Best Christmas Present....EVER!!

I hope you've all had a very Merry Christmas shared with Family and Friends.  I also hope there were plenty of crafting goodies in your stockings and under the tree!
I was planning on updating my blog in order but I had a wonderful surprise this month and want to share it with you.  As some of you will already know, each year Tim Holtz creates '12 Tags of Christmas' and posts each day on his blog from December 1st.  This year I also joined Twitter and followed Mario's BTS (behind the scenes), this added to the excitement with the sneaky peak photo's etc.  The 12 Tags is a great start to the month and has a huge following with around a couple of thousand comments left on the blog each day.  Well just imagine my excitement when I noticed that the comment I left on Day 5 was one of the ones lucky few selected as a winner....!!  Anyway, last Thursday morning I had a call to say that a parcel from America had arrived in the post.

I was out all day at work and then all evening celebrating my Niece's 17th birthday.  The anticipation was awful but well worth the wait and look what I received when I finally arrived home...

It was the best Christmas present...EVER!!  I can't wait to use them so hope to get in my craft room at some point over the holiday.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

It's been a while

So it's been a while since my last blog post but I suffered a family bereavement in October and had a month where I didn't craft at all.  A weekend away from the World crafting with the girls at the end of November renewed my enthusiasm and now my addiction to all things craft is worse than ever!

I have a number of projects to share with you but I will do this in a series of posts in chronological order of creation.  Firstly up is a birthday card I made for someone special back at the beginning of October.  The card is created using mainly Tim Holtz products (what else I hear you say...lol!). 

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

Halloween

The monthly challenge set for the October Bramford Crop was from Janet (Dash-Paw) and consists of 3 elements die cut from a Tim Holtz die.  The theme set was Halloween. 

The shape of these elements immediately made me think of a house so I glued the 3 pieces onto black card stock with the largest piece in the centre.  My stash contains some Doodlebug papers and buttons which are left over from a previous Halloween layout so this was the obvious choice for my background.  I also punched a Picket Fence, and some Tim Holtz alphabet letters.  I added some spooky jelly stickers, and a Stampin'Up Pumpkin stamp.  To give a little bit of something to the roof and alphabet letters, I applied Glossy Accents, Crackle Glaze and Stickles.

Thanks for looking.
Tracey x

Tim Holtz Style

Last Sunday I spent a very enjoyable day with the Ladies from the Kesgrave Craft Club at Belstead House which is an Adult Learning Centre in Ipswich.  Every so often we hire a room for the day to enjoy a session of crafting heaven.  I always find that I am quite productive on theses days, definately more so than on a normal crop day.

My main objective for the day was to alter a door hanger that I had purchased earlier this year.  As usual it has been on my mind for a while whilst I've been thinking about what I wanted to do with it!  This time I am creating something for mysef and it will hang on my craft room door.  Obviously I wanted to do something using Tim Holtz products which I did except for the addition of the PaperArtsy flower.  So here is what I ended up with and I have to say I am very pleased with it:

During the afternoon I took part in the tag challenge, 4 of us joined in and I decided to make my 3 tags identical so that everyone had the same representing a style I enjoy.  In order to make sure I'd finished all 3 by the time we finished at 5pm, I used the same basic style idea as the door hanger.

Thanks for looking! 

Tracey x

2 Swaps

Saturday was the September Bramford Crop and this month we had been given 2 items to alter ready for the swap.  The first item was a coaster.  I used a mixture of Tim Holtz products and PaperArtsy stamps but decided to keep it fairly simple.

The second item was a small oval box.  I decided to take a different approach to the normal Tim Holtz one for this project and instead used mostly Stampin'Up products.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

Altered Bottle Cap

During the Papermaze crop a couple of weeks ago Karen (daisymay creates) gave us a bottle cap to alter for today's Bramford Crop.  Well I have to admit that I forgot all about it until yesterday and then had no idea where to start.  Once i looked at the item I initially thought that I'd make a keyring for my craft bag.

Obviously I wanted to use my Tim Holtz products as they are my favourites and started by creating the inside of the bottle cap using the Patchwork Texture Fade.  I added Antique Linen Distress Ink over the image and cut out the section that looks like a clock face.  Once in place I covered the base of the bottle cap with Glossy Accents and whilst wet dropped in some Craftynotions Stellar Flash to add a little sparkle.  Next I stamped a cinema ticket from my Tim Holtz stamp set, added that and finally attched the Game Spinners.  Whilst thinking about adding the Swivel Clasp I remembered that I had a small canvas which could make an art piece for my craft room instead of the keyring.  I used the same distress ink for the background and the Coffee Archival Ink to darken the edges.  Next I added the quote, the clock faces and the postmark to the background before applying Traveller Tissue Tape round the edges of the canvas.  Before attaching the bottle cap I created two wings, inked and covered with Distress Crackle.

Thanks for looking!

Tracey x

A special birthday

My boss has a special birthday this week and I was asked to make the card.  I distressed the background squares with Tim Holtz ink and embossed each one with a different embossing folder.  The toppers are all created using Sizzix dies.

Thanks for looking!

