Around the World in 80 Years

Ok ... so my mom really has not been around the world in her 80 years, but I bet she feels likes she has run around the world a few times chasing her four kids during those years.  My Mom celebrated her 80th birthday in February and I made this seriously grunged tag to commemorate the monumental occasion.

I tried a new technique on this tag.  I started with a manilla tag.  I stamped the balloon from Tim Holtz's Remnant set with Black Soot Distress Ink and heat embossed the image with black embossing powder.  Next, I covered the entire tag with a thin coat of slow-drying multimedium.  I took a piece of Tim's Terminology Tissue Wrap (a piece bigger than the entire tag) and laid it gently over the entire tag.  I smoothed it out so there were no bumps, wrinkles or bubbles.   I was thrilled to see that my image showed through the tissue paper!! The edges of the tissue wrap were trimmed around my tag and the hole was punched out at the top of the tag. 

After the multimedium dried, I used Distress Markers and a water brush to add color to the tag.  Shading the image was pretty easy because the embossed image is still raised through the tissue wrap and I just followed the contours of the image.  It's so great to still be able to see the words on the tissue as well as the balloon through the watercolored ink.  I distressed the tag's edges and inked them with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and Distress Stain. I love the effect!!

On the  bottom of my tag, I used Rangers Sepia archival ink to stamp the checkerboard pattern.  I had some die cuts left over from previous project (a Sizzix button, some of Tim's flowers out of an old book page from his tattered floral decorative strip, and branch out of cardstock from another Sizzix decorative strip).  I colored the flowers and branch with Distress Markers and added some white dots on whim on the flower with a Ranger Inkssentials White Opaque pen.  A couple of strips of patterned paper were used to create a grungy sentiment banner.  I stamped "just celebrate" from Tim's "Just Sayings" stamp set on the banner.  I put together the flower with a jeweled brad and stitched the button onto the sentiment banner with embroidery floss.  I layered flower, button, branch and sentiment together at the bottom of the tag with Glossy Accents.

While that dried, I grabbed some 7 Gypsies Chipboard numbers and partially painted them with some Brushed Pewter Distress Crackle Paint.  I let them dry over night to get the most out the crackle process.  I adhered them to my tag with Glossy Accents and used a Black Soot Distress Marker and Walnut Stain Distress Stain on a small paint brush to add some shading to the tag around the numbers.  I saturated the top of the numbers with Walnut Stain Distress Stain to bring out all the crackles in the paint.

The tag tie is a piece of Tim's ruffled trimming topped with a pink ribbon.  I painted a wooden button with Peeled Paint Distress Paint, grunged it with Walnut Stain Distress Stain and stitched it to the ribbon.

 

Well, that's it for now.  I shall now close with a belated birthday wish to my best friend ... my Mom.  Love you Mom!!!  -- Mary Elizabeth

Summertime Frappuccino with Tim ... Holtz 12 Tags of 2015 for June

Hello to all of you my wonderful, creative friends!  It has been way too long since I have been to crafty blogland.  I must confess to just being too tired to do anything but physical therapy and work.  My bedtime was often before the sun went down in the evening.  I am glad to say that I am much better for it though and now I am able to return to crafting.  I can't tell you how wonderful it has been to have inky fingers again :)

I thought it would be nice to celebrate with my version of Tim Holtz's June Tag for 2015.  Please check out his blog for details on how he created his marvelous tag.  This has to be one of my favorites simply because of Tim's "fresh brewed" Sizzix die.  I also share Tim's love of Starbucks and I am thrilled to make a tag that celebrates my Frappuccino Fascination.

We are in the middle of our summer here in the United States and it's time for all sorts of outdoor fun and summer celebrations.   Next weekend will be our Independence Day (July 4th) and with summer temperatures soaring above normal, even here in the mountains of North Carolina, I am definitely going to be celebrating with a Venti Mocha Frappuccino.  So here is my tag that combines my love of all things vintage, patriotic and coffee.

