TGIF

The challenge at Thank God It's Friday is "Little Witches." I made this for my October calendar page using stamps from Oxford Impressions.

Tag Tuesday #22 -- Paper Piecing

It's good to be back hosting Tuesday Tag Challenges. For this week's theme I chose paper piecing. Which really means just ripping or cutting paper in various shapes and sizes and adding them to your tag.

I wanted to use the "specialty" paper Sarah had given me on the cruise. I inked up several strips of it with different colors of distress inks. Then after I applied it to my tag I found I could stamp on it very nicely.

My image and sentiment are from Oxford Impressions.
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As always, after you have posted your tag on your blog, in order to help others find their way there, add a link in my comments section to your actual tag.

Click here to find out how to type a link.

Saturday's Workout

A cool challenge at Saturday's Workout today -- jewelry. Not something I usually make, but as we did have an opportunity on the cruise in one of Wendy's classes to play around with some of the Tim Holtz Fragments, I thought I could share what I started in class and have been working on at home this week.

I created this piece by applying alcohol inks to the underside of the clear fragment. I then

attached a vintage image to the same side as the AI so that I would not have a sticky side on the front.

I did the same thing here, only I attached a bit of patterned paper to the underside and then stamped on top with Staz-On inks.

I thought the S&H Green Stamp was a bit of fun. Just attached that, as I did the other papers, with Ranger's Glossy Accents to the underside of the clear fragment.

The longer charm was simple, too -- I just cut out the image which came with the frame packaging.

Cruise News Part 3

Well, here we are -- the three amigos in Mexico. Mazatlan to be exact. That's Pam, Sarah & Me.

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One of the very ambitious projects we took on in Tim's class was this grungeboard album for our trip pictures and memorabilia. No one came near finishing it in class and we weren't expected to. That didn't stop Tim from forcing us to create without thinking by getting the book itself assembled in record time.

We started with this map of Mexico which Tim had copied for us on Claudine Hellmuth's Sticky Back Canvas. We adhered that to the front and colored it with distress inks. In record time we attached 7 Gypsies paper to all our grungeboard as well as inking, stamping and distressing the bags we incorporated inside.

Many people worked on their albums during the week as we had a conference room assigned to us for that very purpose. It was open 24 hours a day for anyone that wanted to use it. There were supplies to use as well, including Tim's stamps.This is an exclusive trip stamp we received the last night of our cruise. I am so glad I hadn't created my cover yet, as I decided it would be perfect for the front of my book.

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The shipping label I used here is actually the ATC that Mario gave away. He'd been up to his eyeballs in shipping labels, so this made a great ATC.

The bags above and below are great to insert journaling tags, photos or other souvenirs.



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Another view of Pam, Sarah and Me.

Mazatlan was our first stop on the cruise. We visited the Mercado (Market). I'm so glad Sarah told me to take all these great pictures there. Love the pig's head!



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In Puerto Vallarta, Sarah and I spent a day at the beach. I had a foot massage while I enjoyed a Margarita right on the beach. Can you say "bliss"?



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These are the ATC's that Tim and Wendy made. I don't think I need to tell you who made which ATC.

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To see more Art, Sarah is showing an apron we made in Wendy's class.

And Sherry has pictures of a cool necklace we made in Wendy's class.

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Well, that's it for the cruise round up. Hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit of our journey!

Cruise Video

Tim's got a great video of the cruise up on his blog. Check it out here: http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/10/the-voyage.html

Look carefully at the end -- at the give-away party, there's a sweeping picture of Pam,

Sarah, me, and Pam's husband, Kim!

Cruise News Part 2

This shadowbox was one of my favorite projects we made on the cruise. It was from one of Tim's classes. It also happened to be the day at sea we had some rough weather and we lost more than a few of our crafters to seasick type symptoms.For my shadow box I added these dominoes once I got home because they were the perfect size for the space I needed to fill.
The bird and the background were made by applying strips of paper with a gel medium. A whole lot easier on the background than on the bird! But I loved the results. The bird was finished off with a rainbow of distress inks.
For the background we added a layer of beeswax followed by some gold Perfect Pearls. I went a bit heavy on mine, but was still pleased with the way it turned out.

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To see another one of Tim's projects that we made, check out Sara's blog.

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And what about all those ATC's we made you might ask? Well, we traded throughout the cruise with other crafters. And Pam was smart enough and kind enough to make these wonderful tins for both Sara and me. Which turned out to be the perfect place to store our newly traded ATC's!

I also received some very crappy paper from Sara. Before you gasp -- let me just say I mean literally! Paper made from crap.....the elephant kind.
**** Thanks, Sara & Pam! ******

Cruise News!

