Tag Tuesday -- Circles

Yesterday I was determined to sit down and do some stamping.  I still have stamps from Christmas I have not inked up yet and I wanted a chance to do so.  Here is one of the tags I created.   I think the theme is appropriately Circles. 

Create a tag this week using more than one circle or round stamp, image, etc.

All my stamps are from Seven Gypsies except for the face which is from Stampland..

Patchwork Valentine

As soon as I saw this lovely heart from Artistic Outpost's Cutie Pie plate, I thought "patchwork."  After creating the patchwork from assorted papers and cutting my nine hearts out, I placed it on sturdy chipboard which I had painted with pink acrylic paint and then outlined in a gold-embossed lace border from AO as well.   It's just the kind of pink-and-lace type Valentine I love!

Speaking of Artistic Outpost, I am happy to share with you that I will be acting as a guest designer for them.  I have loved their stamps since they put out their first set so it should be a lot of fun.  And some of their current designers are ladies you'll recognize as regulars from the Tag Tuesday challenge.

Valentine Hanging

        I started this Valentine Day hanging with Tim Holtz' bingo embossing folder and it just flowed from there.  The little girl image and ticket are from K&Co.  They have a really wonderful set of vintage Valentine ephemera this year.  I ran a strip of Tim's tissue tape across the bottom.  Found that things don't really stick to it -- even with the best of adhesives.

I have to share a little find I had yesterday.  I walked into one of my favorite thrift shops to look around -- always looking for that little gem you can use in your artwork.  I didn't see this table until I was almost ready to leave -- at which time I spied about ten baskets full of stamps!
I made away with these -- displaying great self control.  The prices were reasonable, and it helps to know proceeds from the shop go to help developmentally disabled adults.

Tag Tuesday Challenge -- Valentines

My Christmas crafting mess is still not fully cleared way, but it's not too early to start on Valentines.  So for this week's challenge we will be making Valentine Tags. 
Please feel free to use any medium you'd like or create any style of Valentine.
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I used to love passing out Valentines in school when I was a child.  We'd always have to bring a shoe box to school which we would decorate and then use to hold all our Valentines.
The stamps I used for my tag come from Artistic Outposts Cutie Pie plate.  The stamps on that plate all remind me of the Valentines we'd swap in school.

Tag Tuesday Challenge -- Winter

Today's challenge is simply Winter.  Create a tag using any kind of medium and interpret the theme any way you'd like!

**{So many great tags last week using fabric.  I was happy to see so many participate in that challenge.}**

Details about my tag:  Did you ever start playing with alcohol inks and found you weren't crazy about the effect, so you added another layer of color...and then another ...... and then another?  I can't tell you how many layers of alcohol inks were added to this tag  I finally had to stop and say, for better or worse this is it.   I had embossed snowflakes in white first.  On watercolor paper I created my snow globe, inserting my Art Impression snowman inside and adding Glossy Accents and some glitter at the bottom to create the snow globe effect.

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So I made this thing.....

and I really like it.  Especially since I actually took needle and thread to fabric and sewed on it.  SomethingI've avoided doing like the plague because to me it infers housework.   But my question is:  What do you call it?  Any ideas?

Tag Tuesday Challenge -- A Bit of Fabric

Today's challenge is a bit easier than last week's:  Simply use a bit of fabric on your tag.  Or use more than a bit, if you'd like, and make your whole tag from fabric.
I actually used two small pieces of fabric on mine, one under the button and the other one appears to be largely covered up with my piece of ribbon.  But it's there:)
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I know last week was a challenging theme, but was glad to see so many give mosaics a try!
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Don't know who makes the Alphabet background stamp I used.  The image of the two women is from Artistic Outpost.   The crocheted flower is
by ScrappyPam and you can find them here.

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Another Book To Share

And this time it's an altered book I am creating for Christmas as a round robin project with Pam and Sarah.  When they visited in October we decided now would be a good time to work on this when all our Christmas stuff was still out and about.
I chose for my book the theme of "Words" which is essentially words that reflect something about Christmas.
It took me a bit of time to get this book going (Sarah and Pam both thought I'd have my part done way ahead of schedule), but I did struggle a bit.

Now that I've got my cover, sign-in page, and one other page done, I think I'm on a roll.

This is my "Noel" page.  
I had a few false starts because I chose books with very fragile pages.  I then came upon this Christmas book that for some reason already had two pages attached  together throughout the whole book.

A Book About My Blog

Here's something cool I did:  When posting to my blog recently I saw a little blurb about how to make a book from posts on your blog.   I was kind of in a spending mood so I followed the directions to see how it would work and what the cost would be.  It was very easy to navigate the site and follow the prompts.  My first few attempts, however, told me I had way too many posts on my blog and I'd have to narrow it down using a date range or tags.  I finally decided I would include only those items that I'd tagged as "Published" which meant I would have a book with all my published work and what I had posted about it.

You also had the choice to include the comments you received on those particular posts, but I chose not to do that.   You then chose whether you wanted your book to be a hardcover or softcover book as well as what picture (your artwork) you wanted on the cover, the dedication page, and the back page.    The total cost, with shipping, ended up being $30.

I have to say it turned out way cooler than I anticipated it would.  I'm very pleased with it! My book is 35 pages total and here is what it looks like.......

If you'd like to check out the site, it's called Blog2Print and you
can find it here:  http://sharedbook.com/.

 

Tag Tuesday Challenge -- Mosaic



Today's challenge is to create a tag that includes a mosaic of some kind.   It can be the whole tag as mine is or a portion of your tag.  Feel free to expand upon that idea.  It will be fun to see what your creative minds come up with.

A tip that made this easier for me:  I assembled my tiny pieces on a a long piece of packaging tape, sticky side up.   I covered half the length of it, and then when I was done I brought the bottom half of up to cover my mosaic.