Never-ending quest...

Just a quick post this morning. First let me say, THANK YOU to Gingersnap Creations—they graciously gave me another GingerGems award!!!! Whoo—hoo!!!!!

Second, I hope to get LOTS of play time in this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed that I can!! I’ve started on something that I should be able to post later this afternoon, but until then, I have something else to show you. If you’re like me, you’re always looking for the perfect way to organized your ever-expanding supply of stuff. I’ve just converted all my Distress inks to a new system that I am hoping works. Previously, I had all the ink pads in one place, reinkers somewhere else, Stickles in yet another place, and ink blenders somewhere else. If I wanted matching items, I had to look in multiple places to find them, and usually gave up before I found everything. Well, this is what I decided to do. I went to The Container Store and found these little clear acrylic boxes that perfectly hold an ink pad, reinker, Stickles, mini-mister, and one of my homemade ink blending tools. Now everything is all in one place! I think this will encourage me to use all these products a lot more.

  I am not that crazy about the Ranger ink blending tool—I never was able to get it to work for me. So, I came up with my own version. I purchased these 1-1/4 inch wood blocks and attached squares of Cut and Dry foam to one end and wrote the color on the other end. It was actually a pretty inexpensive solution that works great! The foam stays securely in place with red line tape, but can be removed if it needs replaced. Plus, I got all 36 colors out of a single sheet of foam! The one thing you’ll see missing is the Distress embossing powders and the crackle paint. I don’t have any of the embossing powders—just don’t feel the need—and I only have a few of the crackle paints, mostly in the metallic colors. I’ll find someplace else to store those.

So—let me know what you think! Have you found your perfect storage solution?

Mini-album, part 5…

Whoo-hoo!!! I’m caught up! I finally caught up with Roni’s mini album challenge over on Ink Stains. The next part airs tomorrow, so stay tuned!!

The challenge this week was to use recycled items. The only cardstock allowed was on the collage images, and you could use brads and other embellishments that weren’t recycled. Roni’s background for part 5 used torn pieces of an old book. I decided to deviate a little, and use a technique that was a result of a successful experiment a couple of years ago. Plus, it’s green!

This is what I started with:

This is a brown paper bag from Skyline Chili. If you’ve heard of Cincinnati chili, this is what they’re talking about, but that’s for another post!

I actually had two of these—you can’t tell from the picture, but they are the size of a standard lunch sack. I tore off the printing and threw it away, then took the rest of the bag and tore it into irregular pieces. I then wadded each piece up pretty tight to get some texture, and then pulled out a bunch of ink pads. I unscrunched each piece of paper, and roughly rubbed an ink pad over the high spots. Once I had a bunch of these little pieces of paper, I adhered them to the album’s chipboard base with Mod Podge. After it was dry and the edges were trimmed, this is what I ended up with:

I love the look of this. I used this on a composition book a couple of years ago, and it still looks great!

Here’s the completely decorated spread:

And here are the individual pages:

The flowers are also recycled. I used the new Tim Holtz flower die to cut the flowers out of pages from a phone book. I sprayed them with various ink colors (yes, I finally got some mini-misters!), glued together, then dried with the heat gun. Once they were pretty dry, I sprayed them generously with Wheatfield Glimmer Mist, then dried them again. This time, the paper started to get a little “crisp” but the petals started to curl beautifully. I have to say—so far, this is my very favorite spread!!!

I hope you like it and that you like my distressed paper bag background.

Looking forward to the next installment in Roni’s challenge!!

GC47 challenge…

Well—I think the mojo has come back to roost for awhile! I really wanted to do something fun for the Gingersnap Copper, Ginger, or Rust color challenge. I’m going to get kind of mushy here, and say….

I love Gingersnap Creations!!!

I’ve really enjoyed their blog ever since I found it, and appreciate the fun, low-key challenges that have lured me into the whole challenge world. Thanks, GC—you’re wonderful!!!

OK—end of mushy. Now onto the challenge creation. Let me start by reminding you that I love weird, funny, suggestive, and totally off-the-wall sayings. I refer to these as “rubber stamp wisdom.” Well, I saw this stamp online awhile ago, and the double entendre possibilities really tickled me. (Yes, what you’ve heard is true—my mind is never too far from the gutter!) I’m hoping it tickles the Founding Femmes, too.

  

I bet when Tim Holtz created this “Dream” ticket this isn’t exactly what he had in mind! It did get me to thinking, though. As I was looking through all the tickets, word sticks, and other assorted “word” paraphernalia, I wondered if Tim will ever come out with some tags or tickets that say things like, “Snicker,” or “Ticked” or anything really meaningful like that. I would have loved a “Frustrated” ticket for this little hangy thing! LOL!!!

