Hope Class

Today I ran the Hope class at the Scrapbook Factory Shop in Salt River where it is purely Tim Holtz techniques and products on a 12"x12" page for students to put up in their home studios or work spaces to inspire them to use these ideas on their Scrapbook pages and cards etc.

What a fun bunch of ladies they were too. (perhaps it had something to do with the champers and orange juice Carolyn served them before we stared?)  I gave them all the same kits and look how different they all came out.  I am afraid I forgot to take a photo of the last two pages to be completed, but here are all the ladies with their finished layouts together.  The one lady swapped her brown paper for pink and it is awesome.

The original one I did is in the top left hand corner and the other 5 are from today's class.

Grungy Monday 37 - Wearable art

Hello my fellow bloggers

Today's Grungy Monday challenge over on Linda's blog Studio L3 is to make "Wearable Art" using Tim's products!  As it so happens I made one of these aprons before to use during my demos and classes, but it seems to be AWOL at the moment and I needed to make a new one.  These are really quick to make (if you have a ready made blank apron that is) because all you need is the apron, some masks or stencils and Tim's Color washes in an assortment of colours.  The only thing you have to be careful of is not to over-spray opposite colours on the colour spectrum as you will get muddy tones.  For this reason I lined my sprays up in a "rainbow" and worked from the top of the apron downwards.

To make my name at the top I used some chipboard letters which I keep fro spraying over on my projects and pages.  These are great for titles too.

Then to highlight my name a bit I used "Diamond" Stickles to edge it.  I love how they pick up the colour ink they are over and colourize themselves!

When the sprays were dry I used some stamps that I made from Tim's Sizzix dies using art and craft foam through my Vagabond with some Pearl Paint Dabber for a subtle look on the birdcage, bird, hinge and lock.

This took me a total of 30 minutes to make, cleaning up took longer!  Mostly cos I was doing a Dy and rubbing the stencils off in my art journal before I went to rinse them under the tap.

12 tags of 2012 TAG 1

Well over on Tim's blog he has just released his new take on the 12 tags of Christmas...it is now the 12 tags of 2012 instead and he is retiring the Christmas ones.  I am sure he is relieved that he won't have to be rushing off to the nearest parking lot or hotel where he can get internet coverage in the heavy snow!

Anyway, I digress.

Here is the tag I have made in honour of Valentines day today and the 1st tag of 2012.  I have decided to enter this into Linda's Grungy Monday Challenge which is "Valentines day - Tim Holtz Style" Cant get more Timmy than this...and I am entering this into the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge where "anything goes"  They are also sponsoring a Voucher as a  prize at Grungy Monday from their online shop here

I used the December embossing folder for the top, rubbed the whole tag with Festive Berries Distress ink and some Black Soot on the edges and just the number 14  as well as the die cut edge at the bottom of the tag.  I then stamped the sentiment and the flourish with Archival jet black ink, attached the heart lock, key and door number with brads.  I did not have that fancy honeycomb paper that Tim used but did find some straws with fruit on them in the same stuff and took an apple and changed it into a heart!  Such a cool find.  I will show more of them tomorrow on my desk for Whats On My Workdesk Wednesday...

Hope you have had a great Valentines day.

Bella

Happy Valentines Day

Valentines is one of those commercial days that you either love or hate...!

I have always made the effort over the past 15 years with either a home made card, gift or chocs and after all those years of training my hubby, he has cottoned onto this idea.  I don't want expensive flowers (lets face it every red flower doubles in price at this time of the year) or dinners at a restaurant.  For me it is the making of the card, gift or writing of a note.  Just something to say that you are worth spending the time on!

Last night my hubby came home with 2 bunches of flowers and this morning my son gave me a heart made into a little man with wiggly arms and legs that they had worked on together.  I made my hubby a card and he got breakfast in bed which he chose to eat at the dining room table, but hey, bacon and eggs on a week day is a real treat in this house!

So far I have had a wonderful day.  To me this is what it is all about.

What do you do?  If anything...

Bella

What to do with left overs...

No, I am not talking about the ones in the fridge! LOL!

