Quietfire Design and Spellbinders

      

I have exciting news!!! 

Quietfire Design is now a Preferred Product Partner with Spellbinders!!!

To Celebrate

Quietfire Design is having a blog hop complete with prizes!!

This blog hop will start Saturday, April 2nd right here on my blog.

Here is the hop schedule

Saturday, April 2: Wanda  Hentges 

Sunday, April 3: Becca Feeken

Monday, April 4: Monica Black 

Tuesday, April 5: Yogi Grunwald 

Wednesday, April 6: Robyn Josephs 

Thursday, April 7: Suzanne Cannon

So come back Saturday!!!  All other details will be posted then.

CBC - Silver

This was for last weeks Created Byhand Challenge and I had it done last week but it was a crazy week (and weekend) and I didn't get it posted... so I'm posting it late.  It's a very simple atc but I like it a lot!!!  That WAY cool paper for the background is called pebble metallic silver... I got it from Quietfire Design and it's on their website here.  It comes in a pack with gold and copper also.  The black dots around the edge are Enamel Accents.  Inspire (part of a set found here) is stamped on white cardstock and inserted in a Tim Holtz Ideology Ornate Plate.  Pretty pink silk flowers (found in the wedding isle at the craft store) to finish it off.

CBC - Glitter

This week is Out Like a Lamb and/or Glitter for the Created Byhand Challenge.  I went with the glitter option.  All stamps are from Quietfire Design.  Both the background and border papers are from Tim Holtz's Crowded Attic paper stack.  I stamped the dotted harlequin background image using matte medium...  I sponged the medium onto the stamp and then stamped it on the paper.  I immediately poured on some glitter  - the goldish copperish color.  I had thought it would work pretty good to use the matte medium and glitter but I didn't get very good coverage... I probably needed more medium on the stamp but rather then re-doing it, I went with what I had... I did however use clear glue and re-glittered some of the dots in the background image directly on the paper.  The edges are distressed with Tim's paper distresser and inked with Distress Ink pumice stone.  The border is a Tim Holtz On the Edge die, scrollwork.  The saying is stamped on white cardstock with Archival Ink jet black and die cut with Spellbinders lacy squares... edges are sponged with Distress Ink pumice stone.  The next size lacy square was also cut from white cardstock and colored with Distress Ink aged mahogany.  Along the left side, over the border die cut, I added a 1/4" piece of double sided tape, removed the liner, added the same glitter, pressed well with my finger and removed the extra.

MAC #7

It's hard to believe that we are already on Making Art Challenge #7 on the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group (#8 begins tomorrow).  #7 is inspired by Book 1, page 8 (I should look at that now that I'm done) and our challenge was to use a scallop frame and a small grungepaper flower.  I needed a birthday card for our grandson's birthday this past weekend so made one with the challenge parameters.  All stamps are Studio 490.  The scallop frame and square are Maya Road.  The truck is an art part stamped with the coordinating image. Flower and bird are grungepaper.  Background is wrinkle free distress with tumbled glass, broken china and Perfect Pearls Mist perfect pearl.  Silver Paint Dabber on the edges of the chipboard square and the edges of the background.

ATCs

Both of these atcs were made in the last month but I just hadn't blogged them yet.

This first one uses an image from Dezinaworld, specifically from the Childrens roundies sheet.  I punched out the image with a 2 1/2" scalloped circle punch.  The background is one I'd done using crayons (you set your atc blank on a hot plate and when it's warm you color and the wax melts).  The birds are stamped on with Archival Ink jet black.  The flowers are stamped on with Adirondack pigment ink.  One who cherishes is a piece of  printed twill ribbon.  A feather, paper flower, 3 little punched flowers and sticky back gems finish it up.

This next atc uses an image from Quietfire Design - Kelly's Favorites sheet.  Pink german scrap along the top.  Dots on the sides made with the Inkssential white pen.  The leaf flourish is cut from grungepaper, inked with peeled paint, flicked with water, dried, and details added with a green pen.  Prima paper flower... Beadazzles in the centers of the flowers adhered with Glossy Accents.  "It's the little things" (A Muse Artstamps) stamped on white cardstock with jet black Archival Ink, cut out with deckle scissors, and edges colored with Distress Ink walnut stain.

