Year's End Tags-2012

Good Evening bloggers, I have finally had a chance to get the last two tags of the year done, before the end of the year, lol. I have been unable to find the mirrored sheets that Tim used on the 'joy' tag so I just used some foil that I had in my stash.  I didn't purchase the blueprint snowman stamp as I didn't think I would ever use it again.  I borrowed one from someone and didn't stamp it enough to be able to make a third layer for his hat but thought it still turned out pretty good.  I also didn't put them on cards.  I have mine all hanging from a metal scroll that I have hanging on my studio wall with little clips.  Hope you got yours done too!

Hugs,
~Jody

Merry Christmas

Morning Peeps, have been very busy this holiday season but I wanted to drop by and wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Year's.  The star I made below in my last post was a big hit at the Christmas party Saturday night at my little sister's.  We had to have a short demo before I left for home Sunday morning, lol.  It was alot of fun.  You should see the little tree I won.  That's for another post.  I can show you the ATC for the December club this month.  I had originally taken a sneek peek photo but never got it posted.  Anyway, here's a look at the finished one.

The wreath is, of course, Tim Holtz, as is the sentiment. the candy cane I made out of sculpey clay and the little cutie in the middle of the wreath is my daughter at about 6-7 years old.  The "snow" around the outside edge is from Close to my Heart.  You just basically write with it and then you heat it with your heat tool and it bubbles up like that, pretty cool.  I think it's called liquid applique.  Then I just added some red stickles over the gold embossed sentiment.  The theme was "Christmas with a Twist" so I just used the candy cane as my twist., lol!

Here's a shot of the little cottonball trees I made for the two gals I work with.  They are made out of styrofoam cones, 3" squares of fabric, cottonballs and 3/4" straight pins.  You just fold your fabric over the cottonball and pin it to the cone in a jagged manner overlapping the layer before.  I put a little star on top of one and a round angel on the other one.  Then I added little streamers of ribbon with a bow tied up at the top.  They turned out pretty cute as well.  A lady that lives next door to my father in Mesa, AZ had one on her coffee table when I was there a couple of years ago and I thought it was so cute, I asked her if I could disect it to see how it was made and she was all for it, lol.

Hope you all have a wonderful Merry Christmas!!!

Hugs,
~Jody

Long time, no blog...

Hey there bloggers, didn't realize it had been so long since I dropped in.  Have been busy I guess.  We are learning some new software at work and have been baking and making some goodies for my Annual Christmas Tea Party next weekend so I have been a pretty busy girlie of late.  Have slept some in there and been doing some physical therapy on my leg too, no wonder I'm tired when I fall into bed at night.  It's kept me off the streets and out of the bars though, so that's a good thing, lol.

Found this little snowflake on The Gentleman Crafters blog.  He made a video and then someone he knows made one with her little boy, it was pretty cute.  I watched his first, then hers.  Jim used the tiny attacher to assemble his snowflake and his friend used hot glue.  I think the hot glue would have been easier to work with.  I made a smaller snowflake than he did and it was hard to get the tiny attacher in some of those tight little spaces, pretty tricky.  Hot glue would have definitely worked better, note to self.  Any way, I embellished mine with gold stickles and embossing powder and a mist of heirloom gold Perfect Pearls Mist.  Then I set about adding a bauble.  That turned out to be pretty labor intensive but it worked out in the end.  See what you think.

I started with 4 inch squares, I think he used 12 inch squares and his was huge.  Which would be cool if you were going to hang it from the ceiling or something.  Pretty cool hugh?

I'll be back later with some photos of my December ATC.  They have been done for a while now but don't want to let the cat out of the bag just yet, no copying, lol!!!  The theme for December was Christmas with a twist and you had to use a photo as the embellishment.  I really like how mine turned out.  More on that later.

In the meantime, hope your holiday preparations are going well and you have a joyous Holiday Season!
Hugs,
~Jody

November ATC and TH Tag

Hey there bloggers, how are you?  I'm good, just been busy, busy this weekend making my ATC for the club on Monday and playing with the tag that Tim Holtz has up for November.  And watching football, of course, GO BRONCOS!!!  That Peyton Manning is good, so long as he can stay healthy, we'll see, keep your fingers crossed, lol!!!