I started this tag with trying different backgrounds using Tim's stripes stenciling technique.  You can see some of my trials along with the one I chose for my background.  Like the technique illustrated on Tim's blog, I used three colors of Distress Ink (Barn Door, Chipped Sapphire and Aged Mahogany) for the middle background in the image below.  Although I love this idea, I ended up choosing a background for this tag that had just one color, Barn Door, on the vertical stripes and another color, Chipped Sapphire, on the horizontal stripes.  Never worry ... the middle background is already being transformed into a birthday card.  Ah ... don't you just love the creative process?!

Here are a few other details about my tag.  To go along with my patriotic theme, I pulled out some of Tim's Natural Red and Cream Trimmings to create the tie around the cup and tag tie.  I frayed the ends of both and added some stamped stars on the tag tie.  I was trying to think of an appropriate sentiment for the tag.  As soon as I saw the "hello friend" stamp in Tim's "Simple Sayings" stamps, I knew I had found a winner.  That is exactly what I say when they hand me my ice cold Frappuccino!!!  (Either that or "my precious!" when I'm channeling my inner Tolkien).  The sentiment is backed with a great denim banner that I found at my local Michaels.

I wanted to give a shout out and sincere thank you to the lovely Linda Coughlin over at the Funkie Junkie Boutique.  She gave me this amazing Statue of Liberty button in a recent shipment of some backordered stamps.  It was absolutely perfect for this tag.  Thanks Linda ... you are the best.  Also ... I want to point out the authentic green Starbucks straw below.  Yes, I just had to go buy another Frappucino this week to get that straw.  It was such a difficult task and I just couldn't burden anyone else with it :)

Well, I leave you with one last view of my entire tag and a big smile.  It's great to be back.  Hugs to you all -- Mary Elizabeth

Happy Birthday Mr. Holtz (better late than never!)

Hi everyone!  Wow!!  It has been an exhausting few weeks.  This has been my first full week back at work (as a faculty member at a local university) after my surgery.   On top of all of that, when I'm not at work, I'm in the gym for a couple of hours of physical therapy.  My trainer has the nickname "Dr. Pain".  Yeah ... it fits.  He is a former marine and he makes me work hard.

With all that going on, it is no wonder that I'm a little late with my wall hanging birthday wish for Mr. Tim Holtz (his birthday was January 7th).  Also, this project is completely outside my comfort zone.  The current Compendium of Curiosities 3 challenge (Challenge 19) over at Linda Ledbetter's blog is Frayed Fabric.   I really don't sew. Although  I have a sewing machine in my basement that my mom gave me,  I've actually never used one.  I didn't think I could learn how to use a sewing machine this week. So ... there were several times that I laid the project down and said "I quit!".  I was so afraid of making a mess.  However, I actually thought about Tim and his idea of "embracing imperfection" and carried on.  I'm pretty happy with the result. Regardless, this project was all about wishing Tim a happy birthday and thanking him for all that he has done to inspire this community to create.  I hope you had a fantastic birthday Mr. Holtz!

My project started with some of Tim's fabric "charms".  These wonderful fabric squares had some of my favorite Tim designs on them.   I wanted a substantial but pliable backing for my wall hanging.  Since I don't know how to use a sewing machine, I decided to do some hand stitching.  That got me to think about some cork squares that I had in my stash.  I could actually sew through the cork!  It worked fabulously!

I stamped "happy birthday" with Barn Door Distress Paint and added Tim's birthday with an archival ink pen directly on the fabric.  The word "TIM" was cut out of the Subway Signs fabric charm.  It was the one that had "TIMES SQUARE" on it.  I added a little stuffing to the back, used the frayed fabric technique and voila ... a personalized wall hanging for Tim's birthday.