MAC #6

Lori decided to change things up this week on the yahoo group and instead of using one of Wendy's books for the Making Art Challenge we were challenged to create a tag using stamps from just one of Wendy's sets.    I usually pull stamps from a variety of sets when I'm working on a project but it was a lot of fun to have to stick to one set.  I chose to use a new set that I just got last week - Art Colors Life LCS053.  I love the background in this set!!!  And the flower, quote, word and saying are all wonderful also!!  For my tag I worked Tim's wrinkle free distress technique on the tag using DIs spun sugar and worn lipstick.  The background is stamped with peeled paint.  The flower was stamped on grunge, cut out and colored with DIs peeled paint for the stem/leaves and stormy sky for the flower.  I also pulled the matching flower from the new Art Parts set florals and colored it.  I then sprayed the art part and the just the flower part of the grunge with Perfect Pearls Mist turquose giving them both a good coat.  The scallop is also an Art Part from the Scallop Trim pack colored with worn lipstick and just lightly sprayed with forever red Perfect Pearls Mist.  Simplifly is stamped with jet black Archival.  The bottom of the tag trimmed with deckle scissors.  The edges of the tag colored with worn lipstick.  Black "stitching" done with a fine tip pen.

I also decided to make a couple of atcs using the same set of stamps.  This first uses an alcohol ink background I had laying on my counter.  I cut it slightly smaller than an atc, stamped the flower twice and part of the background image along the right side with jet black Archival.  The background was mostly pink with a little blue/purple and I decided to add on a little DI wild honey just to give some more variety.  The quote was stamped on a scrap of white cardstock, cut apart, edged with mustard seed.  I then decided to add some dots to the top left and along the bottom by sponging raspberry Adirondack ink through some sequin waste.  Layered the whole piece to a black atc blank and added 2 gold pearls to the flowers.  

This last atc starts with an Inkssential manila atc blank.  The background was stamped with wild honey... I inked the stamp, sprayed the stamp just a little with water from a mini mister bottle and stamped the atc.  The flowers were done with the same technique of sprayed with water before you stamp.  I used all Distress Inks... peeled paint for the stem... the flowers are barn door, dusty concord, broken china, mustard seed, worn lipstick, stormy sky, and rusty hinge.  The edges of the atc are inked with antique linen, mustard seed, and brushed corduroy.  The quote is stamped on a scrap of manila card, cut apart, edges inked with victorian velvet.  Gold sticky-back pearls on the flowers.

Stylish Blogger Award

I am very honored to have received this award 2 times this week.  A huge THANK YOU to Kathy and Barb!!!!!!!!!  It is such a blessing for me to be able to share the things I make and to know that people enjoy seeing those things and that they are inspiring to people.

The rules....

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 7 recently discovered new blogs and contact them to let them know they've been awarded.


Hmmm... 7 things about me???  


1 - I am a Chocoholic.... seriously I LOVE Chocolate!!!!  Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate... it's all good... Add in some peanut butter or caramel and it just doesn't get any better!!!!!


2 - My soft drink of choice is Dr. Pepper and skip the diet.


3 - I prefer to stand while I'm arting.


4 - I love flowers but hate weeding so you won't find any around our house ( I do have houseplants). 

5 - I like tea and drink mostly green tea or oolong but also some other herb teas and medicinal teas.  When I was young I used more sugar than tea in a cup, lol, but now I just have a little bit of honey in my tea. 


6 - Some day I'd like to be able to travel and meet all my blog friends.


7 - I don't really like talking about myself!!!!


As for choosing 7 blogs...  that's even harder than talking about myself!!!  However I did recently update the blog list I have in my sidebar.  I hope you will take the time to visit some of the blogs you don't yet know and leave them a comment.

Roots and Wings

When I was working on the tag in the last post and was coloring the ribbon I had all this Color Wash on my craft sheet and it just didn't seem right to waste it so I grabbed a piece of white cardstock and did the wrinkle free distress technique but with the left over Color Wash rather than Distress Ink... so I dipped and dried and dipped and dried... I just love this technique... it's sooooooooo fun and makes such awesome backgrounds.  Now when I do these kind of things with left-over whatever the pieces tend to just sit or get put in a file but today I decided to use it right away.  Distressed the edges with the paper distresser and inked with forest moss.  The next layer is also distressed but inked with vintage photo.  The tree is Tim's die cut from grungepaper, inked with vintage photo, embossed with Tim's woodgrain folder and a little bit of walnut stain rubbed over the texture.. not too much as I didn't want the tree to get really dark.  The saying is a Quietfire Design stamp stamped with Archival Ink jet black.  The bird is a Studio 490 stamp... stamped it twice on grungepaper with Archival Ink sepia... cut out one full bird and just a wing from the second.  Inked over them both with wild honey.  Attached the extra wing with a little piece of grungeboard between the wing and bird.  I decided to brighten things up a little by making it a "flowering" tree by using Flower Soft.  I only have a few colors so used what I had and I think it looks good.    The finished size of the card is 4 7/8" x 6 1/8".

