Le Loup Garou (Or GM 17 & SSS)

Odd that the concierge would caution her against going out on just this particular night.  Odder still, was that a gentleman would toss his lovely homburg on the ground.  Still, she was a modern girl and in Paris for an adventure.  If she had only paid closer attention in French class she might have understood the concierge when he said “Le loup garou”.

This week’s Grungy Monday is all about Rock….Tim Holtz Rock Candy Distress crackle paint and Rock Candy Distress Stickles no less.  One of the best things about these challenges is the journey that I take from my original idea, to the end results.  Often miles apart.

I picked up this postcard at flea market.  I’m sure in its day (postmark is 2/10/1908) it was considered romantic.  However, no doubt influence by current pop culture, I find it interesingly creepy.  Full moon, dark sky, sinister house in the background….

I scanned it and shrunk it down to about ATC size.  With TH stamps, I stamped and embossed the clock and luggage sticker.  Both got a nice coat of crackle.  When the crackle was ready, I rubbed block soot DI into the cracks and wiped off the surface.  The frame holding the ATC has rock candy stickles smeared on it.  I scanned the map from inside cover of an old French text book (1948), printed in on cardstock and cut a tag using my TH die.  And of course, it’s stamped with a flourish and blinged and fluffed.

Fabulous that I actually finished a challenge before Sunday!  Maybe I’ll have time for another one this week.  Speaking of that Simon Says anything goes….so here goes

Octopode Factory Friday Challenge - 2fer

I’m quite behind my time, so this post is 2 for one.  It’s not that I didn’t have it done…..just couldn’t seem to get it photographed.  Anyway….

Octopode Friday Challenge for 7/15/2011 was tell me a story and “Good Night Moon” popped into my head.  So here’s my beddy-bye tag…..

Octopode Friday Challenge for 7/22/2011 is spots and dots and I had quite a bit of fun with Hook (who looks a lot like J. Sparrow to me….my fav pirate).  MY Darling daughter assisted by dotting  the background in colors to match Hook’s wardrobe.   Then, I  spotted it using one of my new favorite techniques: smack distress stain really hard, head first on your tag.  The little sign reads “Get your ARRH on!”  An early sentiment for International Speak Like a Pirate Day (Sept 19^th).  Don’t say I didn’t give you ample time to prepare  

          

GM 16 & SSS

Linda said Gunge Paper or Board and Simon said emboss and you really can’t get any better than that.  Now, Grunge is an awesome medium.  The best of say, leather and paper and it lends itself to major construction projects.  It’s easy to cut/pierce and extremely pliable.  I, however, was never going to be able to pull off a construction project this week and was in need of another prompt.  My favorite crafting cohort and consult said birdcage and off I went.  The TH baroque frame, cut from grunge board,  has been dry embossed with a texture fade and had various coloring items applied to it.  Home brewed glimmer mist, distress inks, stains and a schmear of silver dauber.  The bird cage, bird,  flourish and donut, all grunge board, have  been heat embossed and then Uteed.  A deliciously unpredictable embossing method that I learned from Stamptramp.  The only “construction” I did was to prop up the various levels of materials.  The bird was easy to align with the bird cage and frame, using foam tape.  The flourish was cut again from grunge board and cut and glued where needed to make the whole thing lay over the frame and cage correctly.  What fun!  The tag is super sparkly with home brew PP mist and stamped with my favorite and first TH stamp in silver.  I’ll ad more “stuff” when I can catch another minute or 2. 

Check out everyone’s fabulous creations at Linda’s Grungy Monday Challenge and Simon Says Stamps (good luck to all design team entries).  And here’s where you can check out all of Tim Holtz’ wonderfulness.

GM 15

It’s good that I made something, and tried out this challenge, because it’s just good that I do.   Usually I can just start and the bits will start falling into place.  Or something doesn’t turn out right and then I know what will.  That didn’t happen this week.  The first piece I started was sad and it was imperative that I make something happy this week.  Dots are definitely happy and the sentiment is right and you can see some sunshine poking out of the dark cloud.  Next week will be better. 

Take a look at Tim’s Demo and Studio L3 and you’ll see how you really can make something stupendous out of this technique.

3 Words, 3 Papers and 3 Buttons or Biological Clock II

So, I wanted to enter this challenge at Gingersnap Creations because I have several very elegant and beautiful buttons that I wanted to use in my crafting.  That’s not what happened. 

To read about the birth of Bridesmaid check my other post today for the Octopodes Challenge.  What I love about challenges is that I would have never thought to put together these papers, these buttons these gears and this stunning beauty.  First, the beauty was born from an Octopode Collage.  I followed the original colors and just loved the results.  Then I started thinking about 3 words.  Here’s some I tossed around, not necessarily in order of preference:

1.     Ready Mr. DeMille

2.     Maybelline Of Course

3.     He Was Late

4.     Actually I Don’t

I decided on “Always The Bridesmade” and moved forward.  I pulled 3 wedding looking papers in the same colors as her gown, ripped and inked the edges.  Gears were of course required, but in an elegant tarnished silver with bling.  The buttons are plain white shirt type buttons, colored with TH eggplant alcohol ink, strung on silver wire and used to hook the word tag.

