6" x 6" Book

Front Cover

Inside of front cover

Title Page

Back of Title Page

I'm participating in a book round robin on the yahoo group AllThingsTim. We are to make or buy a book no larger than 6"x 6". I made mine using heavy chipboard for the covers and 300# watercolor paper for the pages... this makes the pages sturdy enough to handle any supplies and all the embellishments someone would want to use. I decorated the front cover, both sides and a title page, both sides. Supplies used - distress crackle paint, distress inks, Adirondack pigment inks, Archival ink, Tim Holtz stamps, grungeboard, ideaology embellishments, distress embossing powder, ribbon trims, distress stickles, sticky back gems, silk flowers, button, thread. I am in a group with 7 other people for this round robin and am looking forward to seeing the artful pages these ladies do in my book and also working in their books.

Sing and make Music...

Happy Saturday!!! I know I haven't been posting to my blog much lately... things have been very busy and I've had to help a lot out in my husbands shop but we've hired two new people so things will get better soon!!

I'm thrilled to once again have a card published in Vamp Stamp News... I truly love this magazine.. and not because I've been published in it :-)) (I've been a subscriber much longer than I've been having things published) but because it always has fabulous information totally geared to stampers. The March 2009 issue (where this card is published) focuses on acrylic mediums and using them with your stamping. There is also a great article on embossed backgrounds with die-cutting machines and the score-it... I must get my score-it out more often!!! And as always the Quick Tips section has lots of great information.

Back to my published card... the scripture is a stamp from Our Daily Bread Designs, the music is from Quietfire Designs, and the flower is from Limited Edition.

Published in Take Ten Magazine

What a great surprise I had in the mail yesterday. This card is published in the Mar/Apr/May 2009 issue of Take Ten Magazine. The harlequin border image (white dots added with the Inkssential pen) and the calligraphy sentiment stamps are from Quietfire Design. The collage image is from Paper Imagery Designs.

Light Tomorrow With Today ATCs

All of these use the same background technique as my last post using the Distress Inks and also the stamping along two edges with the Flourish image. Stamped the calligraphy quote (Quietfire Design) using Archival Ink. Added the flowers. On the green cards I added Distress Stickles to the centers.

Hope ATC

I quite like how this ATC turned out. The background is Distress Inks using the technique where you tap the ink pad on a craft sheet, spray with water, lay your cardstock in the ink, pull it back up, dry it, and repeat with another color or even the same color to build layers and depth. Stamped the Flourish 2 image (Paper Inspirations) along 2 edges with Distress Ink. Added the collage image - Avery (PID), metal tag (colored with alcohol inks and the letters highlighted with the white Inkssential pen) and brads.

A Couple More Valentine ATCs

More atcs using collage images, tickets, and German scrap hearts from PID.

Valentine ATCs

More atcs for the in-person swap coming up on Saturday. The background on both of these is printed ribbon I picked up on an after holiday sale last year (or maybe a couple years ago) at either Michael's or Hobby Lobby. It's exactly 2 1/2" wide - cool, huh. I attached the ribbon to white atc blanks for strength. The men images, ticket images, and red German Scrap hearts were all gotten from Paper Imagery Designs. I cut out the men and added them and the hearts to the background so that the so that the image just overlapped the top point of the heart. I cut out the tickets, layered them on red cardstock and trimmed to leave a small border. Added red pearl heart stickers to the tickets and on the left card, drew a kiss on his cheek with a red micron pen.

ATCs

I have an in-person atc swap coming up on Saturday so I've been working on some atcs for that. These two were done mostly with scraps I had laying in my work area after finishing up a tag swap last month. The calligraphy stamp is from Quietfire Design - it's stamped on vellum with Ranger's Archival ink in jet black and torn out. The ruler stamp is from Post Modern Designs - stamped on the left card with Archival ink jet black. The background on both cards is embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and then sprayed with Glimmer Mists candy apple red, edged with gold Krylon and layered onto black atc blanks. The card on the left uses a German Scrap heart. The card on the right - the "ruler" is tape a friend sent me and the heart is gold cardstock embossed using a Fiskars texture plate and then I punched little holes and tied on the string.

Felted ATCs

A couple of months ago I asked my friend who does gorgeous felting (not to mention stamping, drawing, painting, carving, and the list can go) to teach me how to felt. I chose to work on atc sized pieces and stuck with floral themes because I can't draw. I finally made those pieces into finished atcs a couple of weeks ago. I added Distress Stickles which is a perfect look for these, embellishments, and "Dream with your eyes wide open" is a stamp from Quietfire Design - I sprayed some muslin with Memory Mist sprays and stamped with Archival ink jet black. I really like how these turned out (they're even better in person) and plan to do more felted atcs.
Be sure and click on the picture for a closer look.

Vamp Stamp News - Feb. 2009

This card is published on the back cover of the February issue of Vamp Stamp News. All stamps are from gg designs.

Love Card

Quietfire Design is featuring my card for their project this week. You can get complete directions, etc. here. Along with featuring the card, all the Distress Inks and Reinkers are on sale... get more info here.

Sympathy Card

Folded card is brown. Cuttlebug embossed background. Green ribbon with gold edges. Sentiment is from Stampin' Up and cut and embossed with a Spellbinders die, layered onto brown cardstock.