I love gong on these big scrapbooking 2 day conventions that we have here in Sunny South Africa, but I am always left with tons of beautiful paper, embellies and general scrapping stuff (so generously added in by the sponsors) that I would not normally purchase and use on my pages.

So I have been wondering what you do with all your leftovers?

I have been working on the kits from the last convention in September 2011 as I did not actually attend the event as a delegate, I have changed a few things around and been left with TONS of spare paper.  Some I have done on purpose so that I can make an extra page cos the paper was so stunning and others, just because I am thrifty and can't cut into another sheet if I can get it all out of one page... These papers are beautiful, just not my style.

So here is my solution to this paper hording problem...CARDS!

I sometimes give my friends and family hand made cards in gift packs of 10, so I thought that I would set about seeing how many cards I could get out of what was left from the kits mentioned above.

So far I have made 2x  6"x6" cards as of last week with the Keizer Kraft paper left overs and another full double page, basic lay out and one Valentine from the Sizzix kit.

Today I sat down and have made 12x 6"x6" cards and 6x standard A6 cards from the Pink Paisly kit.  There is still one full 12"sheet left and some stickers, but not much else.  I am quite pleased with the result.

Thanks for the visit

Bella

WOYWW 140 - Absolutely Nothing!

Well, other than the obligatory cup of coffee and another junk shop find...That's because on Sunday, I did a HUGE full day clean up and sort out of all my stash, stamps, paper and "rats nests" of general crafting litter so I have a desk again.  I have used it since to make a card or two, but it is so nice to be able to pack everything away easily, that all evidence is gone already!  I even found some wrapping paper I had purchased an age ago to cover some of my boxes in to make the room more festive and so have done the box under my desk that houses my picture frames that I am rehabilitating.

LONG MAY THIS LAST!  I am shouting this sentence so it might stick in my brain better.  I am sure in a few Wednesdays or less, the craft litter will have encroached my green A1 mat again, but hey, I am enjoying it while it lasts.

The clean up was not on my schedule of things to do, it happened as a result of pure frustration so I am afraid there are no "before shots" to show you...

However, here is the before shot of a shadow box that I found at a Charity shop yesterday for R25 (Rands = 8 to 1 Dollar and 11 to 1 Pounds) (so plus-minus, 3 Dollars or 2 Pounds) forgive me if I am out, I am an artist not an accountant...but you get the drift I hope!

I hope you are all enjoying your Wednesday, I know I always look forward to it as it is the day we join Julia over at Stamping Ground and do the World Wide Desk Hop (WWDH for WOYWW!) What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday!

I am off to peruse what desks are on offer and visit some of the friends I have made over the year that I have been WOYWWing.

Thanks for stopping by


Bella

Paint, Cards and a clean up!

 For an artist, I seem to have a very neat freak tendency...  I spent a good hour or two painting Distress crackle paint on a sheet of stickers and resuscitating the Pine needle jar that was nearly solid...took a while to come right, but after patiently adding small quantities of water and mixing with the back of my pencil, I got it to work.  This was rather annoying as it was a brand new bottle too!  Once they had all dried, I punched out a circle and added it to my jars of paint so that I can see at a glance which is which in my new vintage case that I am using to store all my Timmy stuff in.

Below are the cards I then set about making, using up the left overs from a kit I was working on on Friday with a friend.  One of my students asked me for a two cards, one for a 70 year old gentleman and the other for a Jewish wedding.  I do hope she likes them.  The third card with the bird is just using up scraps.  I am determined not to let them pile up this time, I want to do my layout and then a set of cards for my stash so that I can keep on top of my accumulating piles of pieces of paper...

On to my room of stash:  It was too flipping hot today: 34+degrees Centigrade (sorry to rub that in to my UK friends who might read this, I know you are all freezing...a happy medium would be good) to even begin to think of creating today so  I spent the best part of most of today sorting the "rats nests" as my mother used to call them, that lurk in the corners of my actual workdesk.

