New Catnip Designs Collage Sheets!

Take a peek at these two new Catnip Designs collage sheets! They will be available soon at Collage Stuff! Catnip Designs collage sheets are exclusive to Collage Stuff. You won't find them anywhere else!

Cemetery Adventures on Sunday

Of course we managed to make time Sunday morning before we left to visit some cemeteries. We found 4 and visited 2. This statue was in the front of one of the cemeteries. It was so hot and so bright, that it was hard to get good photos. I took over 50 photos of this statue. This statue will grace a new collage sheet soon!

I took my Pocket Edward along for the trip too. I was photographing an angel and looked over to find a Cullen headstone! I couldn't resist photographing my Pocket Edward Cullen in front of this headstone!

A "personal experience" was had in this cemetery. Walking between two headstones, a cool breeze was felt on our lower legs. This was interesting. It was hot - over 100 degrees with no breeze hot. We were baking in the sun. This reminded us of the tv show "Ghosthunters." What the Ghosthunters do is snap random photos when something like this happens. That's what we did too. We snapped random photos in the area, to see if anything would show up. Sadly, our photos did not show any ghosts, orbs, or anything else. We plan on making a return road trip to the Dallas area when it's not so freaking hot to find more cemeteries.

We found several wonderful angels, and Holy Mary's with Jesus - the kind where Mary wears the crown. I was excited as usually the points of the crowns are broken off, but we found two with perfect crowns.

It was a fun road trip to the Dallas area. The Tim Holtz classes were great and visiting/photographing cemeteries is my favorite thing to do!

Last Class

The last class we took was called "Generation Grunge." We started out with a Brackets Grungebook. We covered the pages with dictionary pages and vintage ledger pages. We used Claudine Helmuth's Studio Multi Medium to glue the paper pages to the grungeboard pages. We weren't careful about how we glued - the paper extended over the edges of the grungeboard pages. When all of the pages were glued front and back, we tore the paper off. Then we used the Sanding Block to sand off the excess paper from the edges. We painted some pieces of grungeboard with Distress Crackle Paint. We painted the grungeboard scrolls with Ranger paint dabbers. We were told to distress the edges of all the pages with a Distress Ink and a Blender and leave the centers as is. You can probably see that my cover has a very mottled grungy look. That's because I got the multi medium everywhere on the pages - on the front of the paper that I was gluing down. The multi medium acts as a resist when it is dry. The distress ink didn't cover the parts where the multi medium has dried. Next we added more color to the front cover with different distress inks and the blending tool. We glued down the scrolls with Glossy Accents. Did you know that the Adage Tickets fit perfectly into the backs of the rectangle Ornate Plates? They do! We attached the ornate plates to the covers with Long Fasteners. Tim and Mario had already die cut grungepaper in the flower shapes. They misted the flowers with a combination of perfect pearls, water, and distress re-inkers in a mini mister. We overstamped the flowers with some Tim Holtz stamps in black ink. We curled all of the petals under - not up - under. We stacked some of the flowers and used Glossy Accents to glue them down. We used wire through the buttons to attach the flowers to the covers. We painted the grungepaper hinges and attached them to the front and back covers. The hinges are purely decorative. We glued them down with Glossy Accents and also attached with Long Fasteners. We put an eyelet in the front and back covers.

On the fronts of the inside pages, we inked the edges and then added color with more distress inks and the blending tool. Tim showed how to use the grungeboard as a mask. We also used the grungeboard as a stencil - the part left over when you punch out the shapes. We had charms, idea-olgy things like sprockets gears, journaling tickets and etc in out kits. Nobody had time to finish all of the pages. I got one page about half-finished. This page has a journaling ticket and some pieces of grungeboard. This project was right up my alley, as I use dictionary pages and vintage papers all the time as backgrounds in my art. You can see where I got the multi medium on the front of this page too. There are places where the distress ink didn't stick to the pages.