CBC - Green/#4

I started this tag not really thinking about the Created Byhand Challenge this week... until I had green and thought "oh, ya, the CBC is green, cool", lol.  Almost everything I used can be found at Quietfire Design. The tag is Ranger's #8 size.  I sprayed both sides of the tag with water (both sides so the tag doesn't curl) and then I sprayed with Ranger's Color Wash.... starting at the top left corner I sprayed at a diagonal one spray of butterscotch, then more towards the center still at a diagonal stream (which went green because of the butterscotch, duh) and finally at the lower right sunset orange.  Pressed on a piece of copy paper and pulled off to blot up extra liquid and dried the tag.  Stamped the large flourish with Archival ink sepia.  Stamped the script image (Penny Black) also with sepia - I didn't ink the stamp really well so the script would look more distressed on the tag.  Stamped the large butterfly 3 times with Versamark ink and embossed with Distress Embossing Power pine needles.  At this point I thought the background was too dark for the butterflies so I sprayed the tag again with water and blotted, sprayed a bit more with sunset orange, blotted and dried the tag.  I then used a paint brush and painted water inside and around the edges of each butterfly blotting with a paper towel as I went and rewetting some areas 2 or 3 times and blotting to give highlights to the butterflies and make them stand out from the background more.  Distressed the edges of the tag using Tim's paper distresser (LOVE this tool) and inked the edges with Distress Ink brushed corduroy.  Stamped "Butterfly" on a scrap of manila cardstock with Archival ink jet black, cut it out, sprayed it with water and butterscotch Color Wash, blotted and dried it, distress the edges and inked them with brushed corduroy and then just a bit of black soot.  Used Tim's tiny attacher to attach it to the tag.  Cut 2 pieces of 13mm white silk ribbon and colored them with water and  Color Wash meadow and sunset orange.  Dried them with the heat tool scrunching the ribbon as it dried.  Filled an Ideology small glass vile with  dew drops and tied it to the tag with bakers twine.  Used the computer to print out the letters to spell FLY, inked over the letters just a bit with Distress Ink wild honey, punched them out with a 1/4" hole punch, and glued them to the vial with Ranger's glue and seal (you could also use matte medium).

MAC #5

The Making Art Challenges on the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group are fantastic.  The artwork being shared is very inspiring and full of wonderful ideas!!  Lori, our hostess and list mom, is doing a fabulous job of coordinating these challenges!!!  This is our 5th challenge and the requirements are to use a scroll and some chipboard letters.

I started with an Art Parts base - 5 1/2" x 3 1/2"... it was one I had stamped on, messed up and thrown aside  so to cover up the mess I glued (Ranger's new Glue & Seal matte) on a piece of paper from Tim's new paper stack crowded attic.  After it was dry I sanded the edges, stamped the script image (Studio 490 Live and Make Art set) with clear ink and embossed with clear powder...  Inked over the whole piece with Distress Stains wild honey and then gave a quick spray of red pepper Color Wash to the bottom right corner.  Inked around the edges Distress Ink brushed corduroy.  Wiped over the embossing to remove any extra ink.  Stamped the stem and leaves (Studio 490 Sketch Art set) onto the background with Archival Ink olive and also stamped the leaves on a piece of grungeboard.  Cut out the grungeboard leaves, inked them with peeled paint (both sides), flicked some water on the front side, blotted and dried them (this gave variation to the color), and stamped on the script with Archival Ink coffee.  Wendy recently shared a couple of posts on her blog about how you can attach paper or metal to her Clearly For Art, emboss it using an embossing folder, and when you heat it the embossing remains.  I wanted to try this and chose to do so with the flower.  I attached a piece of Tim's paper from the same sheet as the background to a piece of Clearly for Art large enough to stamp the flower using Ranger's matte Glue & Seal, dried it, stamped on the flower (Sketch Art set) with Archival Ink maroon, cut it out, embossed it using Tim's swirls folder, inked over the swirls with Distress Ink rusty hinge, heated the flower to soften the Clearly for Art so I could shape the petals, and also gave the flower a spray of sunflower Perfect Pearls Mist.  Stamped the dotted scroll image (Studio 490 Art Parts set) on the background with Archival Ink jet black several times.  Attached the flower and leaves with matte medium.  Layered up some Ideology (2 gears and a foliage) attached them together with an orange brad and glued them to the center of the flower with matte medium.  Stamped the saying (Sketch Art set) on another scrap of the same background paper with jet black ink, trimmed, distressed the edges with Tim's paper distresser, inked the piece with wild honey leaving the center lighter, inked the very edges with black soot and attached to piece using a piece of grungeboard to pop if off the background.  "life" is Maya Road chipboard letters (Jonathan) inked with peeled paint and stamped with script image using coffee.  Ideology hinge clips and ball chain for the hanger.

