Tim Holtz Tags of 2016 - December

As 2016 comes to an end here is another last of the year.  This is my December Tim Tag. 
Sine I am not a Christmas person I didn't think this was going to turn out as nice as it did.  I found a pack of stickers in the bag of Christmas embellies and immediately knew this would work.  What love the most is it only took me about 20 minutes once I gathered all my supplies.

OK Tim, I'm ready for 2017 and lots of new techniques and ideas.

Inspiration Wednesday - Week 25

This is it. The last Inspiration Wednesday of 2016.  It's been another fun year with Donna, and I cannot wait to see what's in store for 2017.

Donna kept it simple this week. Thank God, because I've been so busy something more involved would have pushed me to the edge. I got to go through my collage box for this one, and was determined to use only stuff from the box.  So here it is. I hope you enjoy.  By the way, look at all the beautiful chunkiness of my completed journal.

Inspiration Wednesday - Week 24

Wow! I can't believe there's only one more Inspiration Wednesday left in the year.

For these pages I used Pan Pastels. Considering that I have a limited number of colors, and it's the first time using them it turned out better than expected.

Bye for now!

Tim Holtz Tags of 2016 - November

This month Tim paired the remnant rub resist and dimensional coloring techniques.

I love the fact that Tim's rub ons resist ink. When you use them you never have to worry that they won't show up because you used a dark ink or stain. I just sprayed my stains onto the tag after applying them, and lightly wiped the excess ink.

For the leaf I used distress markers and a water brush to blend the colors.

Inspiration Wednesday - Week 23

Donna took a poll asking what media we would like to see her manipulate for this week's pages.  aluminum foil got the most votes.

We used both the positive and negative pieces of a chipboard design, covered the pages in foil and painted them.  After drying the pages I sanded them so that the foil showed through in areas.  When I started these pages I wasn't sure about the technique but as it turns out I'm really happy with the finished pages.

Inspiration Wednesday - Week 22

This is week three of using what we hoard, and I must say that these pages are some of my favorites. This weeks item was used baby wipes. Unlike Donna I don't keep my baby wipes after removing the glaze from my projects, so I started by picking through the trash can in my craft room. Luckily I hadn't emptied it, and I hit the jackpot.

Tim Holtz Tags of 2016 - October

Halloween. It's my favorite time of the year. I always look forward to making Tim's Halloween tag. It's the one tag I usually have all the supplies for. This year was no exception.  I even managed to get my hands on some of this years line, which in southern NJ is not an easy feat since there are only big box stores in the area.

Thanks for checking out tag. I hope you like it.

Inspiration Wednesday - Week 21

It's week 2 of the 'Use Your Stuff' series.  I found a bag of chipboard tags from Maya Road.  I think I got them in one of their sale boxes, but I have no clue when. I added the words using word stamps that I've had for years and just recently started using. What I did find out was that I could fill a whole journal with the hoarding items.

I love the way these pages turned out. The layers, textures and the colors are what I love most about Mixed Media. You make a mistake. If you don't like how something looks just add another layer, you end up with something like this...

I hope you enjoy these pages as much as I do.  I'm off to see what I've been hoarding for Week 3 of the 'Use Your Stuff' series.

Inspiration Wednesday - Week 20

For the next three weeks we're going to be creating with "Stuff" that we've been hoarding. Yes, it's true crafters hoard everything because we might be able to use for a project. This week we're going though those stickers we have.  You know, the ones that are half used, and probably don't stick anymore because they're so old.  I found a drawer full of letter stickers, some of them were unopened and a lot of them were no longer sticky. Exactly what I was looking for.

I had fun adding the layers to these pages and love the way they turned out. I hope you enjoy them too.

Inspiration Wednesday - Week 19

Flowers. That's what this week was about. Loose flowers, first we penciled them onto the pages, then we painted and not necessarily in the lines. When the pages dried I went over my original lines with a marker.  Oh, did I mention we had a 20 minute time limit.

Art Journaling Class

In August my sister and I had the pleasure of attending an all day class with Dina Wakley. Our mission for the day was to complete our own journal pages. This included binding the pages into a book.