Second Tim Holtz Class

The second class we took was titled "Idea-ology Intrigue". It was a jewelry making class. This first piece was made using an Ornate Plate for the base. We had pre-cut ovals of cardboard in our kits. We covered the cardboard with a dictionary page and glued the oval in the back of the Ornate Plate. We used Glossy Accents for the glue. The flowers/leaves are the Foliage flowers/leaves. We painted them whatever color we wanted. While the paint was wet, we dabbed it off with a paper towel. This gave the metal a great shabby finish. I used at least two colors on all of my Foliage pieces. We used the Long Fasteners to attach the Foliage wherever we liked. We put the Mini Fasteners in the holes at the ends of the ornate plates.

I turned my piece 90 degrees and added the jump rings to attach the Link Chain. It's really a very pretty piece. You could wear it with the link chain. If you wanted you could leave off the link chain and attach the piece to a journal or book cover.

We glued a picture to the back of the Keyhole. We used a Hitch Fastener as a hanger for the Word Key. There's a Washer with a Jump Ring behind the Long Fastener (on the back) at the top of the Keyhole. I think the keys are too big for this project and things look a little out of proportion and heavy.

Here's the first step for project 3. We used the 1 x 1" Ranger Memory Glass and Frames. We were given some sheet music for the background, some little license plates and words to collage on the 1 x 1" square. We sandwiched the collage between a piece of clear and frosted Memory Glass. Then we inserted the collage sandwich into the frame. I painted on my collage a little too to add more color.

Next we affixed a Corner using red line tape. I'm not so sure how good the red line tape will be over a long period of time. We attached the charm wings using the same red line tape. We used two Sprocket Gears, two Game Spinners and a Long Fastener to make the hanging thing. It was attached with the Jump Rings.

This photo is washed out, but it shows the completed project. Before we put the Corner on the Memory Frame, we attached a Jump Ring to the top link of the Memory Frame. We put the Swivel Clasp through the Jump Ring and then hooked a Trinket Pin to the top. I really like the look of this, but I don't know how sturdy it is. I wouldn't wear it - maybe attach part of it to a book or journal cover.

This is a bracelet using the Bead Chain, two sizes of Link Chain and Ball Chain. We were supposed to twist up the chains or braid them. We used a jump ring through the fastener on the ball chain and attached the two link chains on the same jump ring. Then we closed the jump ring around the steel between two of the beads on the bead chain. We did sort of the same thing on the other end and added a Muse Token. To make this pretty, you'd need to take more time to braid the chain, add more charms etc.

This is the final project. We used Charm Fragments. We put Glossy Accents on the back of the Charm Fragment and kind of smooshed the fragment around on the picture to spread the Glossy Accents and get rid of air bubbles. We cut around the charms as close as we could. Then we flipped them over and used the Sanding Block to sand off the parts of the pictures that were still sticking out of the charm. This worked pretty well. In real life, I would probably seal the backs with Glossy Accents.

This is a photo of the completed necklace. We attached the Charm Fragments and other charms provided in the kit to the Link Chain using Jump Rings.

Here's a close-up of one side.

Here's a close up of the other side.

My favorite projects were the first and the last. I really liked the Foliage painted. It really looked old and shabby chic. I really liked using the Charm Fragments to make custom charms! This class was about 4 hours and the time flew by!

More later!

Blog Contest Winner!

I just used the True Random Number generator to determine who would win the Tim Holtz stamps that are up for grabs! The random number generator picked comment #39.

Jill said...
Hi. Just checked your blog hoping to hear about your TH classes! The giveaway looks awesome & thanks for doing that. Would love to have my name in the hat.
June 28, 2009 12:04 PM

Jill, Congrats! Send me your name and address and I'll get the stamps off to you this week!

Thanks to everyone entering in the drawing!

First Tim Holtz Class

I got back from the Dallas area tonight! I decided that I would blog about the first class tonight and blog about the rest of the classes later on in the week. I went to Plano, TX with my art pal, Heather C. She drove! Thank goodness as I don't know the Dallas area. We took the Assemblage of Flight class with Tim Holtz Friday afternoon.

