Gearing up for the 12 tags of Christmas

What is the 12 tags of Christmas you say? Well, it's certainly not about pied pipers and maids a milkin'. If you are at all a Tim Holtz fan then you'll know exactly what the 12 tags of Christmas is about.

Every year Tim Holtz, the wonderful wizard of all things distressable, uses his products and stamps to create 12 different technique tags....all Christmas of course. You can follow along with the fun here, starting tomorrow. I thought this year, I would attempt to try as many of the tags as I could using my own interpretation (ie. my hubby would kill me if I bought everything Tim made).

So to get my tag brain in gear, I started off with these two tags, using more scraps from my Winter Wings Deluxe Scrapbook Kit. For the first tag, I stamped the Season's Greeting image with VersaMark Ink and embossed with clear powder. I added the green background using Alcohol Inks by Ranger (Meadow and Lettuce used here) and edged with the Gold Mixative Alcohol Ink. I highlighted the snowflakes in white (Inkssentials White Opaque Pen). Next, I added Rangers Stickles (Christmas Red) for the berries. Finally, I accented with the red Poinsetta Prima flower, scraps from the Winter Wings paper, holly leaf and green trim from the Deluxe kit.

For the second tag, I inked the plain background with Distress Ink by Ranger (Antique Linen and Old Paper for the background, Tea Dye and Vintage Photo for the edges). I used a cursive background stamp from Hero Arts to fill in my background with another layer. The stamps were added, both by Inkadinkadoo and then accent items on the bottom of the tag from the Deluxe kit.

Alright Tim, I'm all warmed up. Let's get going!!!

Mojo Monday #115

I made this card for the challenge blog, Mojo Monday. This is sketch #115. I had some leftovers from my Winter Wings Deluxe Scrapbook kit and came up with this cute little Christmas card.

Below you can see a better picture of the Glossy accent glaze on the berries and Stardust stickles on the flowers, snowflake and hat. I used Metallic Gold acrylic paint to create the dots around the circle. The velvet trim is glued under the circle using Fabri-Tac. I found this adhesive works best with ribbon or trim. The sentiment is a clear stamp by Inkadinkado. The bird and holly were cut from scraps of paper from the Winter Wings collection by Webster's Pages.

Thanks for looking.

Pick of the Patch

We took the girls to their first pumpkin patch this year. As my journaling states: "I'm not sure whether you both had more fun picking pumpkins or playing with the wagon. Either way, you had a grand time!" They loved it. I can see this turning into an annual event.

I created this using the leftovers I had from my Indian Summer Deluxe Kit. The design of the layout was inspired by a friend's challenge to scraplift one of three layouts. This is the original one I chose to inspire mine. Scraplifiting is a great way to get a kick start if your scrapping mojo is no where to be found. Scraplifting can involve copying a layout exactly, choosing the same color scheme or choosing certain elements and then creating your own layout. It can certainly be a touchy subject, particularly when it involves selling your creations. However, for personal scrapping when giving credit to the original artist, you'll usually find they are quite flattered.

Yes, another new flower technique. This time, I bring you the Paper Roses. The instructions can be found here. Note, after reading the instructions, if you want a smaller Paper Rose, then you can use less heart cut-outs. I used Pearl Glimmer Mist for an overall shimmer to the rose and then Star Dust Stickles to line the edges with sparkles. Beautiful, no?

You can also see some of the Faux Stitching technique around the brown paper.

Paper Pumpkins are one of the easier paper pieced items. For these, I cut out three ovals of similar size, inked the edges and then layered the middle one over the back two. I also added Rock Candy Crackle Paint for a shine and cool crackle effect. I used some of the patterned paper from the kit to easily coordinate them with my layout.

I don't often emboss over photos, but I thought the upper edge really needed something since I didn't choose to run the punched mat border all the way around. The stamp is by Bo Bunny. Note: be very careful when you are using the heat gun to emboss on a photo. Continually run it back and forth or you will burn your photo.

I have seen a lot of people ruffling ribbons lately and I just love the look of it. So I took the gorgeous brown wired ribbon, from the kit and created this border for the bottom of my photo.

And now that I've had fun scrapping as quickly as I could this weekend, I must get back to my other life. The tax world......

Fall is my favorite season!!