CCC #35

It's hard to believe that this is the final Compendium of Curiosities Challenge - #35 Design Details...  35 techniques finished from Tim Holtz's book... amazing!!  Our fabulous hostess of this 9 month long event is Linda and you can find all the details on her blog Here.  My tag uses Distress Stains, Perfect Pearls Mist, Tim's swirls embossing folder, Distress ink, Grunge, Tim Holtz stamps, Tiny Attacher, Tim's trimming colored with Distress Inks, long fasteners, texture hammer, and an edge from a piece of spiral bound paper.

MAC #4

We have been fighting the crud around here.  Nick began Sunday evening with a fever (103.5 at one point) and by Tuesday had a VERY sore throat, head cold, aches, etc... took him to the doctor... then Wednesday morning Tim began the fever, etc... by yesterday my throat is scratchy and head very full feeling, not fever, yay!!!!  I did manage to get this tag done on Tuesday for the Making Art Challenge on the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo group.  For the challenge this time we were to use Wendy's perfect stamping technique.  It can be found on page 10 of her first book but she also has a couple of posts on her blog that share the technique Here and Here.  I used all Studio 490 stamps on my tag.  The butterfly is stamped using gold Paint Dabber onto Wendy's Clearly for Art blackout.  WAY cool stuff!!!!  Wendy has shared several Clearly for Art ideas on her blog lately.  The white inside letters of the saying is done with the Ranger Inkssential pen and after it was dry I went over it with DI wild honey to tone down the white a bit.  Background colors are Distress Inks.  Stamping is done with Archival Inks except for the technique stamping along the left side and across the bottom.  Jute is colored with gold Paint Dabber.  Ideology piece has snow cap Paint Dabber to bring out the word and numbers.

CBC - Women/Shades of Pink

This weeks Created Byhand Challenge - found either on the Created Byhand blog or at Quietfire Creations Forum - is Women and/or Shades of Pink.  My finished card is about 7 5/8" x 5 1/4".  Old sheet music for the background - tore the edges by placing a ruler on the paper and tearing against it... the edges are inked first with Distress Ink (DI) spun sugar and then less wide with DI brushed corduroy.  The collage image is punched out with a 2 1/2" circle scallop, the sides cut even with the picture and edges inked with brushed corduroy.  The pink scalloped circle under the image is cut with a Spellbinders die.  Hope perches in the soul (one of Quietfire's new stamps) is stamped onto Prima Fairy Flora cardstock with Archival ink jet black.  The edges are inked with brushed corduroy and a scrap piece of music paper glued across below the quote.  This is layered onto a pink panel, edges also inked with brushed corduroy, layering in the collage image and pink circle as shown on the corner.  The bird and wing are die cut from grungepaper (Sizzix Tim Holtz caged bird die).  The bird and wing are inked with DI victorian velvet and worn lipstick with brushed corduroy on the edges.  The legs and branch are inked with DI walnut stain and black soot along the bottom edge.  The wing is stamped with music image using jet black ink. For the eye I dotted black Glaze pen. When I'm inking with Distress Inks I always use a blending tool and foam.

CCC #34

So this was week 34 of the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge... we are almost finished with the book.  This weeks challenge is from page 63 and is called Dimensional Collage Fragments.  All the details can be found on Linda's blog.  Linda used a large fragment square and then over on Alison's blog, she also used a large square but said she put cork on the back to make it a coaster which I thought was a WAY cool idea and decided I wanted to make a coaster also, so I did.  The fragment is 3 3/4" square.  I started with old sheet music and used gesso in the area I wanted to stamp the words so they would show up better.  Did more stamping around the edges with Adirondack pigment ink juniper and also Archival ink olive.. film strip ribbon along the bottom and the flowers, bird, and butterflies are victorian scrap. All stamps are Tim Holtz.  Red Glaze pen to color in letters and make the red dots on the edges.  I really like it!!!!!  However, silly me, after it was finished, I remembered I was making all tags so I could put them all up on my wall, lolol... So I'll probably make another collage and use it on a tag, but not today... Yes, it's ok to laugh at me!!