WOYWW Oct. 30, 2013

The day before halloween and my desk is scary looking!  I have actually seen worse, but let's not go there today.  The mess you see will probably have to stay there until I get the Halloween preparations done for tomorrow.  Essentially bag the candy!  It is less tempting to everyone else in the family if mom makes treat bags for the trick or treaters.

So thanks to Julia here we go on another tour of other "scary "desks in the crafty world...

I was playing with my newly acquired Tim Holtz Alterations combo Stamps and Sizzix kit.  This is the Framelits one.  I have to work on making accurate die cuts, post stamping, unless I use a piece of tape they cut off skew.  I clean off the excess ink in my art journal on the side, it makes for fun back grounds.  I might use these die cuts on a new mini book/album I thought of making, will have to wait and see.

Ok, that is it for today.  I have to go fill some bags with candy!  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great WOYWW.

Mixed Media Art Journal Rock'n Girl

  If you haven't guessed it by now.... it is another Monday and another installment of Mixed Media Monday.  I think it is an excellent way to start the week.  I know it helps me to get going on with the rest of the tasks of the week.  So here is a page in my art journal:

The theme from now until November 8 at our  All That Stickles Linky Party is "Anything Goes with Distress Stickles."  Those are my favourite lines in the stickles family as they coordinate so well with the other Distress Products by Tim Holtz for Ranger.  Mind you, all their products coordinate perfectly, these just happen to be my weakness!  For this page, I had the privilege of working with digital from our sponsor: the Stamping Chef.  This is the "Rock My World" image.  I used mostly colouring pencils (Prismacolor Premier) and a blender to colour this image.  I used Distress Stickles in Fired Brick, Picket Fence, Barn Door Red, Scattered Straw, and of course, my all-around favourite = Rock Candy.

I use the Dyan Ravelry "Dyelusions" mixed media art journal, and a crazy combination of leftover acrylic paints, inks, and sprays (all Ranger) from various projects as my background base. I collaged bits of vintage and distressed plus inked music sheets, scraps of scrapbook paper in multiple weights, vintage London bus tickets, and some raffle ticket remnants.  Besides, I used some sponged on gesso and Thickers sparkly stickers for the title.

Playing in my journal is fun and therapeutic, I do love this job!  I hope that you get to play in a journal too.  Thanks for stopping by, please play along with our Linky Party, and have a great week.

Halloween Mixed Media Screen

If you are here looking for my post for the All That stickles blog hop it is right here.http://allthatstickles.blogspot.ca/2013/10/button-bonanza-blog-hop.html

Monday, Monday, Monday....  it's good to start a whole new week in what has been a glorious fall here.  Over the weekend I was busy , busy, busy making this Halloween project for all of you (All that Stickles fans) and boy did I use LOTS of stickles!  I even managed to swallow some!  No joke.  I was snipping off stray ends of fibers that had glitter and stickles and one tiny piece must have flown into my tea cup.  I forgot to take it out and remembered when I finally took a gulp.  Good news, I m fine!


Here is my table top Halloween themed Screen:

Close up of the left side and part of the centre.

Close up of the right side and part of the centre.


The base of this project is cardboard recycled from cereal boxes, joined together with masking tape, gessoed, painted and collaged with vintage tea stained dictionary pages.  There is a coat of modge podge mixed with some walnut ink and water.  More paint (Craft Deco), Distress Dye Inks by Ranger,  embossing ink and Distress Embossing powder also from Ranger.  To make the background I used velvety spider webs on a mesh ribbon.  The picture frames are made of black card stock (American Crafts) die cut with a Spellbinders steel die (Frames Nestabilities).  The images are from older Halloween themed scrap book paper scraps I had in my stash. The ghost is a chipboard die cut from Little Yellow Bicycle. I made the picket fence, the pumpkin border and the toothy banner with Creative Memories papers from long ago and the C.M. border maker with the Rickety Fence, Pumpkin, and Banner cartridges.  I used white chalk ink by Color Box to distress the black papers.  The Dye inks I used were:  Black Soot, Spiced Marmalade, Vintage Photo, Old Paper, Pumice Stone, and Walnut Stain.  The Stickles I chose are:  Spiced Marmalade, Paprika, Black Diamond, Walnut Stain and Rock Candy.   I also used a lot of the Rusty Hinge Distress Glitter by Ranger and some Diamond Dust glitter. The embossing powder I used is Black Soot.  The sentiments are stamped with the Get Inky! By Blue Moon Creation "Halloween 2013"  stamps, onto some scraps of grey Card Stock with Ranger's Archival black ink.  To give the project dimension I used lots of black fun foam and my nifty Xyron sticker maker.  The little spiders were punched with a Creative Memories mini Halloween punch.

