Celebrate in the Round

My last post was a more traditional New Years card. For this card I thought I'd celebrate with a bit of a grunge style. My card design is based on this week's Mojo Monday challenge of round or square. I decided that it would be fun to go round. This week's Cheery Lynn Design challenge is celebrate with at least one Cheery Lynn die used. The back panel is cut from Core'dinations kraft core using the French Pastry Doily die.

The Grungy Monday challenge (sponsored by Simon Says Stamp)  is Get out the tissues -- use Tim Holtz's tissue wrap or tissue tape. To create the background panel, I covered a piece of cardstock with a piece of terminology tissue wrap and die cut the circle. I covered the piece with distress inks, spattered drops of water to have a bleach effect, and then covered it with rock candy crackle paint.

The Created by Hand challenge this week is Out With the Old/Flower Die Cuts. I also used layers of the terminology tissue wrap for my die cut flower. Finally, the Take a Word challenge this week is Print. Isn't that terminology tissue paper great!

Celebrate in Style

Here's a toast with the bubbly to help bring in the New Year. This week the challenge at Bloggers Challenge is celebration. I used stamps from the Kitchen Sink Collection -- Multi-Step champagne Celebration. I just love the bubbles in the background. The champagne glasses are cut out and popped up. Cheers!
Wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2012!
Other Challenges I am entering:
Ink on my Fingers Sunday Challenge--Do Anything You Wanna Do
City Crafters--Make the Cut.

Ornamental

This week our challenge at Bloggers Challenge is ornamental. With Christmas just days away and with cookies to bake and presents to wrap and finish, I decided to share these ornaments which I had made  a little while ago, but I never shared them here on my blog. The images, digitals from Bugaboo, were printed on acetate, colored with paint, cut in a circle to fit inside the ornaments, rolled around a pencil to fit inside the top opening, and arranged so they fit. The top of the ornament are pointsettias stamped (Heartfelt Creations) and die cut (Spellbinders). I had to cut the centers a bit more to fit over the top of the ornament.
Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. Merry Christmas!

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Twelve

I did it! I completed all twelve tags from Tim's 12 tags of Christmas. I think his 12th tag is absolutely stunning. I love the little cherub made from the fractured doll. I have to admit, I bought the fractured dolls, but I had no idea what I would do with them. This is such a cute idea. I love the tissue paper. The flower really is pretty, and so simple. The faux German scrap is a great idea too. Now I have a bunch of pieces that need to be used since the one die makes so many strips (and I didn't even make the whole 12 inches).
This year's tags were so great. So many great techniques!

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Eleven

Here is tag 11 of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas. I sure didn't make it in twelve days, but I'm nearing the finish line. Kudos to Tim. He got me to dust off my melting pot. Using shrink plastic in UTEE is something I knew about, but never tried. The result is amazing. It looks like glass. I love this Santa. He really is a jolly soul. This was a fun tag after I got over my hesitation to use the melting pot.

Vintage Santa

This week I created a Christmas tag using the stamps from Artistic Outpost Snowy Woods.  I've always been a lover of vintage Santas. All of the techniques used are based on Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas 2011 and all of the stamps used are from Snowy Woods. Santa was stamped in India Ink on watercolor paper and colored with markers. I cut out the face using a circle die and used him as the focal point of my rosette. The sentiment was stamped on a die cut tattered banner which was colored with old paper distress ink and edged with vintage photo. The background snowflakes were stamped with broken China distress ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder. The tag was then covered with iced spruce distress ink and embossed again with clear embossing powder. The greenery was die cut using Core'dinations paper. The bling in the corner was a gift to me.
I am entering my tag into several challenges: Simon Says Stamp and Show -- Tim themed tag; Critter Sketch -- Let It Snow; and Created by Hand - Christmas/Red and Green.

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Ten

This is the tag from Day 10 of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas. I love the idea of image transfers and the metal behind is a great idea. I'm afraid my transfers aren't as sharp as they should be. I need a little more practice and I didn't have the right foil tape. I do love the total look of this tag, especially the tattered banner with the sentiment, the music background, and the embossed greenery..

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Nine

Well, I've still got a few tags to finish, but I'm well on my way. This is my tag from Day 9 of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas. I'm in love with this one. I love the embossed background and the candle is awesome. Using the glossy accents for texture and depth is such a fantastic idea.