Anyway, back to the ATC.  Our mission this month was "Fall" and the special embellishment was supposed to be stickles.  I kept mine kinda simple this month as I had some other things going on.  I used some copper embossing powder for the sentiment (CTMH Stamp set-Captured Moments/C1423) and the little leaves I just punched out of plain white copy paper and covered them with copper stickles.  After they were dry, I inked the edges with wild honey distress ink.  The acorn was cut with one of Tim's dies (Autumn Gatherings) and I applied a bit of stickles to it as well.  I used the same wild honey distress ink for stamping my tree (same stamp set as above) and while it was wet I applied some perfect pearls powder in copper.  Guess I was in a coppery mood this weekend.  After the ink dried, you just brush away the remaining powder and the rest of it stays where the ink was wet.  It was one of the techniques that Tim had in his online class that I took.  He sprayed his with water afterwards so the ink would wick but I didn't want to take it that far so I just let it dry and brushed away the extra.  I inked the edges with vintage photo and called it over.  I thought they turned out pretty cool looking.

And the tag, well, it turned every bit as pretty as his did, I think.  I have to admit, I tried it three times before I was satisfied with it but I finally achieved the look.  The first one I used some different paper to make my tag with, didn't work very well wet.  The second one I forgot to put some baby powder on first before I embossed the wheat and the embossing wasn't as crisp as I like it to be.  And the third one I tried CTMH ink  on the Thankful stamp because I didn't think the archival ink I was using was covering very well.  The CTMH ink held most of it's form but it did wick a little bit so the color was more faded.  I finally decided to go to Michael's and get a new black archival ink pad, a small one.  I have the great big one and it's hard to ink just portions of a stamp with it.  I didn't feel like I was getting enough ink on the stamp and it was coming out a little light, plus it's a few years old so it was probably time for a new one anyway.  The new one worked much better and I was able to get a good stamping out of it.  Glad I made that effort. The rest of it went pretty smoothly.  I added a little piece of black netting at the top because it fell out of somewhere and landed on the tag like it wanted to be there so there I put it.  It added a bit of punch at the top, lol!  I didn't have the token that he used but I had one that said 'thoughts' on it and it seemed to fit, thankful thoughts, ya know!  I didn't have his paper string either so I used some jute that I had in my stash.  It unraveled kinda like his paper string did and I was able to color some of it to match so.......there you have it.

It's been a great day in the neighborhood today.  Hope you all had a wonderful Veteran's Day.  God Bless our soldiers young and old for their Sacrifice.
Hugs,
~ Jody

Birthday Card

Hey there bloggers, wanted to share a birthday card I made for a friend at work.  It was for her father's 80th birthday.  She was so excited she gave me a big hug.  It's the simple things in life.  I was so pleased she liked it, hope dad likes it too!

Forgot to take a photo of the inside.  It said "Just imagine the stories his suitcase could tell"!

Hope you have a great Saturday.  I'm nursing an allergic reaction to a spider bite today.  My eye is swollen shut.  Went to the emergicare place down the road and the doc gave me some prednisone and some benedryl and told me to lay low today and it should start to subside within 24 hours. 

Won't get much crafting done today I guess.  Oh well, there's always tomorrow!  Just glad that's all it was!

Hugs,
~Jody

October Tag 2012

Oops, I almost forgot to post my tag for October.  It's exactly like the one that Tim did so no need for explains here.

I think my 'boo' could have used a bit more glitter but oh well, too late now, lol!!!

Enjoy!
Hugs,
~Jody

BIG tag

Hey bloggers,

Today I have prepared a BIG tag for a friend.  She has had some pretty bad health tribulations of late and her daughter and I thought maybe a card from an ol' friend would help to cheer her up.  I used the same technique that Tim Holtz used on his October tag.  I made this one really big, it's 5 by 8.  I'd seen some of these on blogs lately so thought I'd give it a try.  I used some blues, some oranges and reds and a bit of purple dabber.  Then blended some distress inks in and sprayed with copper mist.  Had some fish net in my stash so I colored it with weathered wood distress stain and layered it next.  Found a lighthouse (they are her favorites) photo online and printed a copy.  Placed it on an orange mat and roughed up the edges.  Wrote a little poem and typed it out on the computer.  Printed it on some beige paper and wrinkled and inked it before I applied it to the tag.  Then I made a little "courage" tag and pinned it to the top with the ribbons. Oh, and the seaweed you see in little spots is really seaweed.  I brought it back from the ocean when I was down in Miami Beach for my birthday last May.  It dried quite nicely, looks pretty cool!