Fabulous challenge.  Please check out Bridemaid’s sister Hardly Alice in my other post today

Biological Clock

So, it takes a challenge.

One of my favorite people to follow (in the new hip way, not the old fashioned creepy way) is Cuddly Bunny over here.  Her art and sense of humor always put me in a better mood.  So, lucky me, as it turns out, I won a giftie that she was offering on her blog, SIX fabulous collage sheets from Octopode. WOOO HOOO big time. 

So, I’m looking at them, admiring them, admiring other people's Octopode creations and have no idea where to start.  UNTIL, I saw the Octopodes Friday Challenge.  Now, I’ve got a theme “TIME”.  I grab a Steampunk lady and start dressing her for the party.  I started with her original colors when another idea altogether hit me, so look for her on the other post today.

I grabbed the same Steampunk lady and started again, but this time she’s Alice.  Alice is wearing a tea length gown in Tim Holtz Distress weathered wood and stormy sky.  The background is the same technique from  GM 14 at Studio L3.  This is a technique that I just love – I wish you could see how beautiful the shimmer looks.  Check out the how to here.   You’ll see the white rabbit from Tim Holtz Spring Sprung running through the background.  I used the tarnished silver technique that I learned from StampTramp.

You know what’s great?  Ranger perfect medium pen, so you can emboss what you want (gives new meaning to the term blue eyeliner).  The other thing that is great is that stickles picks up the color of ink underneath it.  Awesome.

Like I said, look for her sister “Bridesmaid” in my other post.  She’s walking the runway at Gingersnap Creations.

An embossed, sparkly, hot,hot, hot Flourish

Simon say Show a Flourish, Tim makes it sparkle, The Artistic Stamper is feeling hot,hot,hot and at Inspiration Emporium, it’s emboss something

For Grungy Monday 14 over at Studio L3, Linda has an awesome challenge this week.  If you are product impaired this week, definitely put the required on your wish list.  The results are absolutely amazing and the photos you’re seeing can’t do it justice.  I started the project with one of my first TH stamps, from fabulous flourishes, on manila tag with white dauber.  This dried  while I was concocting my potions.  I really wanted to go with Hel’s fabulous Ink Mirepoix of Mustard seed, spiced marmalade and fired brick.  Not sure when I saw it on her blog, but I used it first on GM 11 and LOOOOVE it.  Luckily I had those 3 reinkers.  The perfect pearls to add was a bit more challenging, since I don’t have a wide array.  I probably could have gotten away with adding gold to all three, but where’s the fun in that?  So….for the Mustard seed I used sunflower sparkle, for the marmalade I used Heirloom gold and for the Fired brick I used Berry twist.  A few spritz later and I was blown away!  I really had a hard time covering any of it up.   The TH bookplate is embossed using Stampendous, Pearlustre Sapphire, using the technique I learned from Shelly Hickox, and grunged with a tiny rub of black dauber.  Same treatment on the donut.  AI’d bling and TH stamp from Michaels in Ranger black archival.  The flower wreath on my cutie patootie was colored with above 3 reinker colors using the  DI pad and a Ranger nib.  The seam binding was inked with the 3 colors, plus one more with chipped sapphire. 

After I make several more tags with this technique (and I will – I have great ideas for Christmas!) I probably will load it up with embellishments.   For now, I just have to admire the beautiful color and sparkle. 

Thanks Linda, Simon Says Stamps, The Artistic Stamper and Inspiration Emporium for the great challenges.  As you can tell from the above, if it wasn’t for the challenges and all the artists sharing their talent, I wouldn’t know how to do anything!

Simon Says “Show a Word” – Peace

Happy Independence Day USA.  I got my inspiration from…..Tim Holtz (So, how many times have you said/heard that one!)  Anyway, I really liked what he did on his blog this weekend.  So, here’s my timely tag for SSS Show word challenge.  I thought I might try adding some fireworks with Distress Stain like Deb Corder did here.  Awesome, right?  But, I think I want that to be the feature in the next 4^th tag.  Or the ruffle that Shelly Hickox did here, but I didn’t have the right color to make it work.

So, I did the burst same as Tim, Embossed some stars with sparkle blue and red distress.  The grunge paper letters are silver alcohol inked, then glammed with stickles.  The ruffle was made with layers of crepe paper.  Snip, glue, glue, pinch, fluff.  The trim was from a dollar spool,  that I colored with color wash.  It looks like a blue caterpillar.   But, I had a long struggle to make it (suffice to say stain everywhere) so I’ll look at it for a few days,  then replace it with something nicer.

Yesterday was beautiful, but it’s raining here right now.  Hope it doesn’t spoil anyone’s plans for the 4^th.  Great day for a movie!