Tim Holtz is on a HOT streak!

Hello,
Thanks for stopping by. With the nation/world on stay at home orders, Tim Holtz has been doing MANY facebook live videos. Although I truly adore him, and I have embraced many of his techniques and I own TONS of his products, I am not glued to the computer when he is on live. I watch for a bit, and they move on. No one really notices that he does not CREATE anything in full. There is never a finished product in the end. It is almost as if he CAN'T complete a full creation ever. He leaves that up to all his creative team, I suppose. It's funny how no one really notices that....but me. He simply shows techniques that I already know, or don't interest me.
However! I do adore all his inks, stains, paints, oxides dies, stencils, stamps and hopefully (when I have more $) his glazes!
But I always go back to his wildflowers when I am stuck creatively. Take a look:

I know these look very similar to a post I had a few months back, but I saw this sentiment on someone else's card, and I HAD TO HAVE IT! I placed an order just for this set! I actually created these cards and left the space open on each card so I could finish it off with this sentiment when it arrived in the mail. Have you done that before? New to me.  Lol.
I also die cut these flowers from some alcohol inked backgrounds that I din't know what to do with! They made great flowers!
Thanks for stopping by, leave a comment. It would make my day!

Crafting with a head cold!

Welcome back,
What a month! I knew that that these last two and a half months after spring break would be crazy, what I didn't expect was to get a head cold and laryngitis in the middle of it! I really am just getting my energy back, and I will be back to normal in a few days, I am sure. Meanwhile, I have two similar happy anniversary cards to post, take a look:

 The background was my main focus, I created a much larger panel with the new distress oxide sprays. I only have 3 colors so far - Mermaid Lagoon, Picked Raspberry and Fossilized Amber. I love how the colors mixed and blended on their own. I them splashed some picked fence paint to create the white dots. It looks like a night sky sort of to me.  :)

On both panels, I used the Happy die cut from Pink & Main, and and the stamp Anniversary from a older Hero Arts set. I wanted to not distract from the background. Clean, and simple. Thanks for dropping by. I would love a comment before you go!

Turning the Corner...

Welcome back,

I am so glad you dropped in. I have been really intrigued with the more mixed media/grunge/steam punk look of stamping recently. I have been totally entranced with all the new releases at Creativation 2019 from Tim Holtz all the companies that he designs for. I watched all the facebook lives and drool over all the new products and designs that are coming on the market!

Although I can't own them all, I have a nice little stash of goodies that I am learning with. Take a look at today's creation!

JUST A THOUGHT:  I have been doing a lot of video watching, and blog reading about Art Journaling. The process of Art journaling never really interested me before. As I have mentioned before, I enjoy creating pieces that I can bless others with. Everything I create is turned into a card or gift of some form. I have passed by Art journaling previously because its end result is self-fulfilling. (i.e. I keep them) That makes it hard to share and it doesn't bless others.

However, I am growing as an artist, and my skills, techniques and subject matter are always changing and evolving. I am wondering if IN ADDITION to card-making (and scrapbooking) I could create a few art journal pages to play with ideas on a larger format rather than the very little card sizes.
I recently gave another look at Vicky Papaioannou art journaling style. She intrigues me. It took me a long time to assimilate her Greek accent, it was very difficult for me to understand at first. lol Her art style is very different than mine, but it is very controlled and I think I like that about it. I like the HAPPY PLANNER and hole punch that she uses for her journals. From what I can gather, she has notebooks, as well as several different sizes. (i.e.- 6 x 6 and 8 x 8) She mentioned she enjoys square journals. (huh) Just a direction I may venture into. Though I would share!

Here is another piece from the same background. Take a look:

I REALLY like these two pieces, and I am not sure I want to share them! So,  I may turn them into art for my craft room and keep them! (... I am a bit selfish after all) lol.
But before I do, I entered these into a few current challenges. Each one will take you there. I would love to know what you think!

1. Dragonfly Dreams
2. Fashionable Stamping
3. Love 2 Create
Leave a comment, I always return one!

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Heart

Welcome back,
I am joining yet another challenge. Valentine's Day is right around the corner, so a heart challenge seems fit! Take a look:

 My background makes me SO happy. I think I really am improving my mixed media skills. (are there such things?) I wanted to incorporate this into my card for this challenge. When I pulled out my Valentines/love stash, I found a ton of die cuts I had left over from a project I made a few years back. I layered them all up to create my own thick embellishments. The challenge I faced, was that they were too "clean" (lol). I had to "dirty them up" and make them fit with the background.

I really had a fun time creating this card. I enjoyed creating my own embellishments. Thanks for stopping in. I hope my number is selected, I would love to place an order at Simon Says Stamp! Please leave a comment!

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Recycle

Welcome Back!
I am excited to be able to join the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge. I have been enjoying my grunge-side of my cardmaking lately. My school just had a local law firm donate a bunch of furniture, chairs and TONS of office supplies to my school (I am a math teacher). Amongst the piles of office supplies was a entire box of dividers that had been removed from years of filing. I grabbed them quick! The dividers were white, but a bit on the cardstock side.  RECYCLE! Take a look:

I started the background with picket fence paint and Tim Holtz alphabet stencil on the recycled divider. Once dried, I blended a handful of bright distress inks. (picked Raspberries, Wilted Violet, Wild Honey and couple others along with a brown around the edges.) I used a handful of other stencils and stamps in the background. I placed the sentiment first and heat embossed it, so that I would room for it!  lol

The wild flowers are mostly Tim Holtz, but I just purchased CottageCuts wildflower die sets. They are awesome! They come with cute dragonflies and hummingbirds! Anyway, I used the technique from Jennifer McGuire to place all the flowers. She uses GLAD Press and Seal to lift all the small pieces and keep them in place. Then I can put glue all over the back-sides of the small pieces, and then place it back in place. What a great time saver! 

Thanks for dropping by!

A touch of christmas....

Welcome back,
Each year I have high hopes for creating AWESOME Christmas cards, and each year (including this one) I never get them all done. I create a few, but end up with not enough to send to family and friends. Take a look:

Each of these cards started with the same white heat embossed image used in my MISTI. The backgrounds are different based on the distress inks I used. I gave these to my children for Christmas Cards this year. This card (of Course) I used wilted violet.

This one is my favorite. I love this blended combo of colors. Picked Raspberries, Salty Ocean and Peacock feathers. Thanks for stopping by. I love comments!

RGB Codes for Distress Oxide Inks!

Good morning!
I searched the internet, like I usually do for a new idea I had, that I was sure someone else had thought of first! Low and behold, I could not find it! Let me explain.

I came across Shari Carroll's Distress ink combo sheets that she created for Simon Says Stamp blog. I had miniaturized them, and printed them out a while back. I taped this sheet on my craft wall above my distress inks, and refer to it often. Then I came across Justine's blog where she has some AWESOME distress OXIDE combos that I had to try, so I wrote them down on my combo sheet. Then realized, I wanted to record them as Shari had with the little watercolor circles and the name next to it.

SO.....needless to say, I wanted to add one to Shari's idea, to include all the oxide inks, and then make a combo sheet of my own of my favorite combinations! I wanted to share it with you!

First, I needed all the RBG codes for all the distress Oxide inks. I searched all over the ranger site, but to no avail. Then I searched blogs, and pinterest, and found one hit, but it wasn't quite right. Then I thought, if ranger already chose the colors in their swatches, (which I had in my files) then I can use the eye dropper tool in inkscape, and get the codes myself. With a little elbow grease, and a bunch of patience, I could make them!

I wanted to make the swatches in word so that I could copy and paste them as I needed to make new combos on a separate combo sheet. Take a look:

Here is the word document: click here. I might go forth and create a sheet with all the distress color on it. (I have 24 of them done already) Why not? I'll add to this post if I do. Enjoy!

Labels: distress oxide ink RBG codes, Ranger, Tim Holtz inks, 24 Oxide ink colors. 2018

http://cpjcreations.blogspot.com/2018/01/rgb-codes-for-distress-oxide-inks.html

Crazy Dogs - Tim Holtz 2

Happy Hurricane Day!
I am located just north of Tampa FL. We are expecting Tropical Storm Hermine to hit land late today. All the local schools are closed as a precaution, so I have a day to craft!

I am in love with these dogs! I am loving how easy it is to water color with distress inks and get a messy/crazy look and it is all ok!

I love the surprised look on the dog's face, so I created a funny belated birthday card. I have no bold, funny, crazy sentiments, so I ran to MS Word and created my own!

My cell phone was misbehaving, so I bought an inexpensive replacement. I love the Samsung Galaxy phones, so I purchased the Samsung Grand Prime. These are the second set of photos from my new phone, and I have to say these show a definite decline in quality as compared to my Galaxy S2. (yes, I had an S2 for four years, never needed to upgrade) I believe they are on S6 now? for $600? Can't afford that. I will try a few more pictures.

Supplies:
Stamps: Crazy dogs - Stamper's Anonymous
Sentiment: handmade with MS Word
Paper: Canson XL cold press Watercolor, Sentiment is on Neenah Solar white
Ink: Distress Inks and water.
Dies: Spellbinders Nestabilities A2 Distressed Edges
SSS Stitched Rectangles
Font: Grilled Cheese size 24

Thanks for stopping by! More to come! Four more dogs!

Crazy Dogs - Tim Holtz

Hello again,
I am always surprised when I simply can not keep posting during the school year. Each year, I honestly think that I can teach full-time AND continue to craft and post each week! And...each year I am disappointed in myself for not being able to do it. Silly, huh? What is this, year 5?

I caved. I LOVE cats, but I am not as excited about the CRAZY cat stamps as I am about the CRAZY dog set!!
Weird, huh?
I bought them as soon as I could. THEN they sat in my craft room each week taunting me!  So, What do you think!?! Please keep in mind, I am SO learning water coloring techniques.

Directions: First I stamped the dog onto watercolor paper with Simon Says stamp Intense Black ink, and with a paint brush and distress inks, I painted in the dog using scattered Straw, Mermaid Lagoon and Picked Raspberry. The hash-marks helped with the shadows and the shading (something I am SO not good at...yet). I even took some burlap and created a grassy area around his feet.  

I have a challenge I want to enter this in, so I hurried to post this. I know I have a lot to learn, but I am so pleased with the results. Only 5 more dogs to go!  TEE HE!

Challenge:

Live Love Cards - Happy Birthday - August Challenge

More to come!
Cindy