I hope the tag brings a smile to her face.  Thinking of you Pat!

Halloween ATC

Mornin' Bloggers!

Just a quick post this morning to show you the ATC I've prepared for the club this month.  I will also be entering it in a couple of challenges as well.  The background is just a bassil cardstock but I used the other side as the front side had a shiny texture and my embellishments wouldn't stick well.  I inked the edges with black soot.  The tree I cut with my Cricut-Celebrate with Flourish.  The moon is just a circle punch with premium foils.  I think the orange color is so perfect.  I black embossed the spider web and the word "spooktacular" and then the "stars" are purple stickles.  The purple pumpkin is a mix of purple embossing powder and some purple glitter that I mixed together.  The moss is a cotton ball I colored with pumice stone and let dry completely.  Then I tore off a long strip with my tweezers.  It stuck to the tree pretty well all by itself, lol!  Love the effect!!  The back will be just a Happy Halloween ticket with the necessary information.

Hope you have a great day, thanks for stopping by,
Hugs,
 ~Jody

September Tag 2012

Hey there bloggers,

I guess since the month of September is almost over, I should post my Tim Holtz tag for September.  I downloaded the photos a week or so ago and then got distracted, I guess.  Anyway,  here's the tag.

It's pretty cute, if you like industrial things.  I really do like the typewriter, it turned out the cutest, in my opinion.  I think it needs to have a darker ribbon at the top.  I tried to make it kinda grayish black but I think it needs more black, to kinda balance it out.  I'll work on that.  The technique was fun and quite interesting.  I tried a couple of different "tools" that I found in my stash.  One of them was an old tracing wheel.  Remember those, you used them for marking darts in sewing class with some chalky paper.  If you click on the photo, it may open up bigger so you can see where I used it.  I don't know that I would use this technique much but it was fun to try.  Maybe on some colored foil, I'll work on that too, lol.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a super Saturday.

Hugs,
~Jody

Great Smoky Mountains, TN Sep 2012

Hey Bloggers,

Took me a little vacation this past week.  I had never seen the Great Smoky Mountains and I've always wanted to so, Yeppers, that's where I have been.  They were SO BEAUTIFUL!  The mountain streams, the low lying clouds, the majestic mountains, it was all so awesome.  I took a lot of pictures including the ones I have in my mind, AMAZING!!! 

This one shows why they call them the Smoky Mountains.  See all the "smoke".  And the drive through the four tunnels getting in to Gatlinburg was so awesome.

This is a shot of the changing colors going on in the trees.  The leaves had just started to turn and they were so pretty.  If I had gone about a month later, fall would have been in full swing and I would have seen some even better colors.  Hopefully next time.

 

I camped at Forsyth, GA  and then in Pigeon Forge, TN.  on the way there.  The first night I slept in a little cabin.

It was cute, but dark and kinda stinky from being shut up, I imagined.  The next two nights I pitched my tent and slept in the out of doors.  I, for some reason, didn't get a shot of that campsite.  It rained pretty much every day so I guess I didn't want to get the camera wet, ha!  I even watched the Bronco game on my little netbook, wrapped in plastic, under a tarp.  I'm sure the people across the way thought I was nuts but didn't bother me.

The next couple of nights I spent at a friend's house in Asheville, NC.  Her and her husband, Bob, were so hospitable.  I really enjoyed their company and we had a great time.  Oh and their dog, Darcie!

They have the cutest little condo up at the top of this big long drive in Hendersonville, NC.  It was the sweetest place.  Norma and I went antiquing the next day and had lunch in Black Mountain, NC, another quaint little place a few miles up the road.  It was an absolute perfect day. 

Oh, and if you ever get to Pigeon Forge, TN, there is a Scrapbook Superstore there and a Scrapbook Clearance Center next door that offers everything in the store for 50% off.  Had a blast in those two stores, lol!

Had a really great trip and hope to live up there someday. 
Hugs,
~Jody