Promised Tags

Today is my "baby"s birthday - He is 39!! And today is also a pretty busy day for me even though my son is on the other side of the states! I am taking the time to post these for you as I know the next days are going to be crazy busy. My older daughter was visiting me and we "scrapped" some while she was here. Had such a good time!!! It was the first time she made tags, so I thought I would post hers also. It's such a rush seeing something you made online for the first (etc) time!! She wasn't real thrilled with them and kept adding stuff  (like her Mother told her to). Two of them are on shiny paper which accounts for the not so great photos, but we both love houses and I had just gotten these darlings in the mail. They are from Claudine Helmuth and clear stamps. Here are the ones with shiny paper.

She wasn't thrilled with the stamping on this one and I told her to keep it as she might use parts of it for something else. The colors are just wonderful, don't you think? The background is distress ink done with an ink blending tool.

On this one she used more of the stamps from that set and then went on to add embellishments. The word is part of a border sticker in my stash. Did you notice the little button on the ribbon? How cute is that? And she really lit up when a bunch of little pompoms showed up mixed in with the stickers! Perfect for that little tree! And the last one from her is on kraft cardstock. She really worked hard on this as hate wasn't a strong enough word for how she felt about it. I think she found out that if you want vibrant color, you need to use white or at worst manilla for your base and not kraft. I suggested we emboss it with the Tim Holtz (my favorite) embossing folder and all of a sudden, she loved her tag! So here is the last one -

 

I lightened this up a bit so you could see the colors, but it is not shiny.  It was such a fun time to do this with my daughter who is a grandma herself!!

I signed up for a patriotic card swap on my yahoo group All Things Tim. Because I am never sure I will be able to finish stuff, I make sure I have done them before I sign up so all I have to do it get to the post office and mail things! I really thought of a million more things I could have added to my tags after I sent them. Maybe next time, I will hold onto them for a couple of days before I send them out!!

So here are my tags:

The top part of this tag was made entirely with ribbons. I took scraps and glued them to paper and then die cut with the edge dies. I love that white edge and in real life, it has a remarkable shine! I didn't care for the way the top of the piece looked so I actually put a bow over it. I wanted a dangle charm so I tied one on. Next time, I will use a jump ring, but this time I didn't have one. That is shiny paper that I distressed and stamped on. I just had to use stickles somewhere!!!

This one is on black tag stock. The red ribbon goes all around the tag. That "flag" piece is on a separate paper. I did that letterpress technique with red distress ink on that embossing folder. How cool it came out!! Then I tore it to fit and edged the whole piece with blue. The line of white stars is a TH stamp that is embossed with white ink and a clear embossing crystals. The big white stars are grunge that are embossed with white embossing powder. Not so sure I like that technique. It is super hard to hang onto those things even with tweezers!! I edged them in blue also. Had to find a charm from something, so this one had to do. I love the flag, but not so sure about the rest of it.

This one is done on Kraft. See what I mean about the background color? I used the few colors of TH distress stain that I have. There is a line of clear embossed stars just under the hole in the tag. The torn paper is watercolor paper. It has a lot of texture and was difficult to stamp the flag on. But I like the look. The blue and red stars and bursts in the background are stamps. The key is grunge covered in guess what - stickles!! The silver stars are actually raised stickers. I just had to have flowers so used these cute little ones that I sprayed with distress and water. There is a bit of tissue tape near the bottom also. And of course a bow. I hope that they are nice enough for a swap - not sure what to expect in return. I am imagining someone getting these and thinking how awful plain they are. Well, I did really enjoy doing them - that's a plus! I guess I have been coloring with copics so long that unless I color something, I am not so sure if its any good or not. Maybe next swap, I will combine coloring? Thanks for looking. Hugs to you all, Barb F

Here we go!

This is the birthday card for my younger son. I can't believe how old he is!! My baby!! I had such a good time doing this one. I have to apologize for not posting the copics as I completely lost the little paper with my notes. Most of this is from one or the other of the simonsaysstamp.com kit of the month. The banners are hand cut from a stamp set and then of course stickled! That little cloud is also from one of the kits. I fell in love with the paper in the background and really wanted to keep it as a scene. The roads are just cut from a patterned paper and the lines hand drawn. The image is Kenny K and is digital - not something I do a lot of but I love his stuff. They are hard for me to color since I am not crazy familiar with the parts of the vehicles he draws!! There are lots of stickles on the card but I don't think they are too much? I did have the card without any except for his glasses, but I just couldn't get past the plainness.

You really can't see through the cloud with the silver lining, but it is acetate and shiny. I just had to use the "banner" paper so I squeezed a little in with the rest of the scene from the front. I just adore this little bear stamp even though he is kind of hard to color. I found that the stickles on his balloons needed to be quite thin or you couldn't read the letters. That white pen is a pentel. It is a lot whiter and writes much more consistently than the uniball. So hope you enjoy this as I hope he does - its in the mail!!  And the next post I have coming is tags and 6 of them!!!! Hugs to you all, Barb F

Anniversary finish

Wow that was such a nice response from everyone! My head is getting big!! I figured you would all like to see the other half of my anniversary card. I guess it really is a mini book?

