Sad Story

My granddaughter Phoebe, the real artist in the family, worked on an art project toward the end of the school year, hoping her piece would be picked for an art show at a local college.  She worked in chalk, a very difficult medium for intricate work. 

Ok, I know I'm her grandmother, but isn't this incredible?  Her piece was picked along with a few others from her school.  The sad part?  Her art teacher wanted to protect the chalk surface with a finishing spray and he focused on her piece first.  Her chalk piece became a surrealistic lava flow of color (I would actually like to see that, too), and of course her piece was not considered.  She would have won $500 for 1st place, which would help with upcoming college expenses.  I know the art teacher was devastated but can you imagine ruining an artist's work of art?  Needless to say, Phoebe cried, cursed, and wanted to kick somebody.  I never got to see the original ... just this photograph of it.  She's not discouraged but I doubt she will let anyone touch her art in the future.

Where does the time go?

I can't believe it's June, and we are 1/2 way to the Thanksgiving/Christmas season.  I haven't worked on any art work and it hurts.  I think about it all of the time but haven't felt well enough to actually start something.  I'm getting better and re-organizing, catching up on lost time, and will post something soon ... 

Meanwhile here's a sample of some photo work by my 13 year old grandson, Elijah ... 

and here's a funny morphing of Elijah's face, done with a phone app by Phoebe.  It looks just like him LOL ...

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2015 - March

IT'S SPRING and I barely got this tag together for Tim Holtz's 12-tags of 2015 the MARCH edition.  I enjoyed working on this but didn't get my butterfly a deep black like Tim's.  I'm also heavy-handed when it comes to modeling paste and paint.  I also used one strip of tape that didn't work well, it stands out instead of blending in like Tim's tapes.

Products used:

Mini Numerals (SSS|IE) #8 Manila Tags (SSS|IE) Mask Sheets (SSS|IE) Tissue Tape (IE|sss) Super Fine Detail – Clear Word Bands Observations (SSS|IE) Jet Black Archival Pad (SSS|IE) Squeezed Lemonade Distress Paint (IE|SSS) Picked Raspberry Distress Paint (SSS|IE) Broken China Distress Paint (IE|SSS) Spiced Marmalade Distress Paint (IE|SSS) Tonic Scissors (IE|SSS) Mister Bottle (SSS|IE) Craft Sheet (IE|SSS) Heat Tool (IE|SSS)

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2015 - February

Happy Valentine's Day.  This February 2105 Tim Holtz Tag collage was lots of fun and I wanted to keep adding items ... it's hard to know when to stop but sometimes I think going for the overload is best!  I worked both sides of the tag ...

 

Both sides of tag start of with a black paper featuring golden scroll work in the corners and sprinkled with white words.  More scrolls are shaped in triangular medallions and colored in faded blood red, green, dark green, and rosy gold.  Of course I cover almost all of this with layers :).

The square is a coin display holder, which I covered with Plain Jane's Red Rock ink and then used Ranger's Embossing Powder - Clear to create some bubbly shine.  The plastic center melted away by heat gun, leaving some little crystals around the edges.

I bordered one side with a brick red and black brocade fabric strip and then I start laying down bits of paper and embellishments using Ranger Glue N' Seal underneath layers and as a sealer.  I love Tim Holtz's metal elements and used one of the frames around a word paper.

This tag was created for Tim's 12 Tags of 2015 but overall I entered it into the following challenges:

• Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2015 - February
• Eileen Hull's Art-with-Heart Challenge
• Simon Says Stamp Blog (weekly challenge)

"H" is for Hanging Hearts tag, Holtz products used in this project, Happy Valentine's day, Holes punched to Hang tag (LOL this is a stretch)

Some of the products used in this project:

Ranger Embossing
Powder - Clear

Ranger
Glossy Accents

Tim Holtz idea-ology
Metal Frames

Krylon
Copper Leafing Pen

Ranger
Blending Tool

Liquitex
White Gesso

Plain Jane Baseboard - Red Rocks

Surebonder
Glue Gun

Tim Holtz 9.5
Titanium Scissors

Tim Holtz idea-ology
Salvage Stickers
Lost and Found

Ranger Distress Paint
Antiqued Bronze

Ranger
Glue N' Seal

Tim Holtz
Word Bands

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2015 - January

This is my first post to a Tim Holtz challenge, The 12 Tags of 2015.  January has been so cold, frigid actually, that all I can visualize is snow and ice so the tag took on this personna with some sparkle and glitz, peace and love added in.

Starting with a #8 Ranger Inkssentials black Craft Tag, I used a music-themed tissue paper to cover the entire tag, front and back, using a collage adhesive to adhere it.  I crumpled it like Tim showed us, before glue dried.  

Using a stencil with swirl pattern (reminded me of snow), I used a modeling paste to build up the next layer around left side and bottom borders.  When dried, I spritzed tag with Ranger Dylusions (vibrant turquoise) Ink Spray, Tim Holtz (broken china) Distress Paint, and sprinkled some white glitter overall before inks dried.  After drying it needed more white so using the Tim Holtz Blending Tool and a pad of white ink to dab splotches of white on top of blues.  After drying with heat tool I used Ranger Basic Clear Embossing Powder to create shine and build up the swirl elements (love this stuff).

Next layer was a full panel of glitzy swirls that was perfect size for this tag. Then came a photo of vintage ice fairy and metal flowers to embellish.  The upper left has small cursive "JAN" and on the right is the numbers 1 and 5 from Tim Holtz's idea-ology Mini Numerals.  I used Ranger liquid pearls to paint a small apostrophe upper left of "1".

On the back, I used a turquoise marker to color block a background for the white Tim Holtz idea-ology ChitChat words, and Ranger Glossy Accents to adhere them.  I also added a strip of globe tape (world peace!!!!).

There were hooks on end of flowers where I took it off chain so I used a split ring to attach silver-toned tiny tags (Peace, Love).  Finally, I found this great chenille ribbon at Christmas, which I split into two narrow strips to make a snowflake-like bow at the top.

SHOULDA/WOULDA/COULDA:

• I couldn't find a few things at our local craft stores and I wanted to get started so need to order online for future projects:

1. distress paint - picket fence
2. tissue wrap - postale
3. matte glue n seal
4. splatter brush
5. need more clear embossing powder

• I should have used white gesso on front of card but forgot (because I was using a black tag it's darker than the back side where I did use it).

• figure out how I could have made the Jan stickers in upper left corner of tag pop out more (used the black marker outline technique Tim showed in blog?)