For the past two years I've been art journaling with Donna Downey. Since Dina's technique is very different from Donna's it was fun to just do something different. When journaling with Donna the fatter your journal is the better. This journal is flatter with lots of layers that allow for lots of writing making your journal ever evolving as you add your words to the pages.

For this book we focused on layers using paint, texture paste, stencils, stamps, and paint pens. Since I am very messy when it comes to my art I was covered in color up to my elbows, and as you can see from the pictures below we used a lot of colors.

Inspiration Wednesday - Week 18

Woo Hoo! A collage week.

When I started these classes with Donna I never thought I'd be saying that.  But, I do love pages with texture and these have lots.  This time I used super heavy gesso.  I also got to go through my junk box for trinkets to smash into the gesso.

After slathering the super heavy gesso on the pages I finally got to use that chipboard I've been saving for I don't know how long.  After the pages dried, which took about 24 hours I made a Burnt Umber glaze and painted both pages.  After about a minute  I wiped the glaze off. I love the way the glaze stuck in the nooks and crannies on the pages.  These pages are one of my favorites so far this year.

Inspiration Wednesday - Week 17

I'm still catching up on my blog posts for August. For this project our mission was to create a picture using pieces of washi tape.  It was like Donna knew we all had a box of the stuff that wasn't getting used.

I got my inspiration from some of the flowers I created in Donna's Abstract Flowers class.  The pages were way more fun to complete than I thought they would be.  Once I got started I couldn't wait to get it done.

Inspiration Wednesday - Week 16

I'm playing catch up this weekend with my blog posts and my art.  Finally got to do lesson 16 from Donna.  I wasn't so sure about these pages when I started since I totally skipped trying the bubble technique. I loved using both the positive and negative of my stencils, and just kept adding layers until they became something I liked. The negative flower is my favorite.

Tim Holtz Tags of 2016 - August

Every year my goal is make the time, no matter how busy I am, to complete my "Tim Tag".  August was one of those busy months, but I did manage to get my tag done.  I would have liked to have had more time to devote to this one, but part of my challenge is to accept that all tags are not created equal, and I'll like some more than others.  Hope you enjoy.

Thanks Tim! I'm looking forward to September.

Summer School Graduate

With the completion of Creative Chemistry 103 summer school is offically over.  Tim really kept us going in this class but it was so worth it.  Thank you Tim for another class packed with product information and techniques, and especially for the live chats.  

Here are a few of the techniques we learned since my last post.

Texture Paste Embossing

Distress Crayon Smudging 

Gesso Fresco

Layered Collage

Texture Paste Resist

Creative Chemistry 103 - Day 2

Day 2 of Tim's class just as intense as day 1.  It was all about layers. Layers of inks, stains, and paint while using stencils to achieve effects. I enjoyed all of the techniques in todays lesson. Here are my favorites.

Paint Resist

Paint Lifting

Luminous Mica

Stain Rub Resist

Last Class of the Summer

Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 103 started today. For the next 6 days Tim will be posting a new class every morning, and judging from today's lesson it's going to be a very busy week. Today's class included 5 new techniques here are my first 3.

Distress DIY Ombre 

Distress Highlight Stamping Technique

Distress Off-Set Stamping

Creative Chemistry 102

The month of July was filled with the techniques from Creative Chemistry 102.  Even though the class ran the whole month it was a challenge to complete the techniques and done on time.  The one thing I learned is that you do not want to get behind in a Tim Holtz class.  He makes these techniques look so easy. You watch and say to yourself that should take about 20 minutes.  Two hours and 3 tags later you have something that resembles Tim's. At that point you remember that life is not perfect, so why should your art be.

Here are just a few of the tags I completed, and trust me some of these are NOT my first attempt.
Enjoy while I get ready to move on to Creative Chemistry 103. Wish me luck...

Stencil Stamping

Embossing Through Stencils

Paint Monoprint

 Stencil Sketching

 Smudge Stamping

Mixed Media Layering