I also want to apologize for the photo of this one. I had no idea how to display it so the fringe would dangle, so it’s hanging from my paper towel holder that is sitting on top of a roll of packing tape. Oh well, at least the fringe dangles. And speaking of that fringe—isn’t it fab??? I picked it up at Tuesday Morning for cheap!!

So—I hope to get some more playing in this weekend. I have two plays to go to, though—my 10 year old niece is in her school’s production of Sound of Music, and my 15 year old niece is in her school’s production of Meet Me in St. Louis.

So—Happy Anniversary, GC—looking forward to the next year of fun challenges!!!

Dragging the mojo home…

Thanks to everyone who has wished me well in trying to find my mojo. It’s slowly coming back, but is not up to par yet. I did a card this afternoon that I’m not crazy about, but it’s better than nothing! It’s in response to the GCSP3 Blue Moon Challenge over on Gingersnap Creations. The challenge is to create something using your take on one of the tutorials that have been posted on their blog. I chose the string background tutorial written by the fabulous Jo Capper-Sandon. It’s a great looking technique, but if I want to use it very often I’m going to have to break down and get some mini misters. I tried to do it by just sponging ink onto the paper, but that didn’t work very well. So, I ended up mixing some reinkers with a little water in a big misting bottle and then dumping out what I didn’t use. So—guess I need to get some mini misters or figure out a different way to do the technique! Anyway—here is the result. Like I said, it’s not great but it’s better than nothing!

I used Crushed Olive and Rusty Hinge Distress Inks for the background and then stamped the image from Magenta in Crushed Olive. The border was cut from copper metallic paper using one of the new Tim Holtz dies. I randomly stamped a flourish on the card base and then overstamped French text to mimic the text on the stamped image. I toyed with embellishments, but nothing seemed to look right so I left the card as is. Let me know what you think!

Get inky…

Hey, folks! Not much of a chance to play this weekend—I have my sister with me, so it’s a full weekend taking care of her and watching the Game Show Network! However, I did sit down this afternoon and play with my new Tim Holtz Distress Ink colors!! If you haven’t seen them in person yet, you will not be disappointed. Those of you who know me know that I LOVE the Distress inks—they are my absolute favorites. And these new colors? I can already tell I’m going to love them!! If you decide to get them, be forewarned that the colors on the lids don’t reflect the actual colors as accurately as you might think. The ones that surprised me the most—Pumice Stone and Chipped Sapphire. On the lid, the Pumice Stone has a brownish cast and the Chipped Sapphire looks a little purple. IRL, Pumice Stone is a wonderful gray color and the Chipped Sapphire is a dark navy with no purple at all. They’re all gorgeous, though, and I can’t wait to play with them! So—if you haven’t gotten your new ink pads yet, what are you waiting for? And if you have, let me know what you think of the new colors!! Finally, if you’re looking for the colors, I bought mine online from Simon Says Stamp—they had a good deal on all the new colors and reinkers.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Gingersnappin’!

Tonight was the night I decided to tackle GC37—Time over on Gingersnap Creations. This challenge has been posted for awhile, but I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Of course, this is January and there’s the whole resolution thing, and the passing of time, and reflection and a bunch of other deep things that go with the theme, but I haven’t felt particularly deep lately. So…. this is what I came up with.

 

It’s pretty simple, but I love this image! There’s me, second from the left… This is kind of a fun way to interpret time, don’t you think? I like the Tim Holtz Idea-ology Word Stick, too—it says “Hope.” I guess no matter how old we spinsters get, there’s always hope, isn’t there??? Be sure to visit the Gingersnap Creations blog and see all the entries for this challenge!!!

Snow day…

Well. Those of you who live in the Cincinnati area know it’s been snowing non-stop all day. I took the weather forecast as an excuse for a vacation day. I was going to work from home but nothing came up, so instead of working I played!!!!

Have you played with any of the stamps from Artistic Outpost? I’ve admired these stamps forever, and finally ordered a couple of sets awhile back. I work with engineers every day, so the Geek is Chic set has always appealed to me. What a better set to use for a special Valentine? (Yes, I’m still making them!)
I wanted to do another hanging—this one incorporates lots of grunge paper flowers and Tim Holtz Idea-ology tidbits. I’m pleased with how it turned out! Here’s the front:


The Idea-ology Muse Token didn’t quite make it into the photo (the thing hanging down in the lower right corner). It says, “Knowledge.” Of course, the Einstein stamp is from the Artistic Outpost set.

