Challenge at: Simon Says Stamp & Show

Hello!

It has been the longest time since I added anything to my blog so thank you for stopping in! The good news is my home remodel is complete! Yes, that 4 week project turned into a year, really it could be written into a full season soap opera but for now I want to stamp!

My new exciting plans include retiring August 1 after working for 43 years! I am thrilled to think of all the creative crafting I will be able to do.  So I thought I would warm-up my stamping skills will a challenge.  Simon Says Stamp & Show is a wonderful weekly challenge so I thought it would be a grand place to start especially since that is also where I stopped my blog posting.  My inspiration is a thank you card I want to make for special teammate as I say good-bye.  I sprayed the Tim Holtz clock mask and accented with distress inks.  I also used his fabric stamp on the top portion of the card and the card base inked with Tsukineko’s Delicata-Golden Glitz…I have added this to my favorite pigment ink list.  The other stamps are from Tim Holtz and 7 Gypsies.

Please leave me a note of where I can find you so I can get hooked back in with my stamping friends!  Thanks!

Creative thoughts

Ah-h today I thoroughly enjoyed making a set of these tags for a swap...a sampler adapting Tim Holtz's techniques from the tutorial for the 6th day of Christmas. Unfortunately I still haven't been able to purchase grungeboard but the basics of masking and using pearlized-distress mist were lots of fun.

Today I also went to see a good movie-Bucket List. As I worked on this project the movie brought back thoughts of "what do I want to do with my creativity this year". I am still pondering but if you want to read some thoughts on the topic I recommend the "dear Jane" an article in the Jan/Feb (current issue) of Cloth, Paper, Scissors page 96-98, as well as the thoughts for collage icons for the year-page 12. Hmmm perhaps it is time to create an Art journal.

Hope you are enjoy your creative time today!...Jan

Chillin in Alaska

Yes it is Monday... so it is ISMAKI Challenge day! Three Magnolia design team members have joined together to coordinating a fanstastic sketch challenge site. I appreciate them being kind enough to allow those of us without Magnolia stamps to play along.

It was 43 F degrees below zero in Fairbanks today (-45 C) It feels like a cold winter card is very appropriate. I mixed some distress ink accents with a watercolor background and a center masked snowflake. Thanks for the challenge, thanks for stopping by and yes my friend who still hasn't gotten her Christmas thank you also appreciates it!

More work with Tim's tutorials

I am thoroughly enjoying following along with Tim Holtz tutorials for 12 days of Christmas tags. Sure I have to adapt a lot to the supplies I have but so far I have enough to learn the techniques.

Day 3-Distress embossing powder...Oh this one was so fun to color the image with the distress powders and dump it off all at one time---what a surprise of how good it looked and of course the hardest part is letting the embossing powder cool after heating.











Day 4-Custom making an inkpad--to be done later

Day 5 Alcohol inks-the difference from traditional polished stone is that at the end one drizzling small droplets of blending solution on the ink pieced to whiten some areas and make it look like snow. Also inked the ribbon, beads and bells with the felt used with alcohol ink.





Day 6-Pearlized Shimmer Mist & using a mask
As always Tim presented a few trick that I was not familiar with using. Again anothe fun tag!

Note caribou live in this part of Alaska-may their domesticated sisters, reindeer soon be making their annual trip to your house!

Thanks for looking!...Jan
PS-Did you know you can double click on a picture if you what to see a larger version?