 The fabric squares came bound with some ribbon that had Eclectic Elements and Tim's name on it.  I thought it would be fun to include this in the design and even frayed the ribbon :)

My decorative stitching was really free-form.  I didn't have a plan or pattern.  I just sat and stitched with embroidery floss.  This is what happened!  I ended up with some "half-flowers" at the bottom and  I added some buttons for the centers.

I used Tim's Weathered Clock die to create the clocks around the edges.  I wanted something that sort of looked like rusted wrought iron.  I started by die-cutting the two clocks out of grungeboard.  Black Soot Distress Paint was used to paint each clock.  I then inked up both with Distress Embossing Ink and applied a thick coat of Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE).  After heating the UTEE with my heat tool, it leaves some holes in the embossed surface.  I rubbed some Rusty Hinge Distress Paint into those holes.  After the paint dried, the rust color was a little lighter than I wanted.  I went back over the Rusty Hinge paint with a Rusty Hinge Distress Marker.  Perfect.

I had fun with the other embellishments.  There is one of Tim's compasses (painted with Barn Door Distress Paint). 

The die cut butterfly and rose needed some "bendable" backing for the fabric so I ended up using some thin aluminum from Spellbinders Media Mixage.  The fabric was lightly adhered to the metal using Rangers Multi Medium.  I used Tim's butterfly and pinecone dies to die cut the fabric-covered aluminum.  I was able to fray the edges of the butterfly (above) and make a pretty amazing rose (below).

Well that's about it.  I'm so glad I didn't give up on this project.  Happy Birthday again Tim!!

I hope you can play along sometime over at Compendium of Curiosities 3 (CC3) Challenges.  There is always a great prize pack from Tim and Mario for the Curiosity Crews Choice and since this is an odd-numbered challenge, Joy from Inspiration Emporium is giving away a  FIFTY DOLLAR SHOPPING SPREE for one lucky CC3C entrant!  If you haven't shopped there, please drop by.  Fantastic online craft store!!

Thanks so much for dropping by.  I hope to get by and visit with you all soon.  Have a great weekend!!  -- Mary Elizabeth

 

Ringing out the Old Year Tim ... Holtz December Tag for 2014

Just in time!  It is about an hour away from 2015 and I am getting this post in just under the wire!  This very short post serves two purposes:  (1) to display my frosty Tim tag for December and (2) to serve as "proof of life" to you my crafty friends that I am indeed still alive.  

I have been AWOL (absent without leave) from my blog and Pinterest lately. I'm doing well but I've been quite busy getting myself ready to go back to work in January. I will catch you up on everything in the weeks to come.  Thanks to all of you who checked up on me.   I will be in touch soon. I promise. 

So let me get this tag online before the clock strikes midnight.  Here is my attempt at another amazing tag from Tim Holtz. Check out his blog here for the step-by-step directions for all the cool techniques on his December tag. 

I used some aged black embossing powder on the light post before adding the glitter. It looks amazing in the light.   Wish I could go into more detail but I've got a chest cold and I need to get back to bed.  

Before I go, I wish you all a fabulous 2015.   

Mary Elizabeth

Happy Halloween with Tim ... Holtz October Tag of 2014

Hi all! Here's a quick post with my take on Tim Holtz's October Tag.  Check out Tim's Blog for his fantastic tutorial. 

Not a lot of time this evening, so I'm just going to leave you with some close up pics.

Hope you have a great week!! -- Mary Elizabeth

Mad Alchemist Notebook

Take a mad scientist, add a dash of magic, and mix it all together with some finger painting and you have the perfect recipe for my latest project.  I've made a Mad Chemist Alchemist Notebook for Compendium of Curiosities 3 Worn Covers Challenge (#13).  I hope you all have been able to play along.  The current challenge is all about the versatility of Tim Holtz's Worn Covers and there is a lovely $50 shopping spree from Inspiration Emporium for one lucky entrant.  (If you haven't checked out this website and you love crafting, you gotta drop by.  Love shopping there!)