Here’s the “secret message” on the back, also from the Artistic Outpost set:


Hope you like it! The whole hanging was inspired by Wendy Vecchi’s work, and uses several of her stamps.

Looks like the snow is beginning to taper off—guess I should go shovel…….     1-2-3-4-5…..   OK, that urge has passed!!

I hope something I’ve shared here today inspires you to go make some Valentines. If not, check back this weekend—I should have one or two more!!!

Stay safe!

Catching up and a Christmas project…

Hey, folks! What a week! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. Did you get lots of shopping done on Black Friday? I don’t go out anymore because my sister is with me that day, and this year was no exception. I spent Black Friday with her, totally engrossed in a 2-day Deal or No Deal mega-marathon (nothing but Deal or No Deal on the Game Show Network from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm both Thursday and Friday). It was very stimulating (NOT!). It seems like it’s been one thing after another for the last couple of weeks, but I did finally finish a project that’s been percolating in the back of my mind for a month or so. I don’t know if you remember, but back in October I shared a link to a terrific project that Linda Elbourne posted on her blog. I decided then and there that I wanted to make a special Christmas card for my dad based on her project. Well, I have to say that this is probably the most ambitious project I’ve ever tried. I’ve struggled, cussed, messed up, started over, and changed directions more times than I can count while doing this, but I think in the end it turned out OK. Let me know what you think about it!

Here’s a picture of the front of the card.

Ignore the thing sticking out of the side for now. You really shouldn’t be able to see it, but the danged thing is too bulky to close. You can see I tried the icicle technique Tim Holtz used on his first tag, but mine doesn’t look as good as his (of course!). Part of that is because when it comes to some things, I’m so impatient! I knew I had Picket Fence Stickles, but when I couldn’t find them I decided to improvise with a combination of Rock Candy and the pewter color. Of course, as soon as I had that combo globbed on, I found the Picket Fence, so I put that on top of it. That’s why the whole thing looks pretty bulky. Oh well. One thing I am happy about is the way the Prima poinsettia turned out. I found the red brads in the center at Archiver’s in the $1.99 bin awhile ago—I wasn’t sure what I would ever use them for, but they looked interesting. I think they add the perfect touch of sparkle. There’s a lot more sparkle and shine on this—I don’t know how well it shows up in the photo. The bells were added this morning to cover a mistake—I got punch happy with the Crop-a-dile last night and punched holes where I shouldn’t have. Ergo, bells.

When you open the first flap, this is what the card looks like:

I really dug into the grungeboard shapes for this card! The letters, holly, trees, and reindeer are all grungeboard.

Now here’s the card opened fully:

The verse isn’t specifically a Christmas verse, but somehow it feels like a Christmas sentiment to me. It was especially appropriate for what I wanted to say to my dad. The thing in the middle of the center panel is a door made out of Ten Seconds Studio metal. The snowflake is cut out of the same metal using the Spellbinder’s Build A Flake 1, just like the one I gave away. Of course, I’ve already lost one. (Like I said—what a week!) I’m hopeful it will turn up at some point. The door is hanging a little wonky, despite all my efforts to glue the brad butts to within an inch of their lives!

Finally, here is the door opened:

Let me tell you—that little box was a pain to make, attach, and decorate! I think it turned out pretty cute, though. Aren’t the ornaments cute? I found those at Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago.

So—there you have it—my dad’s Christmas card! I’m going to link this to the Gingersnap Creations blog for their Winter Wonderland challenge. I think it fits the bill!

Now I need to get to grocery. I have to make a dish for a Christmas party tonight and wrap my white elephant gift. I hope to be back tomorrow to show you something else (assuming I don’t have too good a time at the party tonight!).

