Tim Holtz 12 tags of 2014 - January

Hello peeps,

Well I have to say I am thrilled to have  made my FIRST Tim Holtz tag. I have wanted to join in the fun for some time but felt a little nervous when looking at everyone else's wonderful contributions. Any way I took the plunge and I really enjoyed myself.

For my first effort I tried to stick religiously to Tims tutorial, but had to improvise a bit as I didn't have the stamp he used or one that was suitable so I asked my friend google for help and created this quote in Microsoft word, my hubby added the clock for me which I really liked. I didn't have the Type charms or remnant rub numbers either so improvised again by creating the text in M Word  then punched it out and stuck it to the back of one of Tims sprocket gears, and finally stuck a Papermania domed sticker on the front. I couldn't believe my luck, it fit perfectly in the hole! The only other thing I did was to stamp some chevrons onto my trim as I thought it looked a bit plain.

 

I would just like to say a big thank you  Anne  for inspiring me, through your blog and beautiful pieces of art work, to try out for myself something new.

For all the other crafters out there who make and post their wonderful art creations in whatever form,

thank you :- To be inspired is great, to inspire is incredible !

I loved making Tims tag but it's made me realise my Tim Holtz list of  "things"  I  "need"  is gonna have to get a whole lot  longer lol.

Happy art making

Hugs to all

Lottie x

Chocolates

Hello peeps,

Hope everyone in Blogland enjoyed the festive season and has managed to stick to at least one of their New Year resolutions? Unlike me !! I promised myself I would be more active on my blog and stir myself from my inactivity in crafting. So seeing as we are over half way through January, and with some encouragement from Darnell  Ta-da! here I am,  (well better late than never, as they say)  thank you Darnell x

Any way I needed to give a little "cheer you up gift" and decided to go with chocolates. The supermarket had reduced all their Christmas chocolates but were obviously not suitable in their festive wrappings but I was sure I could think of something. Back at home as I was putting away the shopping I noticed the coffee was in a new different shaped jar, Bingo I would re purpose the now empty coffee jar. The lid was gold, so I coloured it with a silver metallic Pen-touch marker as I wanted to use a silver ribbon flower left over from Christmas, I used a band of paper round the lid and some pretty paper round the body of the jar, added a bit of bling and stuck the ribbon flower on the top, filled it with the chocs and finished off with a very apt digital sentiment from Paulette at Create with TLC,  she is so generous and usually has a daily freebie up for grabs as well as many many digital sentiments word art, and vintage images for sale in her Art Fire Store.

 Since September she has also added......................

Show it Off !

  A spot to show yourself off~! New Linky Party will be posted every Sunday....so come back and link up each week

Anything handmade and crafty.

Rules are simple....

As long as it's crafty, and made by you.

Show off your fabulous creations, cards, scrap pages, paper creations, DIY projects, craft projects, even food goodies you created.

 I think my jar of chocolates could qualify for  Show it Off, so I will be adding  it via Mr Linky, 

If you too would like to Show Off something you've made pop over and check out Paulette's great blog and store, you wont be disappointed.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention I am also, if I dare, going to join in with "THE"
Tim Holtz  12 Tags of 2014. Watch this space, eeek!!!!

Until next time

Happy Art making

Hugs

Lottie x

TLC Blog candy

Hello peeps,

just a short post to say I am alive and well if a little lacking in mojo. I don't know whats wrong with me, maybe it's what they call the winter blues but then again my last post was in June and I don't recall having to wear my winter woollies that early lol. 

Any way, one of the things I have been doing is visiting the TLC blog and collecting the wonderful free digital word art and sentiments that Paulette the owner generously gives away as freebies, she also has hundreds of vintage digital images, word art and sentiments for sale and I am sure you could find something to fit your needs whatever the occasion. 

This week she has this gorgeous Christmas canvas she has made using one of her Christmas word art designs, as blog candy.

 There are a few different ways you are able to take part for a chance to win, so pop along to
TLC Blog Candy Give-away have a look  around, pick up a freebie, take a look at her lovely canvas and enter the give-away. Fingers crossed everyone.

Happy art making

Hugs 

Lottie x

WOYWW # 212

It's Wednesday and that means WOYWW which, I'm sure you are dying  to know, stands for .......
'What's On Your Work desk Wednesday'. If you too would like to join in the fun then, take a pic of your work desk and share it with lots of other 'nosey', I mean like minded people. Hop on over to Julia's blog
Stamping-Ground for more info. Hope to see you there.

