Red Velveteen Dress

I remember as a kid , my sisters and I would get new  red velveteen dressed for Christmas

This image of a Victorian girl, wearing a red dress reminds me of those holiday dresses.
The tag is covered with a patterned paper of red sheet music and a patterned paper of red and green paisley. Edges of the tag are distressed with Tim Holtz's Antique Linen. The bouquet of holly that she is holding is accented with red and green Stickles

Santa's Elves, Snow Queen and Christmas tags

Like Santa's elves, I have been busy working at my design bench. I haven't been making toys, I  have been creating Christmas tags. My table was covered from one in to the other with vintage Christmas images, holiday patterned paper, embossing powder, Stickels, rhinestones, embellishments and a dozen different colors of Tim Holtz Distress Ink

The craft  tag for this lovely Snow Queen was covered with distress ink and then embossed with Stampendous Shabby Pink Embossing Powder, it gives the Flourish background stamp  great dimension. The Snow Queen image was cut from a Vintage postcard, embellished with Stickles and finished off with gold pleated ribbon and white lace.

Chickens, Birthdays and Ferris Bueller

Remember the quote from Ferris Bueller's Day Off...

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around

 once in a while, you could miss it."

Sure you do...

That is a pretty good description of  my November...it moved pretty fast and I missed most of it.

November does have some birthdays in it of family and friends. My Darling Daughters birthday is the beginning of the month ( I didn't miss that). DD raises chickens in her backyard, they lay beautiful brown, blue and green eggs. In honor of DD's birthday I created a  chicken Birthday Card...

  

 I used Bundled Sage and Antique Linen distress ink, Prima flowers and Tim Holtz tissue tape...

I found the text on Pinterest...it was too funny to pass up.

 

Two Black Bats

 This image of a 1800s era girl in a Halloween bat costume and the flourish and swill background (embellished with a glitter pen) both came from Graphic Fairy. The edges of the tag were embellished with Tim Holtz Aged Mahogany Distressed ink. 

I finished the tag off with a couple of die cut black glitter paper bats...after all, if you are Bat Girl you can never have too many bats!

Long Division, Telling Time and a Calico Cat

This distressed Graphic 45 ABC  Primer patterned paper  brings back the basics  taught in school in the "good old days"...Reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmeti.

This little boy may know his numbers... 1 through 10,  but could long division be far behind? 

The half page is covered with red gingham, and embellished with a vintage looking chip board piece, that warns the next lesson is "telling time".

I love the calico cat sitting next to the student on the red stool

The back of the book is embellished with two alphabet  pages...maybe from an old "ABC book"

The only things missing  from this mini album are some grade school photos

First day of school

I'm not sure what happened to Summer Vacation...it zipped by  too fast. The kids are going back to school tomorrow. Which gives me a great excuse to share my Graphic 45 ABC Primer  patterned paper mini album...how did you like that conversation transition?

This chipboard album does not have the usual  Stickle, rhinestones and glitter pen bling that I have added to  some of the other mini albums I have designed.  This  paper reminded me of vintage school books that my grandmother may have taught from back in the 40s.

So I created a distress look by sanding the edges and using a lot of Tim Holtz Wild Honey Distress Ink. 

I used two different sizes of chip board pages for the book...it gives it a great layered look. The edges of the larger pages layered ...the red gingham and ABC area.

When you open the first small page the rest of the cover is revealed

Who does "This Book Belongs to"...

The little girl writing on the chalk board or the girl in the red dress... that appears to be giving some one a spanking...WHERE WAS THE TEACHER WHILE ALL THIS WAS GOING ON?!?!?!?

Fragment Charms, Jewlery and Embellishments

I have been experimenting with Tim Holtz Idea-ology  Fragment Charm.  They are Tim's acrylic bits and pieces of different shapes and sizes (the ones that come pre-drill with holes)  when used along with Rangers Glossy Accents  you can create embellishments and jewelry.

The easiest technique is to apply the Glossy Accents to one side of the charm, lay the piece on a patterned paper, wait until the Glossy Accents drys, cut off the excess paper around the charm and there you go...you have a one of a kind charm. Add a jump ring and cording and you will have a pendent...if you use one of the smaller pieces you will have a charm for a bracelet. 

 I experimented with stamping the charms with Staz-on ink , then adding a patterned paper behind the stamp. I tried his technique for embossing the charm by sanding one side to create a frosted look. I then stamped an image with Versa Mark and applied clear embossing powder. Then I used a heat gun to melt the embossing powder which created an etched look on the charm. I now have a jar full of completed charms...there has to be more to these Fragment Charms that to just make jewelry!

While rooting in my patterned paper scraps I found a old Jenni Bowlin paper that looked like a collage of old post cards. One of the post cards had a great teal green background with variegated orange flowers...I created a charm with a portion of this image. While the charm was drying I covered a manila tag with the rest of the collage paper and added some of the text from the paper to the tag. When the charm was dry I added a bow. For an embellishment, I lined up the image on the charm to the image on the tag and adhered it to the tag with Ultimate Glue. The tag was finished off with Tim's Wild Honey Distress Ink.

I was pretty pleased with how the tag turned out...who knows I may spend the next week creating tags and adding Fragment Charm embellishments to them all!