The Marco’s Rundown

OK—now that I’m back from getting my hair cut and colored and braving the Saturday crowds at Stehlin’s Meat Market and Jungle Jim’s, let me fill you in on my foray to Marco’s yesterday. Like every other visit I’ve made to Marco’s, this one was a treasure hunt. As anyone who has been there knows, there are goodies jammed into every possible space! I initially went looking for blog candy, but that was an earlier post!
As soon as I got in the door, I picked up the latest issues of a bunch of stamping magazines. I don’t know why I get sucked into that—I usually thumb through them once and that’s it. Oh well. I headed towards the area where the snowflake dies would be, but got distracted on the way by a whole end cap of Tim Holtz products. It seems like most places carry a handful of idea-ology items, but not as many as Marco’s. The Foliage was calling my name—I’ve wanted some for awhile, but hadn’t been able to find it. I also picked up a pack of plain, uncut grungeboard. OK—enough Tim Holtz stuff. Let’s get on to the dies! So, I headed in that direction, but got waylaid by a whole display of embossing folders. Hmmm… haven’t seen the fleur-de-lis one before, so into my basket it went! There were others that were new to me, but I resisted. Now—off to the dies. I finally made it there, and found the Create A Flake 1 for the blog. Of course, I couldn’t give it away and not get one for myself, so into the basket two Create a Flakes went! As I was digging through the packages of dies, I found Labels Six nesties. I have Labels One through Four and want to get the rest of the labels, so this one jumped into my basket. After all, they were on sale for $19.99! I moseyed over to my favorite corner where the green grocer products are. I LOVE the brown bag paper envelopes. I have square ones, but decided to pick up some #10 size, too. I poked around a little more and ended up with some JudiKins detail black embossing powder, a huge jar of UTEE (35% off!), and a package of Ten Seconds Studio Humungo Killer Tape, and decided it was time to get the heck out of there! We won’t discuss the painful grand total. Oh well. Guess I’d better get busy using this stuff, though!
The other thing for those of you who have been to Marco’s either in Dayton or to their booth at a convention—you probably know Karen and know that she recently had a stroke. Well, I’m happy to report that she checked me out and is doing fine!
OK—I’m off to do some cookin’ before I turn out all the lights this evening and watch scary movies! Have a Happy Halloween and be sure to leave a comment!!!!

Halloween “Candy”

For those of you who read my post yesterday, you might remember that I was toying with the idea of going to Marco’s when I left Rosa Parks Elementary. Well—it was such a beautiful day that I couldn’t resist the drive up there. I’ve had an idea rolling around in my head for a couple of days and the trip to Marco’s sealed the deal. What am I talking about you may ask? The answer is….

BLOG CANDY!!!!!

And why am I giving away blog candy? I was very excited the other day to discover that I have my first blog follower!!!! Thank you, Lynn! Be sure to check out Lynn’s blog, Trash to Treasure Art. Lynn does fabulous work. And be sure to check out her items published in the latest edition of Somerset Studio magazine—on sale now. I picked up a copy at Marco’s yesterday and Lynn’s pieces are beautiful!

I know—you want me to answer the most important question—what might that blog candy be? Here it is:

Those are the Create A Flake 1 Shapeabilities from Spellbinders and some tags (a la Tim Holtz) thrown in for good measure, since he will hopefully be doing another 12 Tags of Christmas this holiday season and I want you to play along. As for the Shapeabilities—if you’re wondering why I chose these as my very first blog candy, be sure to check out the wonderful tutorial from Sherry Cheever (aka Bad Sherry) over on SCS or on her blog. After you do, you are gonna want these dies!!!!

I’m sure by now you’re wondering how you can win this splendiforous prize. Well, this is where the challenge comes in—between now (October 31) and Saturday, November 14, I want to get comments from a minimum of 15 different people. On November 15, I will put all the names in a box and draw one—that lucky person will get the blog candy. However… if my blog doesn’t get comments from 15 different people, then the blog candy goes to my very first follower, Lynn.

So if you want to be in the running for the dandy candy, leave a comment and get all your friends to leave comments, too.

Let the fun begin!!!

Baby shower and other ramblings

First, I want to say that I’ve certainly deviated from the intentions I vowed in my first post. I said I would try to post every day, but it’s shaking out to once a week, isn’t it? I also said I wouldn’t be posting much of my own work, but it seems like that’s almost all I’m doing! Please leave a comment and let me know if this is OK or if you would rather see more inspiration from other people (like the sidewalk artist or Michael DeMeng links). I can take this in any direction you want! In the meantime, I’ll show you a baby shower card I threw together last night. I’m not particularly happy with it, but it serves the purpose. This is for my cousin’s son and daughter-in-law who are expecting their first child around Christmas. The baby shower is today—they know it’s a boy.

 

I also found another bit of inspiration while blurfing this morning (love that word!). There is nothing artsy or crafty about this site, but it’s certainly inspirational! Corey Amaro is an American living in France with her French husband, and she blogs about her experiences there. I’ve always wanted to visit France, so I find her photos especially inspiring. Her blog entry for today talks about “brocante.” I had no idea what this word means, so I found a handy-dandy online French to English translator and checked it out. “Brocante” means “second-hand goods.” doesn’t brocante sound so much more romantic?

If you want even more inspiration, check out Tim Holtz’ blog (there’s a link to the right). He has a couple of fun videos up—one from his recent art cruise to Mexico with Wendy Vecchi (pics on her blog, too—Studio 490, also to the right), and another one from his trip to Japan last month. Enjoy!