Finished my sketchbook!!!

I have really worked hard this week to get my sketchbook
finished for The Sketchbook Project. I am so glad that I made
this effort to get it finished before the end of the year. Above
is my front cover, just wanted something simple as a title
and to cover up some areas that had got over spray on them.

Here is one of my last few sets of pages, getting less creative
at this point because I really just wanted to finish it up. I
really did not want to send it back with any empty pages in it.
As it was I glued the pages together in sets of 2 as the paper
was just so incredibly thin. It still was hard to do inks and
paints on it so had to come up with alternatives.
On the 2 spreads where I did use some light sprays of ink the
pages really warped and buckled.

So this is my last page, kind of sums up the whole theme of
how I did my book. I did get a couple of suggestions for the
last few pages, one from my husband and one from my son. 

I am glad I was able to participate in this huge project, for
information about the traveling exhibit check here.

So now that is over what is in store for the new year ? I have 

signed up to take Ali Edwards class One Little Word. I am

about 90% sure of the word I will be focusing on. Also I

have signed up to follow Julie Fei-Fan Balzer do this.

So excited to say that she actually featured me on one of the

blogs for inspiration in her post today, that has really made

my day :)  If you scroll down to the M's you will see my blog

with one of my cards I did for the Compendium of Curiosities
challenge earlier this year.

Well I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, I am
all excited to have some creative projects ready for 2011.
What do you have planned to be creative this new year?

CCC Week 25...

I have taken a break from blogging and making art for the
last week or so due to having nice quiet family time. My
oldest son turned 18 just before Christmas so that was
where a lot of my attention was going, hard to believe
how quickly time goes by...
Now to getting back to art and creativity. I finally managed
to find some time to do this challenge, for all the details go
and visit Linda. This was a fun technique that I had not tried
before, however it is definitely easy to overdo the alcohol ink
part, I definitely did! My base colours were not red, that was
the alcohol ink. I do like how it turned out though, just not
quite the colours I started with. Hard to see on the photo but
I used the clear glitter Gelly Roll pen to go around the stars
and it looks lovely in person.
The other thing I have been doing this week is desperately
trying to finish off my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project.
It has to be in the mail by Jan 15th so time is running out.
I am getting close to finishing and have made a real effort
over the last week to finish it. I wish I had found out
about it sooner as I only really had a couple of months
to do it in but I am determined to finish it and send in a full sketchbook.

Shadow box fun...

I have been lucky enough to take 2 classes with
Mike & Lesley this month. The first class was up at Frenzy
Stamper at the beginning of the month. We got to make this
really cool shadow box using some fabulous old dictionary
papers. I loved embossing all the gear die cuts for the top
of the box, they have some fabulous embossing powders
to choose from. I did not finish mine during the class but
managed to get time this week to finish it at home, I actually
prefer doing it like this so I can take my time and get to
see if I have any things from my collection to add to it.

This second shadow box was at a class last weekend at a
different store, Paper Vineyard. My friend Michelle came in
from Oregon to visit me and we took the class together.
We had a lot of fun with this class and learned how to stamp
on things that are round, in this case it was the wooden
spools that are the feet on the box.

I again finished this off at home and changed mine up quite
a lot from the sample. I really enjoy taking classes with Mike
and Lesley as they provide all supplies and we always learn
some new techniques. Now if only I could stop from getting
super glue on my fingers it would be even better!!

Yesterday a teenager, today an adult...

Today a very special someone is turning 18!! Happy Birthday
Alex!! This is one of my favourite pictures of you taken on
vacation in Hawaii in the summer of 2005.

I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone by this year,
and it won't be too long before he leaves for college. We are
trying to make the most of our family time together and we
have been documenting his senior year by taking a Picture A
Day, something I had done for all of 2008 and 2009 but
wanted a rest this year. However Alex likes looking back on
those albums so much he asked if I would keep doing it.
Eventually, back in August, we decided to do it but not as
a calendar year but a school year. I know that this will be
something we will look at over and over, remembering things
that made us happy and sad - just us living our daily lives.



 

Last 2 tags...

So sad to be finished with the tags :(  It has been fun
checking out Tim's blog every morning and having that
burst of creativity. This is tag 11, again I had to make
substitutions but I think it came out pretty close to Tim's
example. For this tag he showed a really great way to
get more use out of your dies, using them to make your
own foam stamps. However as I do not have the
die he used to make the stamp I improvised by just using a
stamp I already had. I will definitely have a go at making my
own stamps though, it is a really great idea.

This is the last tag, #12, for this year's 12 Tags of Christmas.

Yet again I did not have the die that was used but was able
to use my Cricut machine to cut something similar out and
still did the technique that Tim showed. 

