Star inchie

I haven't made an inchie or played with my punches in a while, so I thought I would whip up a quick inchie for the lottery before the year ran out.

 The basic star shape is from a Martha Stewart corner punch my buddy Diane gave me - by sticking it back in upside down, I was able to complete the shape.  the background is black glitter paper, and the silver is paint.  I'm not that thrilled with the silver middle to the star, but the heat is on; I had to submit the inchie photo before the day is out. more glitter with by redundant, I think.  Maybe I will glue some crystals in the middle?

LATER:

Crystals didn't look right to me, but I did have an extra pearl (real freshwater pearl).  I think it looks nice.  It will be considerably harder to mail, though.  If it had a bezel, it could be jewelry!

Challenges:
Fabulous Friday - something new (first time I ever glued a pearl to a paper project!)
Fashionista Friday - scraps (everything in this project is a leftover)
Shelly's images - black, silver, gold, and bling
Creative Card Crew - Christmas lights
Sparkles Forum - anything but a card
Gingersnap Creations - Starry Night

2012

A number of challenges are requesting a New Year's theme, but who sends New Years cards?  Still, it is too early for me to work on valentines, so I need to take my inspiration where I can.  I haven't done an ATC in a while, nor have I done a zentangle recently, so here is my New Year's zentangle ATC:

It was refreshing to do zentangles after so long.

New Year Challenges:
C.R.A.F.T
Cute Card Thursday
Paper Pretties
Whimsical Wednesdays
Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge

Oh Deer!

My house is emptying out, person by person, so I felt the need to go sit at my crafting desk.  It was covered with scraps from various Christmas projects, so I decided to throw together a couple of quick Christmas cards.

Although I have the stamp set with the deer, I stamped these a couple of years ago, before I bought the set, with the thought that I would make cards from them.  That was the year that it snowed heavily in early December, and I decided that a photo of my house in the snow was a preferable card image.

Anyway, everything else was scraps, except the Merry Christmas banner on the second card - I just bought that stamp a couple of months ago.  You may notice some strange shapes - the gear shapes are waste paper from when I did a steampunk pennant, and the triangle on the second card is from a different pennant.  When you make pennants, you get triangular scraps.

So, now I have a head start on next year!

Challenges:
Cooking it up with Katie - anything goes
Crafts and me - Christmas
Creative Belli - "Christmas" sentiment
Divas by Design - Christmas
Oldie but a Goodie - Christmas Animal

12 Tags pennant style: Day 12

Tim's last tag of the year was not great - a tissue flower, and one of those weird dolls without any arms, and no color to speak of.  I decided to use a backgound with more color in it, and set about making a tissue flower (really you can stamp on tissue, you don't need to buy it reprinted), when I realized that I didn't like tissue flowers.  They just look more crumply than flowery, and I didn't want a thick embellishment on my pennant, either.  I thought about what I really wanted on a pennant that I hadn't used yet, and realized that I hadn't done  a dreidl yet.  I made my dreidl out of some scraps of painted paper I had lying out, and it all came together very quickly after that.

My hebrew lettering leaves something to be desired.  You can still tell it's a dreidl, though.

12 Tags pennant style: Day 11

Sorry that I fell behind - My husband came home from his business trip and immediately wanted to know why I wasn't being more productive.  Apparently, making these pennants does not qualify.

Anyway, Tim did an interesting technique using UTEE and shrink plastic.  Trying to copy his technique reminded me of all the things I both love and hate about working with UTEE.  The candles below are made with the shrink plastic technique - the color is from the burnt UTEE.  Double-dipping the tips is what gives them the melted candle tops.  The menorah is punched from cardboard and heat embossed with platinum UTEE in the traditional way.  The textured portion on the base is a happy accident - I don't know why that particular area wouldn't melt right, but it looks good.

I would like to remind everyone that any plastic that has a 6 in the recycling emblem will work as shrink plastic.  I used a cookie tray from a bag of Oreos.

12 Tags pennant style: Day 10

Tim did a packing tape transfer onto foil for his technique today.  I was pretty thrilled, because I love packing tape transfers, but mine did not come out nicely.  In fact, it shredded.  I always use the thinnest possible paper for my transfers, so using the thick printed cardstock  gave me a lot of problems.  I finally threw up my hands and finished the pennant using an older technique where I just glue images to fragments and make ornaments that way.

Fragments are even thicker than ribbon bows, so I didn't hesitate to use gold braid on this pennant.  I would like to make a comment about Tim's seasonal stack, in fact all his stacks - the colors are dim and gray-bluish.  It put me off using them until it hit me - they only look good after you distress them, and a yellowish ink, like the antique linen or the tea dye, balance out the bluish gray and bring the color into a normal, usable range.  This is such a Tim Holtz thing to do, to create papers that need to be distressed.