Vintage Santa

I can't let the Christmas season pass without using a Santa stamp from one of my favorite Christmas stamp sets -- Snowy Woods from Artistic Outpost.
I just love the look of the vintage Santas. On this card I stamped my image in coffee on Kraft cardstock. Using a sea sponge, I sponged winter white Creative Inspirations paint around the snowy areas of the card. Then I sponged tan over the card to get a vintage look. I stamped Santa a second time, cut him out, painted him with fairy dust, and attached him with pop dots over the original Santa.
I layered the image on a black panel. The background panel was created from glassine paper which I crumpled, painted with turquoise CI paint, and highlighted with broken china distress ink. Everything was layerd onto a turquoise card base. The result is a very shimmery, vintage Santa card.
I am entering the following challenges: Ink on My Fingers Sunday Challenge -- Santa Claus, Take a Word -- Sepia, and I Brake for Challenges --vintage.

Book It

If you know me, you know how I love to make books. So when City Crafters challenged us to make or alter a book, I couldn't resist. I created this journal using bookboard and Club Scrap paper and stamps for the covers. There are 9 handsewn signatures bound together using the pleated spine technique.

Follow the Star

The theme this week at Created by Hand is Light/Star Die Cuts. The idea of the star immediately brought to mind the journey of the Three Wise Men. The wise men stamp is from the Tim Holtz collection. I stamped the image with Versamark on some gorgeous cardstock from Club Scrap and embossed it with black embossing powder. The star was cut from an older Spellbinders die (one of the first I ever purchased) using an antique gold glitter paper. It actually shows up and glitters much more in real life. The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

A Christmas Gift--Creative Inspirations Blog Hop

Welcome to the Creative Inspirations Paints Holiday Blog Hop! If you came from the Creative Inspirations Paints blog, you are in the right place. If you just started on my blog, you might want to start at the beginning of the hop at Creative Inspirations Paints blog. You don't want want to miss out on all the wonderful inspiration!
As you visit each blog, be sure to collect all of the letters from each blog for your chance at winning the blog candy prize. We are giving away 3 CI paints, 3 glitters, and 3 embossing powders to be chosen by the winner. You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday to comment. The winner will be chosen Sunday evening.

My letter is S.

Your next stop is Carla's blog.

In case there is a glitch along the way, here is a list of all of the stops in the blog hop.

Creative Inspirations Paints blog

Barbara (you are here)

Carla

Carole

Dawn

Gini

Kassi

Kendra

Kianel

Creative Inspirations Paints blog

 My project today is a gift card holder box. The design of the box is from the Technique Junkies new 3D and Fun Folds CD. These pictures show the four sides of the box. Each side I decorated with a die cut which I cut from watercolor paper and painted with Creative Inspirations Paints. The paints are so vibrant and shimmery. They really make a festive looking box.

Here are views of the inside and top.

I am also entering this project in these challenges: Bloggers Challenge -- Tie it up; Tuesday Throwdown --For someone special (It'll be a Christmas present for my dd); and Three Muses -- 'Tis the Season.

Nutcracker Ballet

Christmas and the Nutcracker Ballet go hand in hand. The Stampsmith challenge is shimmer, sparkle and shine. Christmas time is so much sparkle and shine, so I created a Christmas card. I thought that the ballerina from Stampsmith was a perfect stamp to use. The Christmas trees across the top are shiny gold and the background paper is all sparkly striped.
The Creative Belli challenge is winter and Christmas. My Christmas tree border has been in my stash for several years. Somehow at Christmas the roll usually disappears and becomes visible during the summer. This time I could actually find it at the right time.
Hels, at Ink on My Fingers Sunday Challenge, gave us the theme of Christmas. I think my card fits nicely.

A Little Late, but in the Mix

I almost messed up my record of not having missed a Bloggers Challenge since I started playing about 2 years ago. I'm late, but I did make it. The current challenge is Frosty and Friends. I think I may have waited too long to post since Frosty seems to have melted. All of the stamps except the hat/birds are from Kitchen Sink Stamps. The hat and birds are from Stampendous. As soon as I saw the hat stamp I had to have it. It reminded me of the Mad Hatter (and you know I'm an Alice in Wonderland addict).

CHAPTER 10: A Lewis Christmas Carroll to All! Week 2

(Warning--very long post, but hopefully worth your time)Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from The Altered Alice! This month the design team brings you their holiday wishes, and we invite you to send your holiday greetings to The Altered Alice. You have until Friday, Dec. 23 to enter. The winner post will either be a little early or late, as the last Sunday of the month falls on Christmas day!