I've never had a vacation that was perfect from start to finish. But the Tim Holtz cruise came off without a hitch. From the time I got to the airport to make the trip to LA until I got back home, everything went just as it should. (I was astonished I didn't get seasick at all.)

We had great classes with Tim and I'll be posting some of those projects later in the week. One of my favorite parts of class was when Tim would play the Mexican Hat Dance. As soon as we heard the music, we knew free stuff was coming our way.

Like this....And this.....

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Wendy Vecchi was another one of the instructors on this cruise, so I'm showing a bulletin board we made in her class. I'm showing this one first because it's one of the ones that I actually finished. Many of the things I started in class need some finishing touches which is while I'll be showing them a little later.
We started this project by using an old sewing pattern. We cut it in strips and applied it with a gel medium to cover the whole background. When it dried we stamped a splatter background over it.
"Make Art" is Wendy's signature phrase and I copied it for my project.

Wendy is famous for her grungeboard flowers, so we had plenty of practice making those.
We colored them with distress inks and then stamped on them before shaping them and adding some snap centers.

I love this art doll we added to our bulletin boards. Especially love Tim's new film strip tape which we added as glasses as well as the metal necklace she is wearing.

Got lots more to share -- so check back later!

Tag Tuesday #20 and 21

Can't leave you taggers without a place to play while I'm gone, so some very gracious and talented ladies have agreed to host the challenge for the next two weeks.

If you've come here looking for the Tag Tuesday challenge, follow these links on the appropriate dates:

Tag Tuesday Challenge #20 -- October 13

Guest Hostess: Nancy Maxwell James

of http://sugarlumpstudios.blogspot.com

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Tag Tuesday Challenge #21 -- October 20

Guest Hostess: Kris Dickinson

of http://anostalgichalloween.blogspot.com

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Just had a thought -- you think I'll be able to talk Tim into being guest host one week? You know how much he likes tags.

I'll have to work on that.......

Bon Voyage!!

I'm off to Mexico for the Tim Holtz cruise and will return October 18th. So looking forward to this. Of course, I'll have lots to share when I get back!!!

How to Add a Direct Link to Your Tag

In order to leave a direct link to your tag, first copy the address of your post on your blog.

You can do this by going to the date at the bottom of your post and right clicking. When the

drop down box appears, click on copy shortcut.

Then go to the comments section of Tag Tuesday and type the following:

<a href="YOUR_TAG_URL">Here's my tag.</a>

Where it says YOUR TAG URL you will copy (Control & V) your post addresss. Be careful

to include all spaces, quotation marks and brackets.

You can double check your code by previewing your comment.

Tag Challenge #19 -- Shabby Chic

We had some wonderful submissions of Shabby Chic tags this past week. Check out the sampler below to see some highlights.
I promised a special goody bag to one person (goodies I'll collect from the Tim Holtz cruise).
I just have to give this to the artist who created these three very special and very shabby chic tags. They just blew me away!!

Congratulations, Jacqueline (http://myscrapbasket.blogspot.com).

I really loved your tags.

You'll have to wait a bit for your goodies though:)

Wednesday Stamper -- Double Trouble

I stretched Wednesday Stamper's Double Trouble theme to share these two works I created using Poe as the subject. The first is a 5x7 canvas, the second obviously a tag.

The Poe stamp is from Oxford Impressions.

Tag Tuesday Challenge #19

Well, this week's tag was a bit hard for me, but I can say I was happy with the outcome. I chose the theme of "shabby chic" for this week's theme.

A few things to know for this week's challenge: One, as I will be leaving for the Tim Holtz cruise on Sunday, I am going to officially end this challenge on Saturday, Oct. 10th. So get your tags in before then because I'll be putting a little bag of goodies together from the cruise and will give it away as an RAK to one participant in this week's challenge. But remember, they must be posted by Saturday!

Secondly, if you fear not having your Tag Tuesday challenge next week you can rest easy. I have two guest hostesses lined up for the next couple of weeks -- you'll be thrilled when you see what they've come up with.
So check back next Tuesday and I'll tell you who the hostess will be.

Bird Sampler for Challenge #19

Here's a little taste of the wonderful bird tags that were created for last week's challenge.

Gothic Arches -- Inventors

The theme at Gothic Arches this week is "Inventors."

George Ferris (1859-1896)

My nod to George Ferris, inventor of the Ferris Wheel, stems from some of his ties to my home state and city.

He was born in Galesburg, Illinois in 1859.

His claim to fame originated during the World's Columbian Exhibition held in Chicago, Illinois in 1893. Ferris desired to build a structure to outdo the Eiffel Tower which had been the centerpiece of the Paris Exhibition of 1889.

The rest, as they say, is history. Ferris' wheel, which was modeled after a bicycle wheel, was the hit of the Exhibition.