December ATC's and Cards Received

Hi everyone! I wanted to share with you my ATC swaps from December from the All Things Tim Yahoo Group, as well as some fabulous cards and tags I received from some awesome blogging friends. I am a very blessed girl, and am truly thankful for all of you. You make my life rich!

ATC's:

Julie Case (I've always wanted to try the rolled paper thing, and not smoke it! This is fabulous! The sugary background is gorgeous!!!)

Sandy Nolan (He is adorable! Love the sentiment too! What a fun ATC!)

Donna Jean Eno (WOW! Elegant and so perfectly Christmas! A real stunner!)

Claudine Criner (The metallic looking snowflakes are AMAZING! What a cool design!)

And, here is mine again.

 Christmas Goodies:

From Redanne aka Anne

From This Life aka Sue

From Made By Sannie aka Sandra

From Curious n Crafty Treasures aka Annie

From World By Eliza aka Eliza

I hope your hands get creatively dirty soon!

Happy Birthday Tim Holtz!

First, sorry I've been AWOL. I needed a little break and some fun time with my kids, and when I was ready to get back to it of course I've had internet problems. Happy New Year though, I hope it's your best yet and most creative!

Happy Birthday to the man who is the reason why I blog. He opened my eyes to his grungeful (New word?) and industrial ways which now play a huge part in how I craft. He is the reason why so many of us craft like we do. He is an inspiration to us all. He brought the vintage scene to the forefront of paper crafting. Happy Birthday Tim Holtz! 

I made Tim this card last week, and then the next day Linda posted her last Compendium of Curiosities II Challenge of "A Birthday Card For Tim", so I was ahead of the game for once in my life...shocker I know. Thanks Linda! And, I've used a bunch of techniques from both books...are there any better than those?

Using Tim's Fireworks paper from his Seasonal Stack, I stenciled these fab Numbers Claudine's Sky Blue Paint and Ranger's Dabber in Sailboat Blue.

I misted the paper with Turquoise and Perfect Pearl Mists. I cut my paper to size and stitched around the pieces. I made enough for three other cards besides Tim's.

I used the Giant (#12) tags as the base for Tim's card. I stamped the regular size and mini size of the Numbers in Watermark Resist.

I cut strips from the Ruler paper from Crowded Attic and adhered them to Grunge Paper. I glued them to the edges of the tags to be the binding. Lots of inking on the edges with Walnut Stain came next.

I turned the tags over and joined the edges with Tissue Tape.

I measured out where to punch tiny holes for brads at 1.5 inches from each end and then in the center at 6 inches.

Brads and washers came next (I'm all out of washers and can't find any to buy...ugh!) I made pings in them to distress them up a bit.

In the inside of the card I covered the Tissue Tape and brads up with the tickets I saved from one of the cruises I went on for Tim's classes. I distressed them up a bit as well. I roughed up the edges of the now card and inked them as well.

When I stitched  the Firework paper to the black cardstock I also stitched odd tickets to it. I adhered this to the front of the card. I made a letter "T" as per Tim's directions for Grunge Block Letters. I changed up the numbers on the ticket as well.

For the inside of the card I made a ticket using the Fireworks paper, and I die cut Happy Birthday from a Sizzlet. It is colored with Espresso Color Wash and a Blue Glaze Pen.

 

Also submitting this to Simon Says Stamp & Show's challenge for "Tea Party - Anything Goes", or in this case "T" party...;0)...and the Sunday Stamper for "Writing".

Supplies:
From My Stash- tickets, Blessing stamp

I hope your hands get creatively dirty soon!

My Top 10 Favorite Craft Products Of 2012

Well here it is...New Year's Eve! This year has flown by! It brought with it many happy and joyous times for me, and many new creative opportunities and blogging friends. Thank you to EVERYONE who follows, comments, emails, and watches! You have made this year the very best, and I am SO THANKFUL for all of you!

I am going to continue on with my tradition of listing my favorite genius creative products from this year that I added to my already mega huge hoarding stash! I really need a 12 step program...no joke!!! Some may have been around longer, but I just started using them this year. Feel free to tell me yours in a comment in case I haven't tried it and need to.

In no particular order:

1. Tim's Idea-ology Frosted Film
2. Wendy's Studio 490 Embossing Paste and Stencils
3. All of the Tim Holtz Stamper's Anonymous Blueprint Stamps
4. Ranger's Inkssentials Specialty Stamping Paper
5. Ranger's Distress Markers
6. All of Ranger's Metallic Distress Stains
7. All of Dyan's Dylusions Ink Sprays and Stencils
8. Ranger's Inkssentials Jumbo (#10) and Giant (#12) Sized Tags
9.All of the Mudd Puddles
10.Ten Second Studio's Verday Paint

Happy New Year Crafters!!! I pray you have the very best 2013, and that you get to kiss the lips of the one or ones you love at midnight!  I hope your hands get creatively dirty soon!

12 Tags Of 2012 - January

Okay, here's the last one for Tim's 12 Tags of 2012. I do hope he continues on for the new year. I basically stayed kept to his plan, but I did add the Tissue Wrap like I did on my December tag. I also added the Snowman Blueprint "Glazed Mosaic" piece, which is the challenge at Linda's Compendium of Curiosities II Challenge from Tim's book pg. 60.

I used Broken China, Brushed Pewter, and White Picket Fence Distress Stains for my background.

I decided to try something a tiny bit different on the Glazed Mosaics. I stamped first in Jet Black Archival, and wanted to see if it would come off using Tim's technique, and it did not, so that was good.

 

 

Supplies:
From My Stash- snowflakes


I hope your hands get creatively dirty soon!

Merry Christmas All!!!

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you who celebrate! I hope you have the most joyful of times with friends and family, and that you feel all the love and warmth of this most special occasion of celebrating the birth of Jesus! And to those who celebrate other special occasions during this holiday season, I wish you the same! Peace and love to all!

 

Christmas Pomegranate Jelly

Homemade is best! Right? I hope so in the case of my Christmas Pomegranate Jelly, because like all canning jobs, it's a labor of love! Not to mention messy, but oh so yummy! I didn't get quite as many jars made as I would have liked, but I have enough for teachers and office mates, and of course one for the kids.

Pomegranate juice was everywhere!

The prep and the preparing.

The canning.

10 jars of jelly ready to decorate.

 I've also made some tags to go along with them.

Tissue Tape over kraft paper is turned into snowflake.

Sparkly holly leaves are cut.

Sailboat Blue Color Wash, Picket Fence Distress Stain in a mister (That Tim is a genius!), and a little Perfect Pearls Mist transforms all of the snowflakes. Stickles bling them up as well.

Festive Berries, Evergreen Bough, and Salty Ocean Distress Stains make up the color on the Blended, Spritz, and Flicked tags. I also added some wrinkles.

Christmas Music Notes are stamped in Cobalt Archival Ink.

More Picket Fence Distress Stain and Pearl Perfects was misted. An embossed sentiment, a gemstone, and some curly wire finished off the tags. Some tags were tiny and some were the small #5 size. Everyone had their choice.

 

 

And, it was good that I had one left over to take a photo of, because I forgot to take pics of the whole lot.

I am submitting these to Simon Says Stamp & Show's challenge of "Gift-Spiration", Sunday Stamper's challenge of "Holly & Ivy", The Blogger's Challenge for "Holiday Gifts", and of course to the Compendium of Curiousities Challenge II for "Tissue Tape" from page 36 in Tim's book by the same name, and this last challenge is being sponsored by the awesome peeps at Simon Says Stamp.

Supplies:
From My Stash- numbers, gemstone, wire

I hope your hands get creatively dirty soon!