Week 1 of Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 completed!

Hi all - I'm having a great time with Tim Holtz's online class Creative Chemistry 101. No matter how many times I've taken his classes in person or seen him in action on his blog, this online class has been soooo helpful in solidifying my knowledge of his techniques. I can go back and review whenever I need it - often!! I amazed myself and actually did the homework - making a tag for each of the techniques - although I had to catch up this weekend to finish them all.  Get ready for a long post since I saved the whole week for today!

So here are Week 1's tags all together:

Quite a rainbow of colors!  I just love all the Ranger products we used and I had fun using stamps from Hero Arts, Penny Black, Inkadinkado, and Stampers Anonymous .

Day 1 was an introduction - no actual production on our parts.  Day 2 we worked with Distress Inks; here are the tags from that day:

Left to right: Blended Spritz & Flick, Brushless Watercolor Technique and Wrinkle-Free Distress Technique.  I won't go into a big explanation of all the techniques since it's class content.  I used Hero Arts Exotic Bloom stamp and their watercolor paper on my middle tag. 

And here's the card I created today using that same Brushless Watercolor technique.

I cut an oval of watercolor paper and stamped the Exotic Bloom with the corner of various Distress Inks, misted with water before stamping.  Overstamped with a misted Newspaper Background from Hero Arts, inked in Tumbled Glass Distress Ink.  The card base was stamped with the Leaf and Floral Background, a favorite Cling stamp by Hero Arts.  I had a wash of Picket Fence Distress Stain lingering on it which I over-inked with Forest Moss Distress Ink and misted before stamping on the textured card base.  The dots, inked with Wild Honey Distress Ink are from a Stamper's Anonymous set of fun texture stamps.

Day 3 brought on various Archival Inks, including Alcohol Inks which I still owned from years ago when they were first popular.  Here are my tags:

From left to right:  Alcohol Inks Agates, Stamping with Reflections, Archival Resist Technique.

The black stamping on the left tag got a bit blurry in spots - stamping on glossy paper can be a challenge!!  I really liked the stamping done on the embossing folder so it comes out behind the embossing and as a reverse image of the stamp.  I went ahead and cut a slit in my embossing folder as Tim instructed, so my tag could slide right into the folder.  Very fun.  All the stamps I used were from a couple of Stampers Anonymous sets I had around here.

Day 4 we used Distress Ink Re-inkers, both for watercoloring and for misting.  Here are my tags:

L to R: Watercoloring with Re-inkers, Layered Misting, Custom Stamp Pad Techniques.  I wasn't too thrilled with my watercoloring - I don't have a lot of Re-inkers so my options were limited.  I stamped the Hero Arts Fleurettes in Archival ink and watercolored with Worn Lipstick, Peeled Paint and Dusty Concord Re-inkers; the background was washed with Broken China.  Texture stamp for the "grass" is from Stampers Anonymous.  On the middle tag I made a background misting Scattered Straw and Peeled Paint Re-inkers, then I misted over a flower mask (from the home painting department) using Broken China Re-inker Mist.  Behind that tag you can see another one - I used the wet mask as a negative and stamped it on another tag - that made a runny image but kinda cool.   I did the tag on the right with the custom stamp pad I created - my first one!!  Here it is:

Even though I had seen Tim make a custom stamp pad on his blog, it really helped when he talked about the different materials of the various stamp pads.  Of course, I had the wrong kind at home - the foam!  Luckily I was at my LSS and they had the felt kind I needed.  As you can see, the colors turn into a blobby mess but it still stamps right!  Again - not a lot of Re-inkers in my arsenal but I thought my butterfly turned out nice.  It's a Penny Black stamp I bought it at the LSS when I got the felt.

Last but not least - Day 5 when we used Spray Inks and Stains.  Here are my tags:

L-R: Stained Kraft Resist, Stamping with Stains, Marbled Stains Techniques.  On the left, I used a piece of Tim Holtz idea-ology kraft resist paper - it's actually a Christmas paper pad but had this one non-Christmasy postcard paper in it.  I didn't bother stamping on it, just used various Distress Stains all over it.  The middle one was my fave.  First made a background with various Distress Stains but what really made it - the Picket Fence stamping!  I used the Hero Arts Leaf and Floral background and love how it tied the background together - so pretty!  Then I stamped the PB butterfly on it in Archival ink.  My marbled technique wasn't my best, oh well.  But I stamped a cool bird on it from the Gem Stone Birds Inkadinkado set (thanks again, Heather Maria!).