Our prize this month is a $40.00 gift certificate to Custom Crops, the premier online retailer for crafters of all kinds. From Accuquilt to Zva Creative, adhesives to vinyl and everything in between, Custom Crops offers a huge selection of the products you've been looking for at competive prices with fast, friendly customer service. To celebrate the season, we bring you The Lewis Carroll Memorial Window at Daniell Chapel in England. Notice the left panel where Lewis Carroll and Alice kneel to pay homage to the newly born Christ in this wonderful Nativity scene!

The window was designed by the stained glass artist Geoffrey Webb, a must-see for anyone that loves Wonderland. A wonderful Christmas poem by Lewis Carroll is shown in the center three bottom panels, which include characters from Wonderland - the White Rabbit, Dodo, the Caterpillar, Mad Hatter, and more! Our own design team member Sue Roddis visited this chapel and gave us permission to show her close-up photos here,

We look forward to seeing your holiday greetings, so send us a Christmas Card! If it features Wonderland, you will have two chances at the randomly awarded prize instead of one. Multiple entries are fine, but each must be on a separate post.

Now for my inspiration:

I thought that I would help to celebrate the holidays Alice style with ornaments for the tree. I decorated each of four ornaments front and back with images from Alice in Wonderland. I stamped each image with archival ink and set them with Workable Fixativ. I painted each of the images using Creative Inspirations Paints which gives the image a nice shimmer. Finally, I used my gold dabber (Adirondack) along the sides to give the antiqued look. Happy Holidays to all.
Stamp credits: Stocking left - TJ Designs right - Stamp Attack; Diamonds both - Artistic Outpost; Snowmen both TJ Designs; Stars both - Oxford Impressions.

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Eight

Tag 8 from Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas was a bit unusual, but a lot of fun. It's a steampunk Christmas tag. There's nothing like a gear Christmas wreath to bring out the holiday cheer. Even the steampunk guys got into the spirit with holly on their hats. Yep, Tim does have a very creative mind.

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Seven

Tag seven of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas is beautiful and elegant. The glassine holly leaves really look fabulous and the stamps from a joyful song stamp set are so beautiful. The background technique with the ghost stamping is a great one to remember.

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Six

Finally getting a chance to load my Tag 6 from yesterday's Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas. The technique was painting on embossed metal and distressing.. I had to make a few alterations. I didn't have the texture fade and for the most part my dabbers don't work. I wanted to stick to Ranger products, so I used liquid pearls painted on the areas. At first I thought that I had made a big mistake and would have to find another paint. However, after sanding, distress inking and embossing, the tag looked pretty cool. Oh, by the way, Tim's punch was amazing. It punched a hole in the metal wreath like it was paper.

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Five

Today's Tim Tag put together alcohol inks and his holiday reflections stamps. It's a cool technique, but I need to practice it a little more. IRL you can read the words somewhat. I think I was afraid to rub too much or my ink wasn't inky enough. Well, practice makes perfect. Using the branches from the regal crest dies was great for creating the wreath. Again I'm entering my tag on the Inspiration Emporium challenge blog.

Non-traditional Christmas Card

Purple and teal are great Christmas colors, don't you think? The current challenge on the Stampotique Designers Blog is to create a non-traditional Christmas project. We couldn't use red or green. My colors came about because I received a package taped with the snowflake packing tap. I just had to use it somewhere. I just coordinated my colors with the tape. No red or green!

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Four

Day Four of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas and I'm still keeping on target even with a football game, a babysitting stint, and lots of drying time. I love this tag. It was fun with distress stains and Rock Candy Crackle. I love texture and dimension and this tag has it all. It was such a cool idea to fill the die cut 25 with glossy accents against the background paper. What a great effect. Can't wait to see tomorrow's project!

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Three

Today's tag from Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas was one (or should I say two) full of inspiration. He used one of his older techniques where you make your own stamp pad colored to fit the stamp. I don't know why I didn't think of this technique when I saw this stamp. It's the perfect technique. What an easy way to color the Season's Silhouettes Christmas stamp with all of the various greetings.  I haven't started my Christmas cards yet, but I think I know what I am going to do. I've got the stamp and ink pad ready to go. Add the heirloom gold Perfect Pearl mist and stamp on Kraft paper; it has the look of vintage, with a minimum of effort. The greenery from the festive greenery die are a great added touch. I love Tim's technique of using alcohol ink to color the bling. I didn't do that on this tag since I had the perfect red gems from the jeweled inspirations collection at Creative Inspirations Paints. I know I will do the alcohol ink on bling in the future. The added bonus from the Day 3 tag is the second tag.