I hope that I have inspired you to go make some of your Halloween Mixed Media and Decorations.

Thanks for stopping by!

Challenges:
Anyone for Anya - 2W SIR - (1st Week) Vintage.

• Anything But A Card Challenge - 2W, no cards - (3rd Week) Challenge #28 Orange & Black ... Colors of the Season. (Final week).

Buttons, and Blog Hop

Welcome to the Button Bonanza Blog Hop brought to you by the All that Stickles design team!

Buttons are fabulous embellishments to all types of craft projects, and what better than to spruce them up with some Stickles?!

 If you have just come across the hop and are looking to start at the beginning, please visit All that Stickles! If you've come from Karen's blog, you're in the right place. 

I made this Mixed Media canvas (8" x 8") with collage, acrylic paints (Claudine Helmuth), Alcohol inks and dye inks (Ranger), stamps, washi tape, Stickles in Lime Green, Emerald Green, Christmas Red, and Black Diamond (Ranger).  The buttons came from my very very BIG collection of vintage and recycled buttons.  The eyes of the Kitty are actually heart shaped buttons and the green ball is also a button. I decorated the buttons with stickles and her collar.  My inspiration came from our cat, this is what she looks like with her red collar and green eyes.  By the way, she loves to play in my button collection too!  

We have blog candy for those who are a follower of All that Stickles and leave a comment on every stop of the hop! Winners will be announced Wednesday October 23rd at All that Stickles.

Fresh Brewed Designs

$15 Gift Certificate

Scraptastical Kreations

$15 Gift Certificate

Get Inky! Stamps

$25 Gift Certificate

SKdigis

2 Digital Stamps of Winner's Choice

Your next stop is Cathy's blog. 

Here's the complete lineup:

All that Stickles

Tonya

Cathie

Angeline

Sonia

Karen S. 

Laura

Karen N.

Ann

Cathy

Chas

Featured Fan - Deanne

Featured Fan - Marji

Thanks for hopping! :) Don't forget to check out our Halloween Linky Party!

WOYWW, October 17, 2013

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday

Hi there!  Wow, another Wednesday is here I can't believe how fast time is going these days.  Here is a view of my very very very boring work desk but so essential in all my creative madness.  Ever notice how we often spend more time on administrative crap versus creating actual art?  Bummer.  But we gotta do what we gotta do.  In my case there is scheduling, class preparations, organizing of samples, organizing of instructions, and blah, blah, blah.  Thank goodness for latte in my favourite mug.  Although this picture does not look creative I have been creating lots of card designs,  some mixed media/Halloween projects and a couple of Christmas/Winter theme projects.  Most of which I can't show because of publishing dates and stuff.  I am also learning new to me word processing techniques and in my spare time I am looking into more mono printing techniques for another class I am working on.  Last week I must have designed and made about 6 new cards, one small canvas, a Halloween decoration and I  baked 2 pumpkin pies.  I also harvested vegetables from my garden to cook and feast on this past Thanksgiving , which included roasting a locally raised and grain fed turkey.  Now I have soup cooking on the stove and turkey pot pies to make this afternoon.  While the pies are baking I will probably finish working on this coming weekend's Blog Hop for All that Stickles, where I am on the Design Team.

Thank you again Julia for organizing this tour.  Thank you to all the visitors in the past weeks, sorry if I did not get around to visiting you all back.  I will do my best this week to visit as many as possible.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Boo Buttons for Halloween

Wow, you get two posts for the price of one today!  Considering they are all free, that is quite the deal you are getting.  Ok, so today is officially Thanks Giving in Canada, and we are or are about to stuff ourselves with some yummy turkey and all the traditional trimmings including pumpkin pie.  Afterwards I will be making some turkey soup and a  lot of turkey based dishes.  Prior to that I have had to make a sample for the Get Inky! stamps blog where I am one of the Designers.  The ongoing challenge is Buttons on a Halloween Themed card.  I also had to make a Mixed Media piece with the similar theme of  Halloween for the other blog, All That Stickles where I am also on the Design Team and I have my own feature on Mondays titled: Mixed Media Monday.  I literally tossed a coin to chose which project went up first, I have enough to deal with at my house right now and I wanted to be fair to everyone.  Phew!

