Secret Santa 2011

This was my second year participating in the Bramford Crop Secret Santa, and if you read my blog on a regular basis, you will know that there are 6 of us who join in the monthly challenges which are always fun.  Last year we each decorated a box but this year wasn't specific so I decided to try something different and found a small canvas and easel in my stash to alter.

I used Tim Holtz Distress inks and a couple of different stamps on the background, then cut up a stamped image so that I was left with just the girl and the word 'Wish', these images were coloured with ProMarkers, glitter pens, distress ink, gems and glossy accents.  I added a strip of ribbon along the bottom, Tim Holtz Tissue Tape around the sides and 3 little balls for depth.  Finally the little girl was added .  I hope it looks nice sitting in the recipients craft room.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

Christmas Tree Decorations

The December Bramford Crop was set by Janina (Tractor Girl Gone Srcrappin) and consisted of 3 Christmas Wooden shapes - a House, a Star and a Tree.  I used scraps of Christmas papers to cover each of the shapes and then added additional accents such as Angelina Fibres, Tim Holtz Tissue Tape, Glossy Accents, Rock Candy, inks, a lace punch and a Stampin'Up sentiment for the centre of the Star.  I really enjoyed creating these three and as we draw names to swap the challenge items, I hope they looked nice hanging on the recipient's Christmas tree! 

Thanks for Looking!
Tracey x

Space Monkey

Happy New Year!

Well we all make them - New Year's Resolutions that is and mine is to update my blog more frequently.  Obviously, this also means that I will need to spend more time in my craft room so I'm looking forward to seeing where the journey takes me in 2012!!

For today's post I am sharing the November Bramford crop challenge with you.  It's a while ago but I believe Nancy (Kitty-Scrapper) set the challenge which was an arrow shape with the theme being Space or Fireworks.  Luckily I had one piece of Bo Bunny Blast Off paper in my stash.  I just loved the monkey so decided to cut him out as my main feature.  I covered the base of the shape using the reverse side of the paper.  I heated some Angelina Fibres (which I've had for ages and never used) to give a wispy shiny element.  Next I used Glossy Accents to add some detail to the mouth, eyes, ears and belly of the monkey and cut some additional star out of the paper to dot around.  To add depth to the piece I added a plastic strip behind the monkey's head.

Thanks for looking.
Tracey x

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!