I was so excited about this challenge.  I had one of Tim Holtz's Composition Worn Covers, but I was at a loss as to what to do with it.  There are so many cool inspiration pieces from the Curiosity Crew (oh ... go check them out!) and I had way too many ideas floating around in my head (including the lymric keeper ... still gotta try that one some time Linda :) )

However, one afternoon, I was playing around with Wendy Vecchi's Crackled Texture Paste (great stuff!) on a burlap canvas and throwing paint and stain and ink on it.  Part of the panel ended up looking at what I envisioned dragon skin would look like and that is how I came up with my idea of turning Tim's Mad Chemist into a Mad Alchemist.  I know ... that's a bit of a leap, but see if you can follow my thinking.  What if the Mad Chemist started to learn some magic (just in time for Halloween, of course)?  Being a practical scientist, he would just add his Alchemy notes to an existing science composition notebook.  However, these secrets may be a little more valuable to him and thus he would probably need more security.  Through his connections with the magic community, he manages to acquire a Dragon's Eye Security System (notice the keyhole in the dragon's eye below) that just happens to come with a bit of dragon skin for easy attachment to the individual's chosen valuable.   Ok ... yes ... my imagination ran a little wild this time around and I lost the reins.  That's when it's time to just hang on and enjoy the ride :)

 

So here we go.  I apologize in advance for all of the pictures.

After I had the dragon skin, I needed a dragon's eye.  I remembered I had some of Tim's tear drop Facets in my stash.  I used some alcohol ink on Ranger's Glossy Cardstock to get the fiery iris of the eye.  I then used my facet to trace and cut out the eye.  A black sharpie added the pupil and (can't remember the name of the part that surrounds the iris -- oops).  Now to put the paper onto the facet.  I put my paper on my craft mat (this is a critical step) and used a thick layer of Glossy Accents to cover the entire piece of paper.  Then I pressed the facet down onto the paper.  I pressed down until  Glossy Accents squirted out around the sides of the facet and I didn't see any air bubbles in the Glossy Accents between the paper and facet.  I cleaned the craft mat around the edges of facet with a damp cloth (careful not to move the facet and paper).  Then I left it to dry over night.  It turned out great!  The one you see below was my first attempt.  It turned out too big for the cover, so I created another one and this time put the keyhole in the pupil ;)

Now that I had the dragon's eye, I needed to create its skin.  I decided to use canvas instead of burlap for the actual project because it would be easier to mold around the torn cover.  I ended up using a piece of Sticky Back Canvas for the base of my dragon skin.  This worked great since I didn't have to worry about applying my own adhesive.  The texture paste process took two steps.   First I put down an extra facet (the same size and shape of my dragon's eye) on the canvas in the location where I wanted my eye.  Next I applied some "glops" of the crackled texture paste to the canvas.  Here is where the finger painting comes in ... I spread out the paste on the canvas with my fingers.  I tried all sorts of implements to spread it around the facet, but nothing really worked.  I didn't want a flat level surface.  I wanted it to have some contour to give the feel of a three dimensional dragon's facial contours (not that I know any dragons in person ... but the facial contours of my imagination's dragon :) ).  After I had a good, fairly thick layer of paste down, I pressed in Tim's Honeycomb Stencil at the top and bottom left-hand corners of the paste-covered canvas to make it look like larger dragon scales were taking over as the skin went further away from the eye (you can't see this in the picture below ... check out the pic of the entire front cover above to see this).  I then took the facet out of its "eye socket" which left a hole for me put the real eye in after the texture paste dried, cracked and was colored.  I left it alone to dry overnight.

When I came back the next day, I was thrilled to see all the cracks!!!  I started with some Peeled Paint, Frayed Burlap and Walnut Stain Distress Paint to begin my coloring.  I really did not use too much and spritzed it with water to let it run and dabbed up the excess with paper towels.  Then I grabbed Black Soot Distress Ink and blending foam to work the black ink into all those wonderful cracks.  I worked in small sections and used a paper towel to take off the black ink off the top of surface (the foundation layer of Distress Paint, once dry,  resisted the water-based black ink).  Then I grabbed Matte MultiMedium and mixed it with Peeled Paint, Frayed Burlap and Walnut Stain Distress Ink.  I used these colors to give me some more intense, yet translucent color, to the dragon skin.  I let that layer dry.

