Tim's Tags 2016 #2

This year, I swore to myself that I would be more daring, more original, more versatile and thinner. 

I realize I might as well as sworn to be a billionaire and President, as they're just as likely to happen as the other four.

But hey! I can always try!!

AND buy lottery tickets. 

I've never done Tim's tags in their entirety before...this year, I'm going for it. I'm really digging mixed media and want to incorporate a lot of it into the 3D work I'm currently NOT doing at the moment. And with that non-existent 3D work, I'd like to transfer the texture ideas to the jewelry that I'm also NOT making. By the end of this year, I suspect I'm going to be an absolute genius in all of these areas in which I'm doing nothing.

I'm telling you...I'm TOTALLY rocking the nothing this year!! 

Anyway...I cut self-adhesive foil into sections and attached it to the top and bottom of the tag. After running it through an embossing folder, I covered it with distress paint and wiped some off to show the pattern. I stamped the robot in versamark and used winter white antiquities ep. I covered it all in chalk and wiped it off. The best part was finding the gears and little compass to 'assemble' him with. His eyes are the little dew drops, of which I have a couple million.

Side note...dew drops are something you MUST be careful with. Not because the kids or pets might swallow a few, but because they secretly mate when you're not looking. Then, several weeks after you've purchased a small bottle of 100 or so, you have 10k of them spilling over the containers, onto the floor and ready to give you a heart attack when you vacuum over the suckers and they make a racket loud enough to make you think you've taken out a wall or something.

Sorry. Back on topic.

I found this lightweight chain in the trim dept. of Hobby Lobby and sloshed some black alcohol ink to damp down the bright silver and, using a gear and long brad, attached them to the top. That'll look cute on a kid's birthday gift, don't you think?? 

Dang. I totally JUST broke my vow to not lie. Because I would NEVER put this in the hands of a child who will throw (what ends up being about 20 bucks and 5-6 agonizing hours of work to put together, photo, upload and write about) in the trash.  No way. Not even my OWN kids will get something like this.

I finished off with some gears on the legs and taking a wooden embellie that I embossed with silver ep, I took the sentiment from Tim's Small talk book, cut it in half and flipped the word 'original' upside down. Because leaving it intact made me feel that it would look like I TOTALLY did NOT get the message to begin with.

I glued a small wrench charm to the edge and called it done.

And no...you cannot ask WHY I would have a wrench charm in my stash. Mostly because I have no idea. 

Although, I wouldn't put it past those %$&#*(&$( DEW DROPS having something to do with it.  

Tim's Tags 2016

I know that I'm the LAST person, it seems, to jump on the Tim's Tags train, but I am absolutely delighted that I did!

Mixed media freaked me out. There were just too many choices and the product selection was overwhelming. Not to mention that it was hard for me to just 'play'. I was ALWAYS feeling like I had to finish everything I started.

So, I grabbed a pack of cards, started back in 2008, and started making tags. Or the tag backgrounds, that is. Smartest thing I ever did. I had this background made by cutting adhesive backed foil and laying them on the tag. Using a ballpoint pen, a card and craft pick, I made 'rivets' and 'seams'. I washed it in black and used steel wool to lift most of it off.

I cut an extra set of fan blades (after using the embossing/chalk technique on the stamped image) and popped them up on mounting tape. Using 2 gears and the chain clip from Tim, I hung a fragment with a rub on. An extra long brad, also from Tim, and crystal accents held all of that in place.

I ordered the stamp set of robots and they should be here tomorrow. I'm totally seeing a second entry. I never thought I'd like the whole 'industrial' look...but I'm digging it!

Love, Anniversaries and OTHER things that go bump in the night...

Let me start by saying 'yes'...I know I posted two pictures. 

One has a white background and the other, black. My OCD couldn't use one to out-nitpick the other, so I just threw them both on here to just get on with it.

I had a piece of colored foil left over from by butterfly (see previous post) so I decided to make an atc card. 

Since Valentine's Day (or "VD-Day" as my 1st grader once yelled to me-do NOT see the previous posts for that story...I'd just soon forget that one) is right around the corner, I decided to use that for my theme. For my inspiration, well, that's going to take a little 'splainin'. 

I'm not much of a movie/TV watcher. Unless it's Outlander. Then I'll watch and rewatch (and watch a THIRD time, but just the dirty parts) until I get all that Alexander James Malcolm McKenzie Fraser out of my system. Great....I have no idea what I was talking about. Happens every time. I start talking about Jaime and Claire and then I'm out scratching at every rock I can find. Sigh.

Ok...movies/tv. Don't do them very often. But if one of my old faves comes on and I just happen to pause, I'll stay to the end. Which is what happened to me yesterday, and which I decided to use as the art inspiration for this Valentine's ATC.

The movie was Predator.

WHAT???? Predator is a GREAT movie!! It's has great dramatic tension, a truly terrifying villain, and it's the only movie in which Arnold Schwarzenegger has a whole bunch of lines and delivers them as if he's a real actor!!! 

When the scary Predator thing hides in the trees like a chameleon, well...that's what my inspiration was for this ATC. I debossed the card, embossed the cupid, ran the archival ink over the cupid to highlight the embossing, cut another cupid in black and offset to give just a hint of shadow/separation and cut 'Love' in black 3x, glued together and coated with glossy accents. And it worked!!! 

Certainly NOT as cool as Predator, but I'm digging it. So there we are.

I'm sort of getting into this ATC thing, so I'll check in with you later. Unless Outlander is on...then it might be awhile. 

The Butterfly Effect

While visiting Dina's blawg here, I saw she got involved in a wonderful project called The Butterfly Effect...Be the change. 