12 Tags pennant style: Day 9

Tim taught us a very cool double embossed background today.  I got an interesting effect with my background stamp, but it was a little too grungy to use completely unembellished, so I gave it a little something something.

It's not Tim style, but it makes me happy.

12 Tags pennant style: Day 8

Tim did a steampunk tag.  I have not ever done steampunk, and today proves why.  Tickets, clock hands, vintage advertising and gears do not automatically make a paper project steampunk.

Ugh.  As much as I wanted to use the Santa's Flight stamp on a pennant, this was not the right one.

12 Tags pennant style: Day 7

This was not Tim's best tag day.  Consequently, this isn't my best day either.  He buried his flaws under a big bouquet of froufrou, but I am getting tired of froufrou tags, and did not create the necessary gigantic embellishment with 6 different textural layers.  I did make the distressed background, the embossed sentiment, and played with stuff that I don't normally use for embellishing, in this case tissue from a sewing pattern and some raffia.

It is good to have a few ugly ones - it makes the others look better.

EDIT:

I couldn't stand it any more - this pennant was too muted and bland.  I restamped the bird with black ink and added some more embellishment, including sparkly red crystal stickpins.

Tim, you win this one.

12 Tags pennant style: Day 6

Tim's tag today is centered on a faux enameling technique on metal.  I didn't have any metal today, not even an old aluminum can (recycling pick-up was yesterday), so I used another enameling technique.  This one involves 3 colors of embossing powder.

At the very top (this is the gutter, it will either be covered or cut off) you can see the original color of the cardstock.  after three layers of clear EP, the surface was smooth and dark.  I then stamped versamark snowflakes on the clear embossed surface, and embossed that with silver EP.  Finally, I stamped and embossed white snowflakes on top of that.  each layer sinks into the previous as you heat it, giving the appearance of a smooth enameled surface.  I didn't want to cover it all up, so I just added a bow and small charm.

EDIT:

Maybe less is more.  Here is how it looks without the bow. (If you think it was better with the bow, say so in the comments)

12 Tags pennant style: Day 5

Tim's tag today featured a relatively complicated background with a  simple diecut wreath on it.  I decided to go easy today and just cut a sheet of printed cardstock for my background, and focus on the wreath.  I didn't have the die (no surprise there, eh?), but I did have a pine branch punch that I had intended for years to use in this way.

There are a LOT of little punched branches there!  I used Core'dinations cardstock for the branches so I wouldn't have to worry about white edges.  I could have done more, but it didn't need it.

12 Tags pennant style: Day 4

Tim's frosty, painted tag had a lot of layers of paint and texture on it, and I tried to do the same, but it just wasn't working.  Also, my son Gordon disapproved of the monochromatic look of the snowman and insisted I give him more contrast.  I think Gordon was right.

The embossing border is not waste plastic, but waste aluminum for a drink can.  The limbs of the snowman are cut from the branches of a punched tree.  I accept that not everyone can draw a deer, but really, anyone can draw a snowman.

12 Tags pennant style: Day 3

Tim's tag featured a subway art stamp with a matching embossing folder, and his ever popular custom stamp pad technique.  I've never done the custom stamp pad, nor do I have the subway art stamp and folder, but I do have a tool I like to use - Paint Shop Pro.  I downloaded some subway art here, modified to to fit on a pennant with PSP, and then glittered up the words that I printed out.

I passed on the holly, because I did that two days ago, but I did throw some stars on there, mostly to cover up spots of smeared glitter/ink.  As Tim says, "Mistakes are opportunities for creative embellishment".  

12 Tags pennant style: Day 2

Tim's second tag featured a diecut deer.  I don't need no stinkin' dies; I drew and cut out this myself.

I made the wreath out of lumpy yarn, dragged through my distress ink pad to darken it a bit.  The green at the edges of the pennant is some green cardstock I used to back the thin music paper.  I could have trimmed it closer, but I liked it showing.

12 Tags pennant style: Day 1

It's December, so Tim Holtz is doing his annual 12 tags of Christmas. Last year I didn't bother, because I never did anything with the tags from the year before, and I didn't want a bunch more tags sitting in a box taking up space, but this year, I had a plan. I'm participating in a pennant swap, which will give me a few nice pennants for a short string, but I thought that if I made Tim's tags into pennants, it would flesh out the collection and make a really nice display. Tim's first tag featured a Noel die cut, which I didn't have, so I cut my own Noel freehand.