                                          

So first up is my "Boottons" (get it, Boo + Buttons) card for the Get Inky! Stamps Challenge.  It is a simple Step fold card about  5 x 7" when folded.  I used grey card stock for the card base and some glittery halloween themed papers I have had in my stash for a while. I also used some lime green card stock from my stash (Staples, probably) and Black card stock (American Crafts).  I used the Get Inky! Halloween 2013 stamps with Black Tuxedo ink Memento by Tsukineko on X-Press It paper.  I glued on some little black buttons for the ghosts' eyes, and two orange buttons for the pumpkin.  I also used some old glitter markers (Laurentien) I found in my desk, to enhance the BOO's and the spider.  I love making things for halloween and this was a fun project.  I hope that you are inspired to participate in the ongoing challenge.  Thanks for viewing.

Next up is my project for the All That Stickles blog and my feature Mixed Media piece.  In keeping with the Halloween theme:

This is Mr Skeleton in his foam made top hat decorated with Black Diamond Stickles (Ranger) with a dead rose (from my supply stash) decorated with Pink Stickles (Ranger).  The skeleton was antiqued and made to look more decayed with a combination of some black acrylic paint(Craft Decor) and some glaze (Liquitex). The all wooden coffin was painted in Deathly Black, Funeral Purple (All from Craft Decor and Dollarama, and a topcoat of Rock Candy Stickles (Ranger).

There is a banner which reads Happy Halloween, I made that from a scrap of purple card stock, the Get Inky! stamp by Blue Moon Creation "Halloween 2013", Memento black ink(Tsukineko) and Purple Stickles (Ranger).  Mr. Skeleton is accompanied by his other spooky friends some Ghosts, Bats, Spiders and their webs (Also from Dollarama)..the branch in the background is a Halloween decorative florist branch from Dollarama.

My family and I love Halloween and we go to great lengths each year to decorate our home and to also make it a fun place for all the Trick or Treaters to stop by.   I hope that you enjoyed my ideas for Halloween decorating and please go over to the challenge blog and enter your project.

Thanks for viewing.

I am also linking this to the http://www.craftindesertdivas.com link party " Halloween"

Woyww, Oct.9

Hello, I m back with this week's instalment of Welcome over to my whirlwind!  No, just kidding it is time to show and tell what is on my work desk.  I seem to skip every other week just because I have too many things going on and when I am out and about my desk is actually tidy.  Well, this week I am multi tasking again and I just couldn't decide which one of my desks to share with you, as they all have some sort of creative mess on them.

By the way let's not forget who is responsible for organizing this tour every week: JULIE!

Picture no.1:

My main creative work desk on the right with stacks of adhesive, a steel die cut (Tim Holtz) and what looks like a bunch of scraps of paper.  These are part of a class I am putting together on Card making.
Over to the left is a partial picture of my drawing table that is flat at the moment because it holds one of my art journals with a background I am working on, not sure where I am going with this one.
oh yes, as usual this is very confusing to the eyes as I have a ton of supplies shown here but this is where they usually are.


Picture no. 2:

My work bench/counter where I am painting a miniature coffin and if you squint you can see part of Mr. Skeleton behind it.  I am working on a Halloween project deadline for a Design Team . Yes, tons of supplies and tools in the background, and a pot of dirty brush water.  Also, my work bench phone that I don't mind getting paint all over as it wipes clean very easily and this one is not electric so I can't accidentally  short it out with water!

Picture no. 3:

What is supposed to be my cutting table for large pieces of paper and my fabrics is actually a" holding all my  extra junk", and drying table at the moment.  There is another art Journal in the process of,"I have no idea".  Beyond that, is a small mixed media canvas project (another deadline for another Design Team). There is a pile of left over scrapbook papers and card stocks from projects completed and submitted to a magazine.  My handy dandy shapes cutting system in its travelling case is in the centre. Holding some pages of my journal apart is a clear plastic suitcase which holds some newly acquired liquid water colours.   Further back you can see parts of my sewing area and a bunch of suitcases full of tools and supplies yet to be unpacked from a trip two weeks ago.

