ABC 123 School Time Fun

September Monthly Challenge

Singing " abcdefg... next time won't you sing with me...! " Fun memories of preschool teaching days! I like the back to school season;  listening to kids make plans for their new school year, expressing concerns, and looking over the school supply list. It's exciting and interesting. Inspiration Emporium on their blog is hosting a ABC 123 School Time Fun Challenge. I decided to have fun and make some ATC's using scraps from my stash, some old stamps from the dollar bin at Michael's ( forgot I had them) and a little imagination. The paper came from misc. sources, I had  some pieces of vintage school papers, a sheet of lined paper (ok, now that one is real old).  Using my ATC die, I cut the cards, distressed the edges with vintage photo distressing ink, layered the vintage school paper over the lined paper on a couple of the ATC's, and then stamped them. I then punched the abc and 123 with a square punch, distressed the edges and then popped them up with pop-dots. I embellished a couple of them adding mini antique gold brads. on the one ATC I clipped a mini chalk board ( another Michael's dollar bin find).

12 Tag 2012 September Tag Details (Cont.)

Close up of Prima Trinket typewriter... a cool addition.
I've gotten excited about each of the tags as I do them,
but I think this one excited me the most. Working with the foil tape
looked very difficult, but it is so easy. I'm just blown away by how cool
 the technique looks. I think I'm actually proud of myself because I did it.
Working with all these new techniques has given me a greater appreciation
for all the mixed media artist who have created things using this technique. I fill like I can sit in the same room with them now ... LOL Boy, who knew tags could make you "cocky"
Okay it's 2:48 A.M. ( yes, I stayed up to finish this tag)... I'm livin' the life I've imagined, Thanks Tim !

12 Tags of 2012 September Tag

My, my ,my ... such awesome technique! I can't say that I've mastered it yet
BUT I can say I did it and I so loved it ( did alot of embracing of imperfections here),
my goodness such a cool technique!!  I loved this tag so much so I did not stray away from the original too much.
I did not have the stone wash alcohol ink so I used pitch black, denim and ginger, I loved the look
of those colors together, I almost did not want to burnish it. I did not have steel wool so I used one of my husbands emery sheet. I was like a little kid... I oo'd and aah'd through the whole thing. I think my husband got tired of me calling him in to see my work!
I used Prima's Vintage Trinket typewriter to embellish my tag along with the type charm.

CC2 Challenge 20 (Continued)

Close up of stamp, check out that cool texture on my owl !
So sorry for the interruption ( there is some kind of maintenance going on on the site; we have got to get our schedules together)... it drives me  CRAZY !
We just had this problem last month and have not recovered from it !

For my flower I used my tattered floral die ( Tim of course). One layer is dictionary paper stamped over with reflections Halloween stamp and tips distressed with spiced marmalade,second layer is netting colored with black soot and the third layer glassine paper stamped with mixed media stamp in black soot distress ink. Final touches a black button brad topped with orange bling. Oh, I added some cool black fiber !

Compendium of Curiosities 2 Chasllenge 20

OK for whatever reason (blog gods are not working with me ) the photo and my blog background disdappeared... So with that said ... I'm resending the photo and holding my breath !

Compendium of Curiosities 2 Challenge 20

Enameled Stamping

Whew... my Compendium Journey continues... Challenge 20 is from Tim Holtz's  A Compendium of Curiosities Volume II.   Did you get your book ? ... good ... open it to page 44 ... if not , I'm waiting for you to join me... come on ... you can do it I did !

Oh what fun this was. Confession time ... I was excited when I read the instructions a WEEK ago, BUT I had no clue of what I wanted to do. It would have been way simple to just follow Tim's example... being sick for a week you would have thought I'd do that BUT ...NOOOO ... I wanted to get creative... Thursday morning , just 10 hours 19 min to go ... NO IDEA... HELP !!

Okay, I ate breakfast,  (hoping to calm down...sweat running down my face, off my nose dripping on my work space)... now staring at the book, by this time I've got the instructions memorized, even though while explaining the technique to someone else I kept calling it "caramelized" ... hehehe...okay it's gotta be Halloween cause I got this real cute stamp begging to be used... so Halloween it is! I played with some of my Tim toys; Stampers Anonymous Mini Halloween, Seasonal Reflections and Mixed Media Stamp sets. My "weapons" of choice were spiced marmalade, black soot, vintage photo and walnut stain distressing inks.