Volunteers would be sent wooden butterflies to decorate and then hide...using clues and pictures posted to social media, others would find the butterfly and then have 250.00 donated to a charity of their choice. 

Go here www.butterflyeffectbethechange.com to volunteer or read more.

Those of you who know me, well..you KNEW there wasn't going to be any cutesey stuff going on with MY butterfly. The most important thing was that SOMETHING on this was gonna MOVE.

I embossed 2 long sheets of Tim Holtz's foil adhesive with different folders. Then I cut them in pieces and stuck them on at random. Then, I took an archival ink pad and ran it all over the front to highlight the embossed areas. A large piece of Dresden and a clock mechanism and BOOM! I was done. Well, almost...my OCD kicked in and I had to take strips of dresden and glue it around the outside edge to finish it off, but it came off well, I thought.

Yesterday, Jan 10th, was my drop date. I took my pictures and posted my clues and the thing was found within 12 hours. Hey...it's Burlington, NC, people...it's not like we have a lot to do.

Congrats to the person who found it and thanks to The Butterfly Effect...what a WONDERFUL group of people! Check them out! 

And while you're at it...BE THE CHANGE! 

The good change...not the one that serves as a cautionary tale. Like most of my changes. 

heh heh

FINAL DAY – ALL Paper Flowers & Leaves On Sale!

FINAL DAY – ALL Paper Flowers & Leaves On Sale!

IO Challenge "Snowy Wishes" Entry #2

I know, I know...I have a hard enough time consistently entering challenges every 2 WEEKS! Much less 2 entries in ONE! 

Go HERE to enter the Impression Obsession challenge.

But lately, I've been on this tag making, mixed media binge, and I stumbled on a technique I wanted to try with my IO poinsettia die and the Season's Greeting's die.

I used sticky back canvas and stained it red and green and adhered them to grunge board. I ran the dies through my big shot twice but it didn't cut all the way through, so I snipped them out. It wasn't difficult, but it added some extra time to the project.

I inked the edges with Walnut Stain and used distress stickles on the leaves for sparkle and snow effect.

I cut the sentiment out of black cardstock, then used black embossing powder to give it a punch. The greenery I cut from cardstock and alcohol ink stained glossy cardstock. 

The tag was colored using distress stains but if you look closely, you'll see I used the Cover A Card Music stamp which I stamped on the background using white distress stain. 

I'm not altogether thrilled with the 3 brads at the bottom...they'd been silver so I used alcohol ink to turn them a muted gold...but I ran out of patience and left them there. I needed something to anchor the tag and they're ok...I tried trim, crystals, dresden....but nothing was able to weight the piece without drawing the eye away from the poinsettia. This was as close as I could get.

Finally, to satisfy the snowy part....and, in truth, because I REALLY like to do this, I spattered distress paint over everything for 'snow'. DANG I love doing that!!!

Impression Obsession Supplies:

Cover A Card Music CC029

Lg Poinsettia Set DIE323-Z

Berry Branches DIE349-J

Season's Greetings DIE237-S

Pine Pair DIE215-E

Thoughts on Interventions...

I began seriously thinking about a need for intervention, when I bribed my 17 year old with take out Chinese and a tank full of gas in exchange for his silence. It just so happened that HE was home when the Amazon deliveries rolled in, instead of me. 

Staggering under the weight of packages over several days, he finally said "If you're out of a job, how are you buying all this crafting crap?"

"Don't use that language! It's not 'crap'! They just happen to be 'supplies'."

"Hhmmph. They still cost money." he said.

"Gift certificates." I snapped. "Now, take my wallet and get the green card...not the green and gold card...that one's maxed out. But the green card I just made a payment on, so use that to go buy yourself some Chinese. Don't get a drink with it, though...that might be pushing the limit. Literally."

Ok...look. I'm OCD. I can't help that. For some reason, God decided that I would be best served with OCD AND ADHD. I kind of imagine it like God sitting back, chin in hand, saying "Let's name this one Carmen. Alright. let's start by throwing in some ADHD, so she has zero impulse control. Then, just for kicks, let's toss in some OCD-and not the good kind that would make her clean her house, let Me give her the kind that-when she ends up doing things her ADHD makes her do, her OCD will kick in and make her KEEP doing these things until they're right. Oh! I almost forgot...let Me make sure to put her in the lower middle class bracket so that she can't afford ANY of those impulses. Heh heh. Now...who's next. This guy? Oh, what the heck. Let's give him the name Bill Gates...I'm in the mood to make a billionaire."

Story of my life.

At any rate, it all started when I thought it would be a good idea to sit down and really try some mixed media. That's right...I'm one of the rare few who never jumped on the train and was okay with it. But I wanted to do something 'arty' and I didn't want to have to complete card after card. I just wanted to play. So, I visited Tim Holtz's blawg, and decided to try his December tag.

Everything after that is a bit of a blur. The next thing I knew, I was having weird feelings for grunge board and paint dabbers. My hands were stained, my clothes were ruined and I was going nuts because I didn't have tape or tissue paper or stamps or dies or spray stains....well...you get my drift.

The next thing I know, I'm ordering little bits here and there, putting little charges on all sorts of different cards. I actually felt like a knew what a drug addict went through! Secretly hiding my stash, claiming I'd had it all along, saying I borrowed stuff from other people, etc. etc. I swear I started thinking about getting the husband to coordinate an intervention.

Actually, I TRIED to get him involved, but he was too busy on the golf course. 

So, I ordered some fun foam to makes stamps out of my dies. Because that would totally save me money. Except I needed some more dies to make the stamps I wanted. It's a never-ending cycle, people.

But I'm telling you, when the husband is done golfing and I find I'm unable to bribe my children in a way to which they're accustomed, I'll quit. I swear. Just one..more..bottle..of..distress..glitter....