Now, I hope to make some time to go visit some other woyww's, I love to do that.  Thank you so much  to all my visitors and your lovely comments I so appreciate them.  I really really do my best to return the favour, eventually! :)
Thanks for stopping by today.

Mixed Media Necklace Monday

It is Monday and time to share with my viewers what I have made and posted up at the All That Stickles Blog where I am on the Design Team.   The blog theme is still "Think Pink".

Last weekend I had a busy and great time at the Crop & Create organized by Scrapbook & Cards Today Magazine.  One of the make and takes given by Catherine the publisher was this pretty necklace.  I am not an expert Jewelry designer and any jewelry I make I find intimidating to  craft. However, this was such an easy project with really pretty results.  We also got to use some Stickles (Diamonds) by Ranger, and I love those.  The necklace is a simple ball chain with a silver tone pendant inlaid with a stamped pink paper that we added a dab of Glossy accents and a dab of Stickles (Ranger) to adhere the glass dome on top.  The stickles really make the pendant bling.  I got so many positive comments on my necklace that I wanted to share it with my viewers.  I hope that you are inspired to try something new just like I did.  It could be fun.

(Sorry, but I have a difficult time showing off the sparkles made by the stickles in my photography.)

Here is a picture of the lovely Catherine (Scrapbook & Cards Today) posing with a bottle of Ranger's Stickles, at the Make and Take table.

I hope that you are inspired to make something with some bling.  Thanks for stopping by.

Happy National Card Making Day

Hi, it's National Card Making Day and I  made this card for the challenge at Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine.  Have fun and go make a card.

My Fall Colours Card for Get Inky!

Hello everyone.  I am so glad you decided to stop by and see what I made for the Get Inky! Stamps from Blue Moon Creation blog.  We have a challenge going on where we invite our viewers to make a Fall Themed project, link to our challenge and have the chance to win some prizes.

The card above is a "Tent Card"that I made out of regular card stock from Staples.  I used two sets of stamps from Get Inky!; the Halloween 2013 set and the Love Bugs set.  I stamped each image onto white card stock using Memento black ink and I coloured with permanent ink markers(Bic), as my Copics were M.I.A (story for another day).  I often use dimensional foam adhesive in my projects and I thought this was a perfect time to do so.  I will also let you in on my little design secret:  that wood grain look on the front, is card stock embossed with a wood grain folder from Fiskars, and inked with Distress inks Vintage Photo and Black Soot from Ranger.  The butterfly is fluttering by on a piece of leftover extemely fine gauge jewelry wire.

I hope that you are inspired to try making some new projects for Fall.  Stay tuned as I am working on some card making technique classes (depending on the demand) for the near future.

Thanks for stopping by!

When Life gives you lemons...

When life gives you Lemons, Make a card and enter a challenge!

Another shaker card I made is over here: http://www.cheapeatsthriftycrafts.com/make-your-own-shaker-cards/

I won the "Interactive Challenge" at "crop & Create" in Cornwall, Ontario this past weekend and I am so pleased.  I made this card using the stamps from Get Inky! by Blue Moon Creation, so a big shout out to Thia!  Of course I also used a dash of Rock Candy Stickles on the ice cubes (can't see in this picture) so that's another shout out to my All that Stickles Team.  I did use my Xyron to assemble this little gem which is awesome because one of the judges was the Xyron Spokes Person: Beth Kingston.  I also won a great Sticker Maker from them, thank you!

My card is a "Waterfall" style card with a "Shaker " element.  If one pulls on the ribbon tab the squares cascade. The shaker part is the acetate ice cubes I inserted in the acetate stamped jar.  The paper straw is real and removable.  The little lemons on the twine in the corner also jiggle.  Another shout out to my Friend Denise because I used the C.M. border maker.  The papers are American Traditional Designs.  The ink is Archival Black ink from Ranger.  The twine and lemons are recycled from my stash.  The ribbon came from JoAnne's.  The Acetate is also recycled.  I used Bic permanent ink markers, and Zig writer pens.  There is a little brad shaped like a glass that is also from my stash.  The paper straw is Crafty Basics.  In addition to Xyron I used Martha Stewart's craft glue, 3M double sided tape and Stix2 clear dimensional adhesive.

By the way, what a great 3 day crop event this was.  Thanks to Scrapbook and Cards Magazine.

Thanks for stopping by, now to go play with my new toy!

ps. you were right PB.