Most of the time I can only see a 12"square (if I am lucky) of that A1 green cutting mat at any given time.  I am sure I had a huge clean up when I finished the 12 tags in December, but everything seemed to be exploding everywhere again.  My ribbon box was being stubborn and spewing things out and my die cut box was a landslide looking for somewhere to happen.  So these both got unpacked and re-organised.  Some other shelves got new drawer organizer boxes that I found at a local home store called Mr Price At Home.  All in the name of making my crafting easier.

Now I can't wait to sit down at this pristine place and CREATE!

 I found this blue spice rack (above) that I was going to add some serviette decoupage to some years ago and have decided that it makes a good shelf for all my round storage jars and it fits all my pre-cut and half done tags to the left of me.  On my right I am using the matching serviette dispenser box (below) to house my various bits and bobs that seem to lurk on my desk and vanish when I need them most.  At least now I can move the whole lot out the way quickly if I need to make space on my desk for my latest project instead of the usual shove that causes half the stuff to roll under something  and cause much frustration.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bella

Liebster Blog award

I have had a wonderful week and to top it off, I have been awarded the Liebster award from not one but two people.  I am totally blown away!  Thank you so much to both Hettie and Valerieann for doing me such an honor!

Here are the rules for participating in this award...(copied and pasted from Hettie's blog)

The origins of the Leibster Blog Award are not clearcut but generally it is thought that it it originated in Germany where Leibster means "dearest" or "favourite".  The idea of the Award is to highlight up and coming blogs. The Rules are simple:-

1 - Choose Five up and coming blogs with less than 200 followers to award the Liebster Award to.

2 - Put their links on your blog and let them know you have done this.

3 - Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

4 - Post the award on your blog.

So here are my choices for this Award in no particular order:-

Kim from the USA http://kimmcyoung.blogspot.com Who I met through WOYWW (Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday) and the Pass it Forward gift last year.

Vickie at  http://okienurse.blogspot.com fellow teacher in the USA and WOYWWer

Tamara from Holland  http://scrappingtamara.blogspot.com/  ( She does do English translations and has met  TIM Hotlz)

Sandra from Australia http://deserendipity.blogspot.com from whom I was the lucky recipient of the WOYWW Pass if Forward gift

Gabrielle from the UK http://gabrielle-price.blogspot.com  Who is a DT member over at Creative Expressions

Whats on your Workdesk (and the floor) Wednesday - TWINS!

Yes I have twin Vagabonds on my desk!  in December of last year I had a huge job to cut 20 kits for Tims 12 Tags for a class that I was teaching in Johannesburg.  On the Sunday 11 December, I broke my Vagabond!  I did not seethe red writing on the shim that says you must not run 2 of the decorative strip dies next to each other or you could damage the machine and negate the warranty... That's because I don't use the shim as I have stuck the labels from the packaging on the dies and therefore do not need any extra thickness...This instruction is not written anywhere else, so if you have one, read everything is all I can tell you.  Needless to say, I had to get the job done and using a hand winding machine was not an option so I had to go buy another one!

Anyway, back to the twins.  Seeing as the I had negated the warranty, my hubby opened it up and had the motor tested which came back fine and then set about replacing the bits on the electronic board and it was the fuse that had blown!

Now I have two fully functional Vagabonds!  How cool is that, I can have a VB party!

On to the stuff on the floor.

I found this cool vintage suit case and am in the process of improvising a rising tray system to be able to store all my Timmy stuff to be able to use on my desk and to take it to classes etc.  The second pizza box lying in the lid will go on stilts too eventually.  Though I am using tongue depressors and brads at the moment, I will be getting some metal to replace them and some proper rivets to hold it all in place, but for now it is a proto type...I am really enjoying this.

Lastly, here is the Advent calender I made from a printers tray, that I found on the same day as the case when I went hunting for bargains at all the second hand shops in my area.  Just folding the boxes took 3 hours, thank goodness I did that at a friend so I could chat through the monotony...I had cut them on my eCraft cutter

Now I am off to Julia's desk where she hosts the world wide desk hop and see what all my friends have been up to in the past week.  See you there!

Thanks for stopping by.

Bella