Valentine Canvas Board

I almost forgot to put this canvas on my blog :-)) It uses one of the PID Valentine images. Complete directions can be found on the PID Designers Blog here.

ggDesign's Sketch Challenge

Details for the sketch challenge can be found on ggDesigns Gazette page here. Directions for the card -- The background and bird images are both from ggDesigns. For the base I stamped the background image twice with Adirondack rust onto mustard cardstock. The birds were also stamped with rust ink onto white cardstock and punched out, edges sponged with Adirondack cranberry ink. Layered birds to mustard colored cardstock, punched corners and sponged edges with cranberry ink. The red layer is the same background image. I sprayed it with Glimmer Mists candy apple red and terracotta, stamped it onto white cardstock and tore the edges. Layered bird panel to red piece and added brads to the corners. Tied ribbon around base, added bird panel, computer generated "Valentine" piece, added it and 3 red flowers with brads in the center to card.

Be Calm ATC

I did this atc for a challenge on the PID yahoo group. The challenge is Be _____ (fill in the blank) and I chose Be Calm. The background is distress inks with the background image (Tim Holtz) stamped with distress ink and then layered to a brown atc blank. The collage image (PID) is glued to the back of a Tim Holtz charm fragment with Glossy Accents and attached with a brad. The butterfly brad was very shiny and I toned it down with some Matte Accents. "Be Calm" is printed from a label machine on clear tape.

Valentine 4 x 4

Collage image - PID, Distress inks, Brilliance white ink, bird in heart stamp (Stampington), heart stamp (Stamps by Judith), Love ticket (Tim Holtz), heart brad (Making Memories), "On The Wings Of" computer generated, red German Scrap.

Created Byhand Challenge - Pattern Paper

The challenge over at Created Byhand is to used pattern paper somewhere in our creation. For this ATC I used it for the background. I lightly brushed some white gesso around the edges, stamped the bird image (Quietfire Design) with Archival ink jet black, brushed gesso a little more heavily where I wanted the snow to be, let it dry, added Golden's light molding paste for snow, sprinkled fine glitter over the molding paste, stamped "Snow!" (Quietfire Design) on vellum with Stazon stone gray, tore it out and added to atc with double stick tape, added "snow" to the letters with the Inkssential white pen and also used the pen to add an eye to the bird, wrote "Let it" with a Tombow grey marker, punched snowflake (Martha Stewart) from same printed paper as background but flipped the paper so the other side showed and added it to the atc with a silver brad, cut a hat from paper and added shadowing with a marker.

Published in Somerset Studio

This piece is published in the Jan/Feb 2009 issue for their Black and White Challenge. The girl is a collage image from PID. The floral stamp is Hero Arts. Word stamp is Paper Studios. The Harlequin image along the roof line and a different one over the chimney are both from Quietfire Design. The chipboard house and chipboard bird are both Maya Road.

Blog Candy at Altered Imagination

Melissa is having a give away to celebrate 4 years of blogging. You can win some of the wonderful new PID collage sheets that will not even be for sale until January. Cool, huh!! Head on over to her blog to check it out.

12 Days of Christmas Swap

I'm participating in a 12 Days of Christmas swap on the PID yahoo group. Today was the day the others opened my gift. I made magnets from ceramic tiles. You start by cleaning the tile... I just washed them in soap and water, rinsed them well and dried them. For the background I used alcohol inks and blending solution. The tile is edged with Krylon gold. The boy image is from PID (Paper Imagery Designs). The words are computer generated, cut out and sponged with Adirondack inks. I attached the image and words with Glossy Accents - using a paint brush I spread some Glossy Accents, layed down the image and brushed more Glossy Accents over it.. let that dry and then did the same thing for the words and let it dry (the Glossy Accents will make the Adirondack dye ink bleed a little but it wasn't noticable on this project). Then I put a thicker coat of Glossy Accents over the whole thing and let it dry. Lastly I added some Distress Stickles along the bottom.

We have seen His star ATC

The base of this atc is dark blue, run through the dot Cuttlebug folder and the dots rubbed with Brilliance white ink. The image (I Brake For Stamps) is stamped on white cardstock with Kaleidacolor Blue Breeze ink, bottom edge torn, and edges sponged with blue breeze also. I added a silver star brad over the star in the image, silver German Scrap along the bottom, and glitter glue along the torn edge.

Crafts 'n Things Magazine

I was thrilled when I got the current magazine in the mail to find this tag published on page 96!!! The collage image is from Quietfire Design. The words and heart are all a single stamp from Quietfire Design that I stamped and cut apart.

Joy Tag

This tag is made using Tim Holtz's Day 2 tag techniques (with a few tweaks). All the stamps are from Quietfire Design. I didn't use any rub-ons but instead embossed the flourish image but then decided the one in the top left corner was too bold so I rubbed chalk over the embossing and then added details with the Inkssential white pen. I didn't have any washers so I punched a 1/16" hole in silver cardstock and then punched a 1/4" hole with the 1/16" hole centered in it and used those for the washes... worked great!!!! The snowflake (also from Quietfire Design) was gold and I colored it silver with a Krylon pen.

Be sure and click on the tag to see a larger picture.

CBC - Red and Green

The challenge on the Created Byhand site is to use the colors red and green. The central image on this ATC is one of the new Christmas stamps from Quietfire Design... it's stamped on white cardstock with green ink, torn out, edges rubbed with Brilliance gold ink and a gold star brad added to the top. The base of the atc is red, next is a printed paper and the stitiching is done with the Inkssential pen, the strip across is red cardstock embossed with a Cuttlebug folder. Lastly I added the candy cane (Michael's).

Snowy Joyful ATC

This is a pretty simple atc but I do like how it came out. The base is silver cardstock embossed with the cuttlebug snowflake folder. The snowmen are ribbon. The tree (Stampington) is embossed with forest green ep, cut out, and white added with the Inkssential pen to look like snow. A piece of white cardstock torn out, glued on, tree added over it, and then glitter glue used on the "snow". Joy (Quietfire Design) is stamped in blue, cut out, edged with a lighter blue and glued on.