12 Tags of 2013 with Tim Holtz-June

Hello Crafty Friends!!

I'm running a bit behind this month because I've been preparing for a trip to Ontario, Canada to see my Mom, Siblings, my Sons and my Grandbabies :-)  I don't leave until the first week of August but I've been scanning Family Photos for my Sons, making gifts to carry with me and well honestly just spinning in circles with excitement :-) 

I'm glad I was able to get my scatterbrain in gear and finish my June Tag, I love doing the 12 Tags along with Tim and would have been upset if I'd missed out on one.   You can follow along with Tim too!  You can see his June Tag HERE on his blog.  I have to say Tim's June tag is my favorite so far...I wish I had those Blueprint stamps but it's just not in the cards for me at this time so once again I had to improvise.  Of course my favorite set of his stamps that I do have so far is the Papillon set...I adore this set!!!!!!!  I did a lot of heat embossing with Distress Inks and with Archival Ink along with lots of Ranger Embossing Powders.  I really wanted to try Tim's painted metal technique that he used HERE on his April Tag , I have all of the Distress Paints except the Metallics so I cheated/improvised again LOL   I dabbed Distress Paints in Greens and Blues with my finger as Tim did, and zapped them with the heat gun to dry the paint.

Then I took some Tarnished Brass Distress Stain and dabbed it on, again zapping it to dry it.  The Distress Stain adhered perfectly to the Distress Paint, woohooooooo!

I then colored some of Tim's wonderful seam binding with Distress Stain in Iced Spruce and Gathered Twigs (2 of my favorite Stains!!)  and added my metal pieces with one of Tim's long fasteners.  

I was tempted to take a black sharpie and add my own blueprint doodles to it but was worried I'd mess it all up and I've run out of time :-) 

Thank you for looking!

Prima Sneak Peek: Everyday Vintage by IOD

Be still my heart!!!  I adore Prima products and am a huge fan of IOD...so I was thrilled to see the post on the Prima Blog this morning !  Those papers are gorgeous, the Washi tape looks fabulous and the Paintables...swoon!!! Go check it out!!

We got rid of our Verizon Wireless Accounts...SO thrilled with Republic!!!

Heads up to my U.S. Family and Friends, if you're sick and tired of paying an arm and a leg for cell service you seriously need to read this. 
In a nutshell: 
If you're tired of the big contract bills...this is for you.
If you have Verizon or Sprint tower service in your area...this is for you.
If you want real UNLIMITED Talk , Text, Web on a smartphone..this is for you.

Jim and I switched from Verizon a little over a month ago to Republic.  We paid 99.00 for each of our phones and our monthly fee is $29.00  for absolute UNLIMITED Talk, Text and Web.  I can even call my Family and Friends in Canada with NO extra charges!!!!  Republic gives you too options, you can buy the phone for 249.00 and only pay 19.00 a month for your service or go the route we did, pay 99 for the phone and 29.00 a month for your service. NO Contracts, NO throttling of speed  EVER!!  I wish I'd found Republic a couple of years ago.
At the moment they only offer one phone which is the Motorola Defy XT however they will be offering other phones near fall.  The other cool thing about Republic is the phones also work via wifi...for calling as well...how cool is that?!!!  The only thing these phones can't do at this time is send photo msgs, so we downloaded Voxer and WhatsAp...both of them allow us to send photo msgs...Voxer is my favorite because you can also do real time walkie talkie msgs with your contacts :-) 
Once you get your phone (we had our phones within 3 days of ordering) you can go to Kingsland (or wherever the Sprint Tower service area is near you) to access the Sprint tower and activate the phone..after that you just work off of wifi and/or the Verizon and/or Sprint towers. 
I can honestly say I am 100 % happy with this service. I love being able to talk to my Canadian Family and Friends at no extra cost, love having a smart phone, and love being able to finally watch Youtube stuff that I couldn't watch before because of the bandwidth limits on our home internet. 

I am NOT being paid to share this info, I am just a very satisfied customer.   But if you decide this is for you then by all means use my referral link because it will give YOU and ME a 19.00 credit on our accounts...can't beat that!
Check it out here: Republic

I will NEVER go back to the big name wireless companies again!!!!!!!