Stars

No I wasn't drunk when I took this picture. I had to use my camera because the star is actually dimensional. Have I mentioned that using my camera to take photos of my cards is not my strong point.  Actually the card looks good in real life.
When I saw that the theme of the challenges at Simon Says Stamp and Show and Ink on my Fingers Sunday Challenge was stars, I knew I wanted to try and use this Sizzix 10 point  star die. I had purchased it on sale a while back because I thought it was a cool die. I think I know why it was on sale now. It was a bit tedious to put together. I do like the end result though. The background was dry embossed using a Cuttlebut folder and highlighted with Snow Cap ink.

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day Two

As Tim is finalizing his Day 3, I finally finished the Day 2 tag. I did have a few interuptions, but I still finished on day 2. I love today's tag. It uses one of my favor TH dies. I just love the deer. I did have to make a few alterations today. For my tag background I did not have the seasonal kraft resist. I do have the original kraft resist, so I chose a portion of the world sheet. I thought that the rays reminded me of an ornament. Anyway, it's as close to the seasonal as I could get. My muse token isn't seasonal, but I thought that the word "significant" works. The deer is wearing tinsel and a jingle bell. After a few hours sleep, I'll be ready for day 3.
Again I'll be linking up with Tim's blog, Inspiration Emporium, and All Thing Tim.

Ornaments, No Cards

This week Blogger's Challenge is Anything but a Card. I've been on an ornament making kick for the past week, so I decided to make a few more for this challenge and for the Outlines Rubber Stamp Monday Challenge which is Hang it up.

The first ornament was a frame I found at Hobby Lobby, For the center I stamped a partial image from an Outlines Rubber Stamp onto a piece of the music Tim Holtz tissue wrap. I adhered the tissue to a piece of cardstock. The metal sentiment come from my stash.

The second ornament I actually made several years ago using a glass ornament, LuminArte Polished Pigments, and the LuminArte solution. The ornament has sat in its box since then. When I looked at it yesterday, I thought that it needed some image stamped on it. The little deer is from Artistic Outpost's Frosty and Friends. I think that the image livens up the ornament.

The third ornament is a simple bird die cut which I dry embossed and added the branch. I've been wanting to try out the die; it makes a great ornament.

Now, as soon as my girls set up the tree, I'll have somewhere to hand these.

Christmas Wishes

This card is an example of a Double Twisted Easel card (a technique from the new TJ 3D and FUN FOLD CD) Technique Junkies has been blog hopping with different vendors all week. This is a technique they challenged us to try.
Several of my favorite challenge sites have some sort of Christmas theme in their challenges. Kraft Journal challenges us to create a Christmas card (the base card is Kraft). Tuesday Throwdown is looking for a masculine holiday card. City Crafter says Santa is Coming and wants to see Santa. The Artistic Stamper's December challenge is Christmas.
All of my stamped images and sentiment are from Artistic Outpost's Frosty and Friends. I love these stamps. They are so cute without being cutesie. The Design Paper on the card base is from My Mind's Eye Christmas Lost and Found -- love that bling. The center is made from grungeboard die cut into holly leaves and colored using Pan Pastels.
I love that the card makes a great holiday decoration, but that it also folds down flat for mailing,

12 Tags of Christmas -- Day One

Yes, we know Christmas is just around the corner. Tim Holtz has started the season with his 12 Tags of Christmas. Today is day 1.
My tag follows Tim's fairly closely. I look at this experience as being in a class taught by Tim. If I can follow what he does closely, I then can do the techniques on other projects myself. I have to thank my friend Jan for the glittery Noel. She had sent it to me as a gift when I received an order from her. I decided that I didn't need to make another Noel when I had a beautiful one all ready for me to use. I was happy that Tim started with the pinecones. I love that die. Now we're just hours away from the next tag.
I'm entering my tag in the Grungy Monday challenge which is winter holiday. I'm also playing along with All Things Tim (Yahoo Group) and Inspiration Emporium.