Have a Star-Spangled Day

Happy Birthday U.S.A!

The Olde Curiosity Shop

I love  exploring  antique, thrift, "junque" stores...how every you describe them, nothing is better than  finding cool junk!  Those one time  discards become your wonderful treasure.

 The Graphic 45  "Olde Curiosity Shoppe" patterned paper reminds me of the wandering through the perfect antique store. How to use such a imaginative paper line, chip board die-cuts and of course  "Wild Honey" Distress Ink...?  

Create a antique store mini album!

The cover of the album is the "front window" of the Olde Curiosity Shop...with a glimpse of the fascinating bits and pieces waiting to be discovered.

Layered on the "window" is a pewter Bee...

Opening  the cover to  the first pages  shows some of the  fantastic oddities. Best of all...a flying pig!

 Stepping further into the shop we find butterflies and bees...and a mysterious lady with a copper key.

Turning the page we notice  a rare butterfly collection...

What clever oddities will we spy next? A peacock feather and a "flying" shoe!

We have poked in ever nook and cranny of the shop and now have come to the end...

There is always something fascinating to happen upon in the Olde Curiosity Shoppe

Decorating for the Holiday

I just checked the date of the last time I blogged...it's been way too long! I wonder what I have been doing? Oh RIGHT...prepping for classes. I have found a whole new respect for teachers.

 Have you gotten your Halloween decorations up yet?  "THEY"  ( yes, that THEY) say that  Halloween is the second most decorated holiday in the country. Decorating creates the mood for the holiday...lets face it, we will come up with any excuse to break out the glue and  scissors and create something festive.

In honor of the holiday I've designed some "spooky"  Halloween tags:

Gotta love all the  different colors of Tim Holtz distress ink...they are so much fun to create with.

The most wonderful time of the year?!?!

Ti's the season for being extremely busy...and NO I'm not ready! And YES I have been busy, decorating for Christmas...which didn't get done, making divinity, shipping packages, making and sending cards, decorating the tree, wrapping gifts and shopping for stocking stuffers, working at Scrapbook Barn, free lancing as holiday help at the flower shop and teaching classes. I haven't had a day off in weeks. I have promised myself I will start earlier next year.

I have been teaching an Heirloom Tag Class at Scrapbook Barn...these are the tags for Christmas...

The angel tag is a re-mix of a Christmas card I made a few years ago...

The lady on this tag reminds me of a Poinsettia...

Of course I had to get some Tim Holtz onto the tags...the red glitter paper reindeer is from his die cuts...

All the tags are made using distress ink.

Tea Stained Muslin

This Sassafras Lass Mix and Mend paper was so cool to work with... the paper looks like tea satined muslin. I used some Wild Honey distress ink around the edges...can you tell this has become my new favorite distress in color?

The opposite page is covered with patterned paper from the same line...it has the look of white lace over a rich honey yellow background.

The honey comb shapes were part of the Maya Roads chipboard album...I covered these with some of the patterned paper that looked like straight stitch embroidery and sewing pattern tissue paper.

The 8 tags of LOVE

Tim Holtz has his 12 Tags of Christmas...I have my 8 tags of LOVE!
For my second Mystic Paper Design Team Project I covered shipping tags with the K andCompany "Cut and Paste Chocolate Lovers" paper. The pattern on this paper has kind of a Shabby Chic vintage look to it...

all the tags were distressed with Ranger "Tattered Rose" ink and then spritz with "Vintage Pink" Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist...

each tag has a Crafty Secrets Heartwarming Vintage Cut...embellished with a "Clear Star" Sakura Jelly Roll pen...better know as the MAGIC PEN.

wooden hearts are covered in "Fruit Punch" Stickels...the ribbons, lace and braid come from Mystic...

A 12x12 piece of mat board was covered with the Pink Pasilee "Bow and Arrow" blue with tiny white hearts patterned paper...sanded a bit around the edges...distressed with ink...springy green lace was added to the top and bottom of the paper... pink lace flowers...with Kaiser Scrapbook blue rhinestones in the center.

The 8 LOVE shipping tags were mounted to the background.

When I turned the project in, I was awarded with a "stinkin' cute" by Jennifer!

Two projects down...one more to show...

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

This Fall a friend of mine, that knows how much I enjoy old photos gave me this one of his aunt as a child. The detail of her coat, hat and shoes are amazing. I knew I wanted to use this picture in a Christmas card. While it doesn't scream Christmas...it does look very winter-y. After a few attempts of trying to make the photo work...and not liking what I was coming up with, I went looking for some inspiration...and found it in a 2008 Somerset. Frieda Oxenham had a wonderful design that I semi-scrap swiped.
The background of the card is 7Gypsies "Venice-Canal" patterned paper . "Black Soot" Distress ink for the stamp and the edges of the card. I highlighted the stamp design with the "magic pen" (gotta love the the magic pen). A glittery shear aqua ribbon runs down the side...and aqua lace across the bottom, along with the word "Merry". A large white lace snowflake (which started out life as a daisy) is covered in "Star Dust" Stickels and embellished with a rhinestone star. All topped off with a sprig of Holly on the hat.

The message inside the card reads...

"Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas".

I hope you do just that!