Hello peeps,
Hope everyone is tickety boo and enjoying  ( if you are lucky enough ) the spells of sunshine that some parts of the country  have been having. Here in Yorkshire we have had some wet, dull and very humid days and nights. I can't seem to cope with the humidity these days, think it's an age thing, I feel really drained and am not sleeping too well, the saying "limp as a wet lettuce" springs to mind. lol
Any way I have managed to be productive this week, even though I managed to nod off sat at my desk, adding a stiff neck and a wet shoulder  ( bet that was a pretty picture... NOT! ) to my woes.
So to the desk, I have taken  pictures to the left, front and right for your perusal lol

Left side

This 'stuff' was on the front of my desk as I had been making a tag and card for a belated Birthday gift for my friend and I had to move it out of the way to take the pic of the tag.



 Front

Glitter, glitter everywhere lol, I like how using the lace for the background turned out, will be using that technique again. The technique on the dress form was to use double sided sticky tape a mask and glitter. I didn't have a mask so improvised by sticking the ds sticky tape to the right side of the dress form, used an embossing folder to get the pattern, then used my craft knife to gently cut round each swirl to enable me to add the gold glitter first then peeled off the rest of the backing to add the purple glitter. Way too long and fiddly !! Guess what has risen to the top of my 'neeeed' list? yep a stencil or mask, it's a must for this technique me thinks.

The sentiments are from a great site called Create with tlc,  here  go check it out if your looking for wordart, sentiments, vintage images and freebies.

Right

These two gorgeous teddies are Eden on the left and Dorothy on the right and are my daughters birthday present from her dad, wrapped and little finger spring to mind. lol  Little did we know when we bought her a teddy for her first Christmas it would lead to a passion that grew with her. They are adorable though, Happy soon to be 26th Birthday Katie x

I received another two ATC's

Left is from  Julia   @ http://stamping-ground.blogspot.co.uk/
Right is from Kay  @ http://505whimsygirl.blogspot.co.uk/
Thank you for your lovely Happy mail ladies x
I have another two yet to arrive so look forward to those popping through the letter box soon.
Have a great WOYWWednesday and thank you for paying me a visit today
Happy art making
Hugs to all
Lottie x

WOYWW #210

It's Wednesday and that means WOYWW which, I'm sure you are dying  to know, stands for .......
'What's On Your Work desk Wednesday'. If you too would like to join in the fun then, take a pic of your work desk and share it with lots of other 'nosey', I mean like minded people. Hop on over to Julia's blog
Stamping-Ground for more info. Hope to see you there.


Hello peeps.
Hope everyone is getting back into the swing of things after the ATC extravaganza? I still have some ATC's to arrive yet, though I have received 3 more since last week, see pic below. Thank you Toni love how you cut the WOYWW letters, I have shied away from getting those small letter stamps as they are hard to line up, why didn't I think of this derr, thank you also for the extra goodies you sent. Thank you Christine love the back ground, of course, as it's purple! and thank you Ali, flowers and Zen-tangles, perfect.

Top left        Tonie      @  http://craftdabbler-toni.blogspot.co.uk/

Bottom left   Christine       http://bishopsmate3.blogspot.co.uk/
Bottom right  Ali               http://exmoorali.blogspot.co.uk

This week I have been having a shuffle round in my craft room trying to make it look  tidier and create a bit more room for new stuff !! Alas I am fighting a losing battle, so not too much going on on my desk at the mo. Last weekend I bought one of the X-Cut alphabet dies and have frustratingly been trying to get it to cut, hence the Cuttlebug and Big Shot on my desk. I had to google  for info, and found it is a common problem but the suggestions didn't work for me. I have now managed to work out a recipe that works in my Big Shot, big thank you to Anne ( Bollyanne ) for your help and info. Also on my desk are a couple of pieces of card that I'm trying a background technique on (wish they would hurry up and dry). There is also a nude tag on my mini easel waiting for inspiration to strike lol, a dress form die cut, cut from packaging, loved the colour and too nice to throw away, what was I saying about creating 'more room' lol, and a storage tower containing the newly cut alphabet.

I am posting this late Wed evening so will start my desk hopping tomorrow, see you then.
Happy Art Making
Hugs
Lottie x

WOYWW #209

It's Wednesday and that means WOYWW which, I'm sure you are dying  to know, stands for .......
'What's On Your Work desk Wednesday'. If you too would like to join in the fun then, take a pic of your work desk and share it with lots of other 'nosey', I mean like minded people. Hop on over to Julia's blog
Stamping-Ground for more info. Hope to see you there.

Hello peeps,

Goodness,  how quick this week has gone, we are round to Wednesday and WOYWW once again. I hope everyone enjoyed the WOYWW4  birthday and has or is waiting to receive their ATC's. I have received three lovely mini works of art so far, so I thought I would share these and some pictures of the mini friend quote album, with you today.