Tammy, from Lil' Lambs Boutique, sent me the Basic Grey Indian Summer Deluxe Kit of the month. What fun items she packed into this kit. All the rich colors of Fall, in the papers, got me to thinking about how much I love the Fall Season. Although there are a lot of leaves to contend with, what joy and pleasure I get out of seeing God painting the trees first. Reds, Oranges, Yellows...I love them all.

Every Fall, our family takes a vacation to the mountains. If we hit the week just right, we're in peak season of fall foliage. Although, even if we're off by a week, it's still great to see the trees start to change and turn more colorful as each day passes of our vacation. Below is a picture of the "fire trees" as we call them. These are 2 trees that we watch every year on our vacation. When the sun hits them just right, they look like they're on fire. They are so beautiful. I told my husband that if we ever moved to a place where we needed to plant some trees, we would have to wait until Fall to pick them, so we would know what colors they would be. :)

If you've been following my blog, you know I've been on a new technique kick for the last month or so. It's been great learning to make new and different things. I wish my brain could come up with all of these. Alas, it often can't so I'll just share with you where I found them.

Below I made a flower called a LeFleur Flower. The instructions on how they are made can be found here. Aren't they cool looking? Extra patterned paper can be used to make wonderful coordinating flowers for your layouts. For an extra boost to my 3 flowers, I added Rock Candy Crackle Paint to them. Not only do they have the shine, but now they have the crackled effect to boot.

I love Crackle Paint and my collection of colors is rapidly increasing. Tammy certainly helped me out by adding some Antique Bronze Crackle paint to the kit. So I decided to make some Antique Bronze leaves.

First, I printed out a picture of a leaf shape from clip art. I carefully cut around the edge lines, leaving the middle in place, so I could create a mask. Second, I lay the mask directly on my layout and then brushed on the Crackle Paint. I lifted the mask very slowly and then let it dry. Third, I used some makeup sponges and different shades of Distress Ink to fill in the inside. Finally, I added some Rock Candy Crackle Paint (clear) on top to finish it off.

Something else to notice in the photo below is my reverse distressed edges. Instead of tearing the outside paper of my layout, I created a distressed edge on scrap paper. I laid the paper onto my layout a bit from the edge and then used sponges to add the Distress Ink. Now I have a "torn edge" but I still have a square layout.

What season do you enjoy the most and why?

Fringe Flowers

Here are the promised instructions for the Fringe Flowers I used on my Pure Innocence layout below.

Step 1. Find the color strips you want to use for your flowers. I used a paper cutter to cut the width of the strip and then tore the lengths by hand. The brown strip below is approximately 4 1/2" x 1/8" and the pink strip is 4" x 1/2". At this time, if your paper choice has a white back, you have the option of inking it a different color. I used Distress Ink: Worn Lipstick for the back of the pink and Aged Mahagony for the back of the brown.

Step 2: Take the thicker strip and with a pair of sharp scissors begin to cut the strip into fringe. You want to cut pretty close to the top of the strip. This will prevent your final flower from sitting up high off of your page. But don't worry if you don't get it close enough, you can always trim a little off the bottom later, if necessary.

Step 3: Begin at one end and start rolling into a tight circle. You can see here where I inked the back side of my strip. Remember: if you have a different color on each side of your strip, you want to make sure the color you want showing on your final flower, is wrapped on the inside of your roll. Continue to roll all the way to the end and then put a dab of glue to seal the roll. I highly recommend Glossy Accents by Ranger. Although this is typically a finishing glaze, it is also perfect for tiny dabs of glue that dry within 3-5 seconds. The tip on the bottle is very thin, so precision glue lines or dots are very easy.

Step 4: This step is optional but I think it makes a nice effect at the end. I inked the top of my fringe roll with the Aged Mahogany Distress ink. Holding your fringe roll, just quickly rub the sponge over the top, back and forth. It doesn't matter if the fringe pieces move. It actually helps you get to the inner parts of the fringe, to ink the tops.

Step 5: Start spreading out the fringe in all directions until you have your flower, as seen below. Next take your thin brown strip and roll it into a tight circle, put a dab of glue on the end, to seal your circle. You can leave it flat or take the tip of your scissors and push the center out a bit, to give it some dimension.