This is Murphy our cat! I only have a few stamps with a cat and this one looks so much like her that I just had to use it. The stars are a border sticker. The nameplate is a chipboard painted with Tim Holtz copper paint dauber. The letters are from tiny type stickers. That solid orange is the backside of one of the papers. I tried to put the important images all on that light blue paper. It actually has travel images on it. This is actually the very center of the "book".

Moving right of the Murphy page, I fell in love with the striped paper but I didn't want it to look like the other split page (the pale orange ones). I found a corner stamp that I thought would kind of classy it up a little. Those license plates were cut from another sheet in the set. And of course I had to have some stickles. By the way, Murphy's yarn has a thin coat of stickles!

I guess Tilda is supposed to be me. Since it is the only female on the card!! There are a lot of stickles on this one. The ticket is one I stamped and cut out. Check out her pockets! Wish I could find shorts like that in my giant size!! That is a grungeboard shape painted with crackle paint. Just had to do it!!

This is the page opened so you can see the entire thing. The heart and stars are grunge. That is a tiny key and is attached with a brad meaning key to my heart.

I painted the heart silver and the 26 is done with the crackle paint. There are stickles on the whole edge of the heart. I stamped a bunch of lines on the opposite page with a stamp I forget I have (now I keep it out so I will remember to use it). I added a touching little "letter" to make this a very personal "card". I wish I could give credit to all the things and people who inspired me to do all the different things I did to this card, but I honestly don't remember . I really enjoyed making this very special card. And I hope you enjoyed looking at it. The back of the 26 page is the Vancouver page and then there is the complete outside of the book which is covered in the same paper as the front.

Now I have some other news! I signed up for a free online class which started today. It's called "Got Glue"  and here is the link  

http://creativepassionclasses.com/got-glue-a-guide-to-junk-journals-smashbooks-and-ephemera-diaries-with-tami-taylor/

Tami showed three techniques for changing around the background and I just had a blast doing them!! It was a really neat class and you just can't beat the price!! Free!!!!

And with that I will say hugs to you all!! You make my days much brighter with your lovely comments!! Barb F





Anniversary Gift - part one

• Before I get too far into this, I would like to tell you that this is a two parter. I wanted to make a card that would really mean something to my husband and this one took me a couple of days to make. You know how much thinking goes into things, so none of you will be surprised to hear that it took me so long. I chose the papers first - actually this was a pack of papers coordinated to go together - all about travel. That is my theme - travel by car, plane and train. Notice no boat? We haven't done that one yet. Then once the paper was chosen, I decided after much looking and chosing, to use Edwin and Tilda and their car. Then I picked a stamp for my cat, Murphy. The copics I used are: YR07, R02, R29, R20, B00, B02, YG23, E57, E00, E11, E31, E33, E35, E37, E18, C0, C2, C3, C5, W3. I may have put more in, but that is all I wrote down. I found this video on youtube for the actual card/album. It is called "mini book tutorial" and is done by piinksharpiie. Yes, there are two ii's in both places. I really couldn't concentrate well enough on her color choices, so I just made mine in all white and covered the pages just like you do a card. If you decide to do this, cut the inside coverings quite a bit shorter - my book doesn't really close as there is just too much bulk. This is the front - I made most of the embellishments, like the globe and colored them with copics. The globe has a cute brad that says you and me. I altered the sticker to make it say enjoying since we are still married!! The with you are letter stickers. Everything is edged in Tim Holtz vintage photo distress ink. I wanted to chose one color so I didn't have to keep making decisions!!  My copic was a little overfilled when I was coloring the luggage on the top and it made such a mess. I found a scrap of paper that looked ok and stamped and cut out a new suitcase so I didn't have to recolor the whole thing again! Do you see my mistake? I also replaced the name on the spare tire. There are stickles here- just little accents. Here is what you see when you open the card:

The round circles are punched from one of the papers. I chose things that meant something to us. I stickled the images. The souvenier ticket is a stamp and then cut out. It is also from the paper pack. The rest of the things on these two pages are really stickers. And now when you turn the next page a lot of things begin to happen!

This page opens left to right and has a real map of our last vacation spot which was Vancouver, Canada. We also took a train trip to Whistler. These are all real stickers that were in my stash!

When you open the Vancouver page, you will see this one. It is on the far left. The blue embellishments are all made from stamping and cutting. I kind of fussy cut the orange paper so it had some of the destinations that meant something to us. Again there are some stickles. This opens in the center as you can probably tell. And then you see this:

The little card with the lovely sentiment is from the first Kristina Werner kit from simonsaysstamp.com. It was very difficult to read what it said, so I rubbed some vintage photo on it and the letters acted as a resist. I love the little airplane, so I was thrilled to find a spot for it! The little suitcase was a purchased embellishment. I found a "grass" stamp in my stash and inked it up with a grass colored pigment ink. It helped define the grass a little better than just the copics. Of course, there are a few stickles on this page as well. Remember those orange pages? Well, there is an inside to them and they flank Edwin. So here is a view of that part of the card:

The tickets are stamped images that are just cut out. The you and me is a raised glossy sticker. And with that, I am almost to the center of the "card". I will pick this up in the next day or so and finish showing you what I made. Hope you like it, he did!! I doubt that I will put this much into a "card" again, but it was fun doing it. It was difficult to come up with things to cover so many surfaces. I had thought about it for days before I began. Hugs to you all, and know I really appreciate your comments!! Barb F