I came back and took my dragon's eye and put it in the premade eye socket.  I adhered it with MultiMedium.   I let that dry for awhile then came back and added another layer of Crackled Texture Paste around the eye to create the scales and wrinkles directly around the eye (again with the finger-painting method).  I used the same drying and coloring process (adding some Distress Stains to create a more intense color around the eyes).  I did use a heat tool to dry the skin create some bubbling of the MultiMedium.  It made a great addition to the dragon skin effect. After everything dried, I cut out the piece that I wanted to wrap around the outside and inside of the front cover.  I added some shading with a Black Soot Distress Marker  to highlight some of the three-dimensional features as well as provide the dried-up skin look to the edges.  Then I painted edges with a coat of Matte MultiMedium.

I took the backing off the canvas and adhered it straight to the worn cover.  I took a little more MultiMedium to go over the "bend" where the canvas wrapped around the edge of the front cover.  This was to keep the crackled paste from cracking off as I grunged and added more crafty goodness to the project.

Whew!!  What fun!!!!  I was so glad that worked.  I held my breath every time I sat down to work on it.  I turned blue a couple of times.  I used a Tiny Attacher to add some small criss-crossed staples around the edges (and colored them black with a Sharpie -- thanks for that idea Tim!)  Then I grabbed a screw top brad to add it to the left hand edge where I couldn't get the staples near the notebook's spine.

For the rest of the cover, I used a variety of remnant rubs, stencils, Distress products, stamps, papers, sandpaper (to really distress the edges since the Mad Chemist had used this notebook for some time before adding other Alchemy elements), tissue tape, etc.  I created my own pocket folders out of kraft paper, lightly painted with Antique Linen Distress Paint and then covered with Black Soot Distress Ink.  That served as the base for each decorated pocket.

Here are some pictures of the rest of this project:

 I have had a blast getting inky this week.  It has been such a fun make.  I hope you've had a chance to craft this week.  I'm looking forward to getting back around to your blogs for more inspiration this weekend.  Hugs to you all!  Mary Elizabeth

I Just Love Fall!!!

 Hi everyone!  It is one of the most gorgeous times in our North Carolina mountains and I just had to celebrate it with a card. 

 We have oodles of visitors this weekend to view the colorful leaves.  The roads are packed, especially along the Blue Ridge Parkway, with "leaf lookers".  Here is a quick shot off my balcony to give you an idea at the beauty we have here.

I started this card by stamping these wonderful blueprint leaves onto watercolor paper.  I used Distress Markers in warm fall colors to color the leaves.  I tore the edges of the paper and used both Distress Ink and Distress Markers to bring out the layers. 

I went with some rather neutral browns, blacks and creams to embellish and provide the background for my stamped leaves.   I love the leaves and acorns on the printed background paper.  I used a Walnut Stain Distress Marker to outline the background rectangle.  This awesome Journey token was colored with Ginger alcohol ink and then hit with some Antique Linen Distress Paint.

And of course I had to have a car to represent our "leaf lookers", so I fussy cut a wonderful vintage car that I stamped using another Tim stamp.   I layered this with some brown trim (stapled with a Tiny Attacher) and a vintage "Discover" stamp from TPC. 

So there it ... my card to show how much I love this time of year.  And that is why I'm going to enter this in Simon Says Stamp Monday Falling in love with…Challenge.  If you have a moment, drop by Simon Says Stamp and look at the Design Team's projects.  They are fabulous!!!  You should be able to find some inspiration there.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend as much as I am!  Happy crafting :) -- Mary Elizabeth