January ATC

The theme for the Collage Stuff January ATC swap is black and white. Here's my entry for the swap. The base is a black illustration board ATC blank from Collage Stuff. I created a digital collage using a page from a vintage children's book, a clock image and an image from the Angel Baby Collage Sheet. I added the other little touches with brushes in my software. I printed the collage out on a transparency and attached it to a Vintage Flinch Game Card from Collage Stuff with antique silver brads. It's really simple and I'll be able to get a bunch of these done even though I'm still mending from brochitis.

New Postcard

The stack of Collage Stuff postcards that ship with my orders is getting low. Time to get busy and do at least one new postcard. Here it is! All of the Collage Stuff postcards are created digitally in PSP X2 and MS Digital Image Pro.
The true background is a scan of some vintage