Now that I have all 12 tags done I am trying to decide how
to show them off. I have all of last year's tags clipped on a 

7 Gypsies ATC & photo display seen here. I still love the tags

from last year and do not want to take them down so need to

be creative. Just wondering what other people are doing...

Caught up, for now anyway...

This is going to be a quick post just to get all my tags up for
everyone to see. This one is tag 6 from Tim Holtz's blog of
the 12 Tags of Christmas. I did not have the embossing folder
or die he used so found a stamp for the trees and actually had
a grunge board deer! I think this one came out pretty good
for improvising.

This one is tag 7 and I love the technique that Tim showed
for inking up the embossing folder before running the tag
through it so it came out already inked. I like the idea of the
flower using canvas and grunge paper but my flowers never
come out great, I cannot get any curl in the petals - must be
my lack of body heat, lol!

Tag 8 is just gorgeous! I love the simplicity and classiness
of this tag. I did not have the gold Perfect Pearl mist but had
one called Sunflower so used that and I love how rich the
colour looks. I think this one is my favourite so far.

This is tag 9 and was a fun technique but took a lot of time,
we did double or even triple masking on this and it looks fabulous.

This is tag 10, which was really quick to do for me today. Tim
used a snowman die on his and again I did not have it, I
seem to be lacking anything snowman related as I had
this problem last year with one of the tags. So I had to repeat
my substitution that I used last year which is my favourite
stamp of all time, the umbrella man.
I used him in place of a snowman stamp last year and even
added a red scarf to him then too! Not sure if you can see
the texture of the snowflakes in the photo but we used left
over plastic packaging to create this. Another fabulous
techcnique from Tim, I love that he does these tags and
shows us new ways to use things that we never would
have thought of.

So much for a quick post! My friend Michelle is arriving this
evening for a quick weekend visit so I won't be doing the
last 2 tags until next week. Thanks for making it this far :)

Finally Five...

...Tag  #5 that is. Finally managed to finish this one off today,
now I only have 6,7 and 8 to start, lol!

The thing I love about the 12 Tags is that you are shown a
tag by Tim Holtz and then you are inspired to create with
what you have. Well I do have to say that sometimes you
may feel that you need one of the supplies he mentions, but
really it is fun to work with what you have.

I will admit that last year I did not have any of his Christmas
stamps so when I saw his Mini Holiday 2 set I knew I had to
get them in time for this years tags. I am doing my best to
not buy anything major for these but have gone out to get a
couple of little things. 

Now I am off to go and start the next one...

Tags 3 & 4...

I am trying to catch up with the 12 Tags of Christmas and
finally finished tags 3 & 4 seen above. It has been really
busy here the last few days and I haven't even started on
my December Daily project yet!!

The good and bad of these tags is that I found the tissue tape
flower on tag 3 a real pain to do, my tape just did not seem to
stick and kept coming off, had to re-do it and then glue it all
together. It looked so much fun and so easy to do, not sure if
I will attempt it again.

Now the Tim Holtz Facet that was part of the technique for
tag 4 was something I thought would not work for me but
amazingly it did!!
I love the effect of using alcohol ink to do a resist. If you
have no idea what on earth I am talking about then
go here and read all the details from Tim himself.

Hoping that I can get tags 5 & 6 done tomorrow and
then I will only be a day behind :)

12 Tags of Christmas Day 2...

Well here is my attempt at Day 2. I like this one much better
than my tag from yesterday. This tag went very quickly once
I had found the one supply you needed for this that I did not
have. I drove all over today and went to 5 stores to find this.
I needed the felt one not the foam one as the technique Tim
shared today was to make your own custom coloured stamp
pad, the foam does not work for this. All I can say is that
once I had the Cut n' dry felt it was all easy going.

If you want to see Tim's tag for today go here. There was a
great Wow factor for me after doing the custom colour ink
pad. It just opens up a whole world of possibilities. I used
5 different inks on the Cardinal that I stamped, not sure if
you can tell that but it came out just beautifully.

Looking forward to seeing what tomorrow's tag will bring!

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas...

I was so excited that Tim Holtz was going to do the 12 tags
again this year. I played along last year for the first time and
had so much fun doing it, if you want to join in go here.
Today was Tag No.1, after fiddling around this evening trying
to finish it off - it got changed a couple of times! This is my
final effort, not really 100% happy with it but I am calling it done.

I knew it would be difficult this year as he has brought out so
many new products this year and I do not have many of
them. Although part of the fun of this is to improvise and
use it as a creative jump start. Still when you are struggling
to do the main pieces of it then it is not quite so much fun.