These are the two designs of ATC I made for the swap.

'Bliss Flourish' on the left                                         and                                     'Butterfly Bliss' on the right

And here are three of the ATC's I have already received

Top is from Anne  @ http://bollyanne.blogspot.co.uk/

Left is from Claire @ http://decide-what-you-want.blogspot.co.uk/

Right is from BJ    @ http://ccraftcorner.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you so much ladies love them all, it was so nice to receive your 'Happy Mail'

Here are the pics of the mini quote album I made for my friends birthday, there are quite a few but you can whizz through them lol

I met my friend for coffee and gave her this gift with a box of chocs, which she said thank you for, but she didn't open it and I still haven't heard anything from her so don't know whether she liked it or not!  Oh dear, wish I had friends who shared my love of crafts. 

Ah well I still have more happy mail to come lol

Happy Art Making

Hugs to all

Lottie x

WOYWW4 208

YAY!!! WOYWW 4th Anniversary is here at last!

WOYWW stands for 'What's On Your Work desk Wednesday'  If you too would like to join in the fun then, take a pic of your work desk and share it with lots of other like minded (nosey) people. This week is WOYWW 4th anniversary and Julia has organised  an ATC swap for those that  would like to participate, if you would like to join in the fun hop on over to Julia's blog  Stamping-Ground  for more info. Hope to see you there.

Hello peeps,
Happy  WOYWW 4th birthday to all.
Last week I had several comments about making  blending blocks from my wood mounted stamps and Bridget Larsen asked for some close ups, so I have taken some photos to show how I,  and with a bit of cutting and sanding from hubby ( don't think he thought cutting and sanding 36 blocks was a "bit") made them.
I daren't tell him I will need another twelve blocks if  (when) I finally get the full set of DI.
So  here are the pics for WOYWW4
Sorry Julia this is a long post, if you have popped in to visit me, you can just look at the first pic then leave lol

Jaspers says he thinks there is a stowaway in among the blending blocks box (easy for you to say) lol

Yes there is definitely something hiding in here!

 Better get down to business
I chose the largest stamps to use, thinking they would be easier to cut and I would get more blocks out of them.

First of all, if possible remove the picture film from the top of the stamp and save it, in some cases I couldn't get it off so hubby sanded it off for me.

Sometimes the rubber stamp comes away easily, but if it doesn't, pop the whole stamp in the microwave. I did this stamp which is 4.1/2 x 3.1/2 for about 30 seconds in a 700 watt oven, so adjust the time for the size of stamp. Be careful if you leave it in too long the wood will start to burn!  You should now be able to peel the rubber stamp with its foam backing from the block and  if you want you can stick the picture film that you saved, onto  the wrong side of the rubber stamp.You would need to spray a temporary adhesive to this to use the stamp with an acrylic block.

 I then used a sticky remover spray to clean the wooden block of the sticky residue.

Hubby then cut up the block and got six smaller blocks which were sanded to get rid of any rough edges. I wanted them to be the same size as my Tim Holtz blender tool but you could make them whatever size you like.

Next I experimented with attaching  the Velcro. The block on the left has the double sided foam tape stuck to the block then the Velcro stuck on top in two pieces as it is narrower than the block. I really liked this and it worked great until I pulled the blending pad off, and the Velcro came with it. The double sided foam tape is super sticky and I cannot get it off the block but it doesn't stick to the Velcro too well which will be a nuisance when I need to change the pad.
The block on the right has the Velcro stuck on in one strip just as it is with Pinflair glue gel. Brilliant! great hold, the blending pad sticks well and it doesn't seem to make a difference that there is no padding or that  the Velcro is slightly narrower., and it stays put when pulling the pad off.

In this pic I have cut a couple of pieces from a sheet of the Ranger blending foam and used the glue gel to stick some Velcro on the back, these work on the blocks too, though I do prefer the Tim Holtz pads.as shown on the finished blocks on the right. As I mentioned before I am not bothered about a handle as I prefer to hold just the block anyway.
Up to now I own only one Timmy blending tool and it is so frustrating having to keep swapping the pads, so I am pleased with the results and that I now have a blending tool for each of my DI and it's only cost me  £3 for the Velcro, also they all fit into one A4 size plastic storage box.

I hope you have managed to make sense of my ramblings and that this may have been some help.
I would love to swap ATC's so if you are interested please let me know and we can exchange details.
Have a great day desk hopping
Happy art making
Hugs
Lottie x

Don't panic mum it's only Brad !