Give smiles away often. It won't cost you anything, but it might be just what someone else needs.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

"Trick or Treat" I'll take the Tim Holtz tag treat, please!

Hey Dolls!
 
Have your kids come home with the loot yet? Mine did!
Mwahaha, candy, I love candy!!
 
So before I go into a sugar induced coma, I wanted to show
you my October Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2013. As usual I didn't have
all the supplies he used. Don'tcha just hate when that happens. I did find
the owl and moon die, so I was happy about that. But I had to go into
the storage unit to get my Vagabond and plate to cut the shapes.
(our house is for sale and the realtor said "declutter"! so most of my
toys are in storage)
 
Anyway, here it is.
 
 

 
If ya'll have not been to Disney (what planet are you from?) you might not
recognize the headstone. If you have, you know it stands in the graveyard of the
Haunted Mansion. Now I chose that particular one because my grandfather, my
father, and my brother are all Fernando, FRED for short. So it had to be this
headstone to put on my tag. And if you know how clumsy my father is,
with all his fix-it projects, you understand why "a rock fell on his head".
 
 
I hope you can see the Glimmer Mist I sprayed on the moon. It looks yellow in
the photo, but it's really an orange/yellow.
 
 
My owl is covered in Glossy Accents sitting on the headstone. Owls
hang out in graveyards, don't they?
 
 
And I wanted some dead grass around the bottom. It does look pretty
sickly, if you ask me!
 
That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by. Talk to ya soon.
 
Christine
 
 
 

Monday, October 14, 2013

Dina Wakley at ESS was AWESOME!

Hey Dolls!
What's new with you?
 
I have the latest scoop on Dina Wakley's classes
from the weekend of October 4 - 6 at
 Everything Scrapbook and Stamps in Lake Worth, Florida.
 
In a word,
AAWWWESSOOOMMMMME!
(you need to sing this word, or it doesn't sound right)
 
 
Dina was an amazing teacher and, oh yeah, a really nice person!
Who knew!! She told stories of her three boys, made sure everyone could
see what she was demonstrating as we sat around the "teacher"
desk, and called us her little "Padawans"! (you need to have seen
the movie Star Wars to understand anything she said)
 
 
I took three classes out of the five she offered and am sorry I missed the
other two. The first one I attended was Friday night "Beyond the Stamp Pad"
But somehow I didn't take any pictures from that class. She taught us to use
other mediums than just a pad with our stamps. And, of course, any item
she suggested, our number paddles went up to say we wanted one.
(I did get 'paddle elbow' from raising mine so much)
 
I did take this picture of my finished page. I used the Pam Carriker stamp.

 
Saturday morning's class was "Listening and Layering" and that was really
cool. How many layers can you put down on a piece of watercolor paper.
Dina can do 25! and so did we. It was great! You would never think
the paper could hold that much paint and ink. Every mark you make on the
page counts as a layer.
 

Here's I think about 7 - 10 layers
 
I don't even know how many she has here. We were trying to
keep track, but lost count.
 
Oh, by the way, we weren't allowed to like the finished layered page.
You might ask why, well, because we cut it up later in class! sob, I kinda
liked mine too. But it would up in my journal on a page we started earlier in
the class.
 
Here's how mine started out. I think there's only two or three layers.
And, yes, I'm a looser and forgot to take a picture of the finished page.
Don't judge me!
 
 
Three large circles found their way onto this page during class.
 
 
And a semi-circle ended up here on a page I did at home. Those little
trees are Dina's stamps with Gelatos smushed on them.
 
We also used acrylics on butcher paper that had to have at least three layers.
We started a  page and then had to find a focal point and do something with
the butcher paper on that page.
 
Dina said the page would 'speak to you' what it wanted to be.
Mine didn't say a damn word! But I liked the leaf stencil in the background,
so I went from there. And since I'm originally from New York and
won't be seeing any leaves change color, I went with the orange/
yellow/green butcher paper I made earlier in class and tried to cut the
shape of the stencil leaves.(notice I said 'tried')
 
Saturday afternoon the class was "Graffiti of My Life", but I couldn't
stay for that one. I was actually staying with my daughter in her dorm
and wanted to spend some time with her. We went to an Indie Craft Fair.
It was small, but nice.
 
Oh yeah, she made me sleep on the couch in their living room,
the little brat. Have you ever slept in the middle of a party? That's what it was
like trying to sleep with all these brats . . . I mean students in the halls.
 
Anyway, the next class on Sunday was "Faces".
All I can say is OMG!
 
It was the most amazing class. The first thing we had to do was draw
a face. What? Wait! I thought you were going to show us how?!
Nope. We had to draw a face all by ourselves. I wish I would have
taken pictures of all the ladies in shock. But we each did and then got the
lesson on how you're really supposed to draw a face. The difference between
the face on our own and the face we did with Dina leading us was, was, I
can't even think of a word to describe it!
(and those of you who know me, I'm never at a loss for words)
Hey, I can hear you, you know.
 
So, I did not save the 'by myself face' but here are my first two faces
we did in class.
 
This is actually #3 because I painted the wrong face. This is using a
Stabilo All pencil and then painting some of the lines with water. The background
was done first and then we just drew using Dina's method and viola!
 
 
This is face #2 which I painted in class with Dina's instructions. She
taught us everything we needed to know, and then told us to forget it
all and just draw!
 
 
I even painted my phone case!!
 
So, I think you get the idea that I really loved these classes. The last class
she taught was "Mark Making" but again, I couldn't stay.
I can safely say that everyone had a great time, and learned a lot in
Dina's classes.
 
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your read! Come see
me again real soon now, ya here!
 
Christine
 

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Oh my gosh! What day is it?

Hello everyone.
I say that like there are millions of you reading this.
I hope there are at least five!

Anyway, I've been really busy lately and I'm sorry I 
haven't posted anything in a long time.

But tonight, I am once again making it right under the wire
for Tim's September tag. 

*ok, so technically I didn't make it "under the wire"
I'm so over the wire it's pathetic. I lost half
my page at 11:55, no joke. Had to switch to my son's
laptop and that had to recover from some such or
another @$&*% thing. So that put me into
October 1st. Oh well, I made the tag and that's all
that matters, right? Ha!

 I totally missed the deadline for August,
but I did make the travel theme tag.


So this is what I made from the Air Travel set I 
bought the minute I received the prize from Tim and
Mario. I love the background stamp and the 
technique to mask it.

Now here is September's tag (almost late)
and in all it's glory!


Can you see the shimmery-ness (just made that word up)
from the Tarnished Brass Distress Stain?
 
Here it is a little darker. you can see the colors a little better.
 
I'm totally a layerer, so I loved this technique.
 
And can you see the stamp I used?
It's the set I won for my July tag. I know right!
So cool, and apropos! The light, the spark, get it!

 
Here's more close ups.


 
So that's my tag for September. I really enjoyed making this one.
 
Thanks for stopping by. Leave me a comment.
 
Christine