This is how my bird looked out of the box. There were a multitude of Ranger paint dabbers. We used a paint brush to paint our birds.

Here's my very colorful painted bird. I wanted her to stay colorful, but she didn't. We were told to sand our birds. The sand paper was a course grit and I don't think the paint was dry enough. Most of the color was sanded off.

Tim had 3 stashes of stuff for us to use to embellish our birds. Tim said that he picked up a lot of the stuff in a Paris flea market.

These were vintage clock parts.

This was a box of vintage findings.

Here's my completed bird - view #1.

The second view.

A photo from the back.

Here are some other birds.

More birds!

Last but not least, here's Tim! He's a very animated speaker and this photo shows him speaking with some of the other class attendees.

There wasn't a lot of teaching in this class. It was more like we painted the birds, sanded them and then let our creativity take over!

Tim Holtz Give Away!

This weekend, I'm traveling to Dallas to take 3 Tim Holtz classes! To celebrate, one lucky blog reader will receive this set of Tim Holtz stamps! To enter the drawing, post a comment. I will randomly select a winner when I get back sometime Sunday. I'll also blog about the classes. I'm not sure if I'll have time to blog when I'm in Dallas, but I will share my class experiences!

What's old is new!

I made this page for an Alphabet LFB a little over a year ago. The host sent the book in to Somerset Studio. I just got word that several of the pages in the book would be published in the Somerset Gallery Winter 2010. One of the pages chosen was mine!
Some of the details about this page... The stuff with the holes is drywall tape. It started out white, but you can paint it whatever color you like. I used my Cricut machine to cut the heart and "f". The image of the 3 girls is from the Collage Stuff Vintage Mix #2 collage sheet. I like to take a gold Ranger paint dabber and smoosh it around on backgrounds to add a little interest.

Vintage Children LFB Back Digital Cover

I decided that I needed to get busy on the covers for the Collage Stuff Vintage Children Little Fat Book. We have 25 people participating, so that means I have to do 25 sets of covers! ACK! These photos are of the back cover. I've created digital collages. The front covers will be hand collaged. I feel like it's a good trade off. Hand collaged for the front and digital for the back considering that I have so many to do!

I've recycled one of the Collage Stuff postcard designs for the front. The girl image is from the Angel Faces #2 collage sheet. The bird is from the Songbirds collage sheet. The flower images are from a vintage French book. The eggs are from the More and More Eggs collage sheet.

Now for the back. I scanned in one of the Jenni Bolwin Patriotic Bingo Cards. The boy image is from the Precious Portraits 3 collage sheet. The soldier is from the Snapshots collage sheet and he is my wonderful grandfather who is with the angels. The labels are from the Red Border Label collage sheet.

The Vintage Paris LFB was wonderful and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished Vintage Children LFB.

House Book Page

Here's the back of the house book page that I started last Saturday night. I love cemetery imagery. The angel images are from the Collage Stuff "Angel Baby" collage sheet. This angel lost one of her wings. I've always liked copper and red together, so we've got a purple, red and copper color scheme here. I painted the background with a Claudine Helmuth Studio paint, Purple Palette. I used scrapbook paper for the roof. The flowers and butterflies are stickers that were in my stash. The copper German scrap stars and tiny French copper border German scrap are available at Collage Stuff. I glued everything down (but the words) and added the red jewels. I took the bottom of my glue stick and dabbed it in Perfect Medium. I stamped it randomly around. I dusted everything with Copper Perfect Pearls. I inked a text stamp in Dusty Concord Distress Ink and stamped off the image first, then stamped on the image. This way you can't really see the words, but it kind of grunges up the images. I used sequin waste with Dusty Concord ink a few places and then added the words. I fingerpainted the edges with the purple paint, then followed up with Perfect Medium and copper Perfect Pearls. This design is a huge contrast from the vintage Paris theme on the front of this page.