Whew - so that's it from week 1.  I have all my class materials organized in a notebook and my tags tied together with some recycled twine from an artisan cracker bag (I always save it - comes in handy!).  Now, to get ready for week 2, I'd better clean up my craft space!!!  Thanks for visiting and I hope you had as crafty a weekend as I did!

Where in the world is your Vagabond?

Saw on Tim Holtz's blog that Sizzix was having a fun promo - "Where in the world is  your Vagabond?" HERE.  Idea is to take a photo of you with your Vagabond - out in the world or in your space.  Well, I don't really travel with my Vagabond although I considered taking it on a field trip back to the store where I bought it.  But no, too lazy, so I just took a photo at home.

My Vagabond resides in the living room right now.  My craft space is under construction (as usual) so I hang out in the dining room which is open to the living room.  I bought a small portable table for the Vagabond so it sits just inside the living room section next to the dining room.  The table is pretty utilitarian so I chose to put the Vagabond on this great old trunk to get the photo. 

Those of you wondering where we eat - well, it's usually not the dining room!  Luckily the kitchen has a four-seat round table.  I do clean up the crafts for holiday dining!

So where is your Vagabond?

P.S. I'm really getting excited for the online class Creative Chemistry 101 with Tim Holtz as the instructor!  It promises to be a technique-filled couple of weeks.  The interactive class starts 3/19/12 but you can still enroll - here.  Hopefully I will do more homework than I typically do for these classes, but don't count on it!  See you in class!

Happy St Patrick's Day and another Scramble

Hi all - Happy St Patrick's Day!  St Paul MN has a huge Irish contingent so there's a fun parade every St Patrick's Day.  Now, mind you, our family isn't the least bit Irish but my brother went to the parade with his Irish friend, Dan.  They somehow found Dan's clan (they didn't know a single person - just had the same surname) and marched away with them!  I heard they drank some green beer too.  And what a beautiful day - record breaking temperature of 79F!!  Hard to believe I was too warm in jeans, sandals and a short sleeved top in March!

Well, I made this card for a co-worker who wanted a St Patrick's Day card for her March card-of-the-month (something I put in our United Way auction at work).  I tried the faux embossing technique Lin shared from Just Us Girls.  Thought it worked great!  The shamrocks were die cut on my Silhouette SD with a Hero Arts digi image - love it!

Today I enjoyed playing in another Scramble over at the Hero Arts Flickr group.  Donna, our hostess for today, had made a tic-tac-toe grid of 9 blocks with different techniques.  You had to make a tic-tac-toe with the techniques you chose - I did dry embossing, twine, and patterned paper to make this birthday card:

Thanks again to my friend Heather Maria for the yummy embossing folder by Crafts Too. I've been having such fun making panels of these using Tim Holtz's Kraft Core'dinations card stock.  The butterflies are Hero Arts/Sizzix partnership to stamp and die cut.  The sentiment is from Hero Arts too.

Hope you had a fun St Patrick's Day!!

Wine Label card

Happy Sunday!  Chilly night here in MN (25F) but it was a beautiful sunny day - hard to believe I've been back a week from AZ.  It was a busy week catching up at work, but I still found time for crafting.  My friend Julie came over & we both got some cards made.  Then we joined our friend Sandy at Archiver's for Scrap Mania.  They were so sweet and gave me a belated birthday party - veggie pizza and a chocolate cherry cake - yummy!!

I was able to finish my first wine label card.  A Hero Arts Flickr group friend, Jacqueline, got a bunch of wine labels from a French winery.  They would've gone in the trash bin - what a tragedy that would've been!!  Anyway, sweet Jacqueline shared the labels with those who contacted her.  I was still in AZ at the time and the labels were waiting in my mail when I came home.  So I'm a bit late to the wine label card making party, but I had fun with this beautiful purplish wine label.  Had just received a new Basic Grey Plumeria paper pad so used some of those yummy papers.  Then I had the idea to run various flowers down one side - it's hard to come up with something new when so many lovely wine label cards have been made!  I really love the look of the flowers.  When I was all done with that part, I realized I had no stamps on it at all.  So I added a sentiment and a gold embossed butterfly, both from Hero Arts.

I have a lovely pile of wine labels to keep going but I did share a few with my friend, Julie.  She wants to make a shadow box to display them, they are so beautiful.  Thanks for stopping by - I hope to make some more wine label cards soon!