Crypt. So when I thought of using the riveted metal embossing folder the idea collided with Halloween and this is what happened! I didn't turn out exactly the way I had envisioned. I was hoping for more of a Jack Skellington/Tim Burton look. When it was finished I wasn't sure that I was going to submit it for the challenge after all. But when I got up this morning, and saw it on the dining room table, it made me smile so I'm going with it!

I covered the chipboard with a page from Graphic 45 Curiosity Shoppe. Then ran the chipboard through the Vagabond with the new Sizzix ScoreBoards XL Candy Jars die from the Sweet Treats collection designed by Eileen Hull. Too cute! I'm really loving this die. For his face I covered a piece of black cardstock with aluminum tape and ran it through the Texture Boutique using the Tim Holtz Alterations Texture Fades Riveted Metal embossing folder. His lovely green hue is courtesy of Ranger Alcohol Ink in Citrus. After applying the alcohol ink I cut the face with the Tim Holtz Alterations Pumpkin Jack die and a combination of the Alterations Movers and Shapers Silly and Scary Jack-o-Lantern sets. I used cardstock behind the eyes and mouth and then mounted the face to a piece of chipboard also cut with the pumpkin jack die.  The bolts were hand cut from one of the scraps.  I used a black sharpie marker to color all of the edges. The hair is a piece of thin chipboard coated with Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint in Black Soot. It looked a little dull so I added Stickles in Dark Blue. (It's not really blue but a combination of dark blue and purple glitter.)  And the finishing touch was a dapper bow tie made with wire edge ribbon!  I'm not sure how I got lucky enough to have ribbon the exact same color as the Stickles.  I think it's because I buy too much stuff...but look how it paid off!  (I can figure out a way to justify anything!)

I kind of ran out of time when I got to the back so I didn't embellish it much.  The label is from the Tim Holtz Alterations Mini Labels Movers and Shapers set and I cut it from a scrap that I believe is a piece from the Teresa Collins Haunted Hallows collection.  Then I added the word sticker. Maybe I'll add more later! I know...I'll add another face...Franken-Jack's alter ego...Pumpkin Jack!

Anyhoo...I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed making it!  Thanks for stopping by!

CC2C - Week 13

Wow!  I can't believe we've been doing this for 13 weeks already!  It's just proof that time flies when you're having fun...and I'm having a blast and learning a lot!

The technique for this challenge, hosted by Linda over at Studio L3, is Spritz and Flick Distress.  The deets can be found on page 42 of A Compendium of Curiosities Volume 2 by Tim Holtz.  This week's challenge is generously sponsored by Simon Says Stamp.  There is a $25 gift certificate up for grabs and SSS has everything TH!!!  I'm also entering this in the Simon Says Stamp & Show "No Rules" challenge for a chance to win a $50 gift voucher!!  Maybe there will be a shopping spree in my future!!!

Here's what I came up with...

The Distress Inks used were Broken China, Faded Jeans, Spiced Marmalade, Peacock Feathers, Seedless Preserves and Vintage Photo.  The stamps are from Tim's Visual Artistry Life's Possibilities, SA Good Thoughts, Kaisercraft and Treasure Cay.  I added the Adirondack Paint Dabber in Snow Cap with the Crafter's Workshop 6x6 Mini Harlequin stencil.  Then I added the Imagine charm from the Ideaology Philosophy Tags.  The decorative corners are from Michael's.

Overall I'm happy with the result.  I was nervous about adding the paint with the stencil.  I worry about overdoing things and then I look at everyone else's work and realize that I stopped too soon!!  So each week I'm trying to take it one step further than I think I should and see what happens.  I'm learning though and that's what this is all about, right??!!  Oh, and having fun too!!!