Step 6: Take your glue and run it all around the inner edge of your dark circle. Next, press the circle into the center of your Fringe Flower and there you go!

Remember, if your flower sits too high off of your paper, you can trim the "stem"on the underside. I actually trim mine at an angle so I can lay the flower at a tilt on my paper. I would not advise cutting the "stem" until you are ready to glue it to your layout. After trimming, immediately cover the cut edge with glue so the outer layers of your Fringe Flower won't fall off. Then press into your layout.

I hope you take some time to try some of these. They really do make cute flowers.

They don't stay this way long....

Ah, where has the time gone. This was my sweet firstborn when she was 3 months old. Darling, she still is...angel, well...some days that's a bit questionable. ;) I took the only relatively girly looking paper in the Little Sprout paper kit by Fancy Pants and made this tonight. It was a lot of fun.

I mentioned earlier this week that I was going to attempt the art of quilling. I even featured my friend, Melissa and her beautiful quilling work here. Her work inspired me to try and see if quilling had any future in my world of scrapping. Well, it was a bit of work, but it wasn't too bad. Of course, my meager butterfly doesn't even come close to the beauty of Melissa's work, but I'll let it stay on my layout. I found the pattern online by Antonella DeFalco. She has quite a few patterns that you can find here, should you decide to try this yourself.

Now, the fringe flowers, I also read about on Antonella's website. These were a lot of fun to do and suggest every one try them at least once. In the next couple days, I'll put up pictures and instructions on how I made the little ones.

And of course, bling! Lot's of bling! You'll notice in the picture above and below that cut around part of the flourish to overlap my photo. This is a perfect way to use some of those big patterned papers and not really lose it by trying to work around it.

Let me know if you decide to try quilling or fringe flowers. You can do it!

Let's hear it for the boys!

I am certainly not the huge whimsical scrapper but these past few weeks, I've awoken my inner cutesy and scrapped away. This was made using the adorable Fancy Pants line, Little Sprout, from Lil' Lambs Boutique. Look at how cute the monkey and lion are in this paper. Certainly very fitting paper for my cousins' children....ALL BOYS! What's up with that? I'm the lone holdout with two girls.

The journaling on the page reads: My girls don't stand a chance with all boy cousins. But at least they will never want for someone to play Prince Charming!

It's not often I get to make boy layouts. I'm all about the pinks and purples and bling, with two girls. There were some really cute patterns in this paper kit, so I decided to cut the top half of one paper, on a diagonal, and use some of the patterned paper for the bottom half. Instead of cutting a straight line, I used an exacto knife to cut out the rough outline on the diagonal. This helped the two papers to blend better instead of creating a harsh line.

You'll notice that I still had fun distressing up the cutsey paper. With time in the title and oodles of boys every where, I thought this the perfect opportunity to grab the gears and clock mask from Tim Holtz Idea-Ology. I used Peeled Paint Distress Ink to rub over the mask on the bottom. I used Broken China and Peeled Paint on top to create the gears, under the title. You can see the effect in the main layout up top.

I don't know if I'll ever get some girl cousins for my daughters. But if not I still have fun grabbing my boy stuff to do a layout every once in a while.

Heart Full of Love

There are times when a quote just says it all. "Sometimes it's the smallest things that take up the most room in your heart." Surely, it's the truth with our two munchkins. What a gift these two are in our lives.

For this layout, for Lil' Lambs Boutique, I chose the Amber Road line of paper made by Pink Paislee. The colors and patterns are absoutely gorgeous.

So, are you ready to try another new technique? This time up for me...faux stitching. In my scrap room, I work on top of my sewing machine table and it is incredibly hard to clear everything off just to get my machine out. So I couldn't have been more pleased when I saw this technique from my friend, Mireille. To create her faux stitches, she punches holes in her paper first, marks over it with a black marker and then tops it off with a white pen. You can see below some of my attempts at her faux stitching technique. If you have a chance, you should check out some of her amazing work here. It's very inspiring.

I do enjoy cutting out parts of my pattern paper to use as die cuts. Remember, they're easily turned into dimensional embellishments by popping them up off the page with pop dots.

And here's a closer look at the zig zag Martha Stewart punch. I'm sure I might have mentioned before that I love these punches.

If you try the faux stitching technique, drop me a link in the comments section, so I can check out your work. Happy Scrapping!