12 Tags of 2013 with Tim -May

I have always loved the look of collage stamping, however I never felt that I was "getting it"  , until now!  When I saw Tim's May Tag I fell in love with it! If you haven't seen it...here it is.  I was inspired by the collage look and jumped in to give it a try. I used a bunch of stamps from Tim's sets, along with Distress Stains, Distress Inks and some acrylic paints. The Butterfly is a chipboard butterfly from my stash that I used acrylic paints on to get the enamel look. The word "Believe" is from Tim's chit chat stickers ***I love his chit chat stickers!!***   I used Distress Stains to color some of Tim's seam binding and tied it off with one of his swivel clasps and pearls. And last but not least, a piece of Tim's Photo Frame Ribbon...love that stuff!!! I also used a couple of Graphic 45 Steampunk Stamps.  I believe this is my favorite Tag of 2013 :-) 

If you haven't already gone, please go to Tim's Blog and check out his Tag..you won't be sorry!!
Thank you for looking :-)

12 Tags of 2013 with Tim Holtz-April

I can't believe that April is almost over! Spring is here in Southeast Arkansas, the Tulip Magnolia, Roses and Blackberry bushes in the yard are all in bloom and my Plum Trees have itty bitty plums all over them!  I love this time of year :-)  I also love Tim's April Tag...if you haven't seen it, check it out HERE

Aren't his Blueprint stamps awesome?!!  I don't own any of them yet so I chose to go with his Butterflies from the Papillon set. This is still one of my all time favorite Tim Holtz stamp sets. This was my first time using Tim's Distress Paints and I am hooked big time! The colors are amazing, they blend beautifully and they don't leave your surface feeling chalky or rough...Tim nailed it with these paints!

As soon as my set of Distress Paints came in I had to take a photo of them...love Instagram!  I still need to get the 3 Metallic Distress Paints and my collection will be complete.

I laid some distress paint down on my craft mat, spritzed some water onto the pain then pulled my Tag through the paint. I used my heat gun to dry the tag then laid some metallic distress stain on my mat and pulled the tag through it.  Once it was all dry I used a blending tool and applied some distress ink over the tag in blues, greens and browns, spritzed with water, let the water drips flow down the tag and applied the heat gun again.  I stamped the tag with Tim's Grid stamp from the Mixed Media stamp set then stamped the Butterflies from his Papillon set.  I stamped the Butterflies again onto some Wendy Vecchi Clearly For Art Whiteout (I don't have the Clear one yet), cut the Butterflies out and colored the Butterfly in with Aged Mahogany Distress Marker. I applied the heat gun to the Butterfly to help dry the ink and marker, as well as to help bend the wings. I then glued the body portion of the butterfly to the tag using glossy accents.  I took some of Tim's trim, applied distress paint and distress stain to it and looped it through the tag. 

I was going to add a bunch of embellishments but changed my mind, I love the colorful simplicity of this Tag.

Thank you for looking!

Scrappy Girl Tribute Canvas

I hatched Scrappy Duck in the house 4 yrs ago, she was born with a limp and had a condition called Angel Wing however she didn't let any of that stop her from living happily and keeping up with the rest of the flock.  She spent her first 3 months in the house with me then moved to the duck pen with the flock but never stopped being my "lap duck". Scrappy was unusual for a Pekin, she loved to go broody and hatch babies, this year I kept one of her babies and am so glad I did. This project took a couple of weeks to complete because it's many layers of Molding Paste, Gesso, and embellishments of plastic, metal, fabric and paper.  The Canvas is 16x20 and it took MANY embellishments to fill it. I also used some of Scrappy's feathers that I had collected over the years and some shell from one of her eggs that I had blown with the intention of painting.


I love you Scrappy Girl, thank you for short 4 yrs of joy you gave to me....

Below is a list of the supplies I used on this Canvas:
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Metal Embellishments
Tim Holtz Fractured Doll
Making Memories Hinges
Tim Holtz light bulbs
Chicken Wire
Feathers and pieces of egg shell
Petaloo Flowers
Prima Flowers and Vines
IamRoses Flowers
Old discarded keys
Vintage keys from the flea market
Metal bolts found in the garage (shhhhhhhh don't tell my husband)
Vintage Key plates from a dear friend (Thank you Donna!!)
Antique Frozen Charlotte from a dear friend (Thank you Donna!!!)
Tim Holtz Grungeboard Numbers and Alphas
Springs and metal scraps from the junk drawer
White Gesso from Ranger (3 jars of it!)
E6000 Glue
Ranger's Glue n Seal
Molding Paste
Perfect Pearls Mists from Ranger
Glimmer Mists from Prima

Thank  you for looking!

Michelle

12 Tags of 2013 with Tim Holtz-March

Here is my Tag for Tim's 12 Tags of 2013 March Challenge.  I've been out of town and wasn't sure I'd be able to finish it in time...call me the homestretch wonder LOL 

I don't have Tim's Bunny or Fringe Dies so I had to do some improvising.  I cut the fringe myself and it shows!  If you haven't been following Tim's 12 Tags of 2013 you should check it out on his Blog.

I'm not sure why my Bunny looks pink (perhaps the lighting in my craft room), because I colored him with Copper Distress Metallic Stain. 

The supplies I used are:
Tim's Tag and Bookplate Die
Tim's Styled Labels Die
Tim's Tattered Banners Die
Tim's Papillon Stamp
Tim's Seasonal Paper Stash
Tim's Trim
Distress Ink
Distress Stains

Thank you for looking!