I also didn't have the die to cut and make a pinecone, but I did have some red glass beads and some punches.  Cool trick - to cut holly leaves, use a scalloped edge scissors but turn the scallops to the inside.

EDM 6 - beloved toy

I have a number of favorite toys still cluttering my life, but this was the nearest at hand for this challenge.  this is Scorch, a Beanie Baby dragon my Girl Scout troop gave to me.

He would be more impressive if his wings didn't sag.  They sag in real life, so that's how I drew them.  They are also iridescent wings, and the fur is a tie-dye pattern, but I wasn't able to draw all that.

Mitten for swapping

AMuse Studio makes a terrific die in the shape of a mitten that is 4 by 5.5 inches, and deep enough that you can cut a shaped folded card with it.  My AMuse  hostess club decided to do a mitten swap, and this is what I made.

 It is tricky to make something that looks like you put some effort into it  without making something so elaborate that it defies good taste or looks like you are showing off.  The green cardstock already had a nice linen texture, so I didn't mess with that.  The white cuff is flocked (white flocking is also an AMuse Studio product).  My highlight is my poinsettia, using punched flower-making skills I demoed earlier this year at a shoebox swap.  The end result is a mitten that is distinctly me, but not overdone (I think).

About the flocking - flocking works best with a dry adhesive.  I was stumped on what to use, when I remembered that I had accidentally ruined a full sheet of mailing labels this morning (I only needed to print one, but it printed the whole page).  I found that I could adhere the flocking to the sticky side of the labels, then cut the labels to fit the cuff of the mitten.

Challenges:
Creative Craft Challenges - minimalistic
Hooked on Craft - diecut
Karen's Doodles - anything but a card
My Partner in Crafting Crime - recycle (mailing labels)
Totally Gorjuss - Christmas Traditions

EDM 5 - Bed

It is easier to sit and draw a bed than it is to make a bed.  However, the bed would have been easier to draw if I had made it first.

Again, my perspective is not so good.  The problem is that I focus on one part of the picture at a time, rather than sketch in the whole thing at once, and then filling in details.
At least that is what I think the problem is.

EDM 4 - Mug

I drew this while waiting for a girlfriend at Panera. That is supposed to be my receipt and pen in the foreground, but it is hard to draw with a pen that you are drawing, all at the same time.

Santa's Flight 6

It is easy for a card to get boxy - endless series of rectangles stacked on top of each other.  One of the great things about this stamp is that it adds the look of a curve even when there isn't one anywhere else.
The designer paper is a leftover from a TAC workshop - it was already cut to size!  The image is colored with  pencils and highlighted with glitter pen.  Distressing also breaks up the boxiness, as does the circle paper clip and ribbon.

Challenges:
Forever Friends - Christmas is coming
Catered Crop - colors, theme, inks
Pile it on - traditional Christmas
Drunken Stampers - up in the air
Hiding in my scrap room - super scraps

EDM 3 - purse

The hard part of drawing my purse was to figure out how to set my purse so the handles weren't weird.  I ended up hanging it on a chair.

I obviously have problems with perspective.

Santa's Flight 5

It was time for me to color this stamp with copics, but since the figures are so tiny, it didn't really matter.

The large gold background piece is really just a scrap sheet of newspaper that was used when my daughter was spray-painting something.  It had a naturally distressed/grungy look to it that spoke to me.  However, it wouldn't glue down nicely - it wanted to warp, and the edges kept curling up.  I sewed it in place out of necessity, but I love how it looks and how it adds texture to an otherwise flat card.

The pattern paper was a scrap left over from a different project, and the kraft card base was from a stack of kraft bases my buddy Diane gave me.   Finally, I stamped the sentiment where I did to disguise the smeared ink. It is really very grungy in every way, but I like it!

Challenges:

Crafting for all Seasons - texture

Anything Goes Challenge - stitches

Tip Top Tuesday - Christmas

Cards for Men - masculine Christmas

Craft Your Passion - brown

Santa's sleigh 4

I keep calling this stamp "Santa's Sleigh", but it really called Santa's Flight.  Today I wanted to use some kraft cardstock, and also try layering the image, instead of stamping it directly on the card base.  I colored the image with the Pencilled Twinks technique, and used some little punched stars for embellishment.  The stars are great for covering mistakes and smudges!

  The twinks and the metallic paper that I used for the stars add a lot of shimmer that you can't see here.  The sentiment is from CTMH, and is glittered.

Challenges:
A Gem of a Challenge - cold and frosty
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas - sparkle
Creations by Gill M - transport
Fun with Shapes and more - Animal Christmas
Stempelsonne - Santa Claus