Challenge #2

The second item for the August Crop is a Domino.  Now this is a very small black domino so I wasn't at all sure how to tackle this one.  In the end I stamped a small Stampin' Up image called 'Sweet' in white ink, i coloured the image with Souffle pens and covered the whole image in Glossy Accents to help it stand out on the black card stock. I outlined the image with a white pen, then glued this to the front of the domino, adding some gems in the small space left at the bottom.  Being so small I then attached the domino to a piece of back card stock.   Again I wanted to do something with the domino so I inked a Tim Holtz ticket and stamped a swirl to make a decent sized background added some string and attached the domino.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

Bramford Girls Challenge x2

A couple of us missed the July Bramford Crop so we were given 2 items to alter for the August Crop.

The first item is a jigsaw piece.  For this I used my Ranger Melt Pot for the first time (although I've had it for ages!).  I hoped to achieve a mixed background by adding Silver, Bronze, Black, White and Gold embossing powders to the pot.  Well as you can see it didn't go to plan so I will need to work on this technique for next time!  The fairy stamp is inked and placed into the hot melted embossing powder and left to cool.  Next I went round the edges with a gold dauber and painted the back of the jigsaw with black paint.  To finish the piece, I used some wire, punched 3 small butterflies and added Stickles for the butterfly bodies and the fairy wings.  I added the word 'fly' using letter stickers covered in Glossy Accents.  Finally I added a Tim Holtz Swivel Clasp so that it can hang it in my craft room or on my craft bag.

Thanks for looking, I'll be back with the second item soon!

Tracey x

Free Stamp

A couple of weeks ago I purchased the latest Docrafts Creativity magazine which arrived with a free Tatty Teddy stamp set.  The Teddy is standing as though holding something which makes the perfect spot to add a number (or small greeting). 

My Niece was 6 yesterday, so I wanted to make a special card for a special little girl and I thought this stamp set would be perfect.  In order to make it personal I used the Tim Holtz Vintage Market alphabet which was just the right size for her name, I coloured the letters with a Promarker to match the Tatty's blue nose.  The number is cut using the Sizzix Lollipop die set and again is the perfect size to fit between Tatty's paws.

The card went down very well with everyone and I think I will definitely be using this stamp again.

Thanks for looking!

Card Crazy

So I have been enjoying a little bit of card making lately which makes a change from the Scrapbooking and altered art projects. 
The first card uses a Stampin'Up embossing folder which I was keen to try out.  Although the image is really defined I wanted it to stand out so I used Tim Holtz ink over the top.  The frame and greeting is also from Stampin'Up.

This second card is made for a friend as an alternative to the request in my earlier post. The four toppers are made using Sizzix dies.

This third card is a larger size and made for someone leaving work.  The die is from Stampin'Up and the poppies are stamped and overlayed with glitter and glaze pen accents. The die cut letters are the Moxie alphabet from Quickutz. 

The final card is made using a Spellbinder die, plus Sizzix and Quickutz letters.

Thanks for looking!

Birthday card

I know it's been a while since my last post but for some reason I haven't been creating much lately.  Needless to say I've been missing it so when i was asked if i could create a special birthday card I agreed.  The theme: Pink, Handbags, Shoes, 40th birthday and Sister.

Normally I create a couple to give a choice, this is the first one which is mainly stamped and in the style of an easel card.

Timmy Tag Swap

The monthly swap at April's Bramford Crop last Saturday was a tag in the style of Tim Holtz and here is what I came up with:

Almost everything used is from the Tim Holtz range (except for the stamped words which are from PaperArtsy, a piece of twine and the white pen!).  For the tag I used a mixture distress inks, a Ranger gold dauber, the patchwork texture fade embossing folder, the bird cage die cuts, grunge board, tissue tape, film strip ribbon, tiny attacher, a fastener, a fragment, a small safety pin, ribbon, glossy accents and some of the stamps from the recent QVC TSV set which I love so much.

Carol's Workshop

So on Saturday I attended a workshop by Carol (Krafty Pieces) and made the most beautiful notebook.  Everything was altered including the inside pages which are as pretty as the cover.  I really enjoyed myself and never realised I needed a Bind it All machine until the end of the day!

As you can see, it really is a beautiful notebook!

Thanks for looking.

Matchbox and ATC

Today was the monthly Bramford Crop, so last night was spent altering a matchbox ready for the swap.  The theme was 'Ladies'.  This was my first altered matchbox but I had an idea of how the outside would look after finding some Bubbles Born to Shop stamps in my stash, however I found the inside a bit more difficult.

         

Bramford has a monthly ATC challenge and this month's theme was 'Spring'.  I used the lovely goodies from the recent Tim Holtz TSV on QVC, I love the tiny stamp set! 

I really enjoyed the chllenges and will be taking part again next month!

Thanks for stopping by.

I've arrived...

So maybe I'm coming to the party a little late but I thought it was about time to get my attempt at a crafting blog up and running! I'm not sure how it will go so please be patient as I take my first steps. 

Why now, well I finally have my craft room organised (with a little help) meaning that I'm ready to start creating at home again.  There are still a few final touches but all in all it's a great room and I'm really pleased with my new space.

My first challenge is to complete an ATC on the theme of Spring, plus to alter a matchbox with the theme of Ladies, these are for a crop I attend a week Saturday (5th March).  I haven't attempted either an ATC or an altered matchbox before so it should be a real challenge!  I'll put some photo's on when I'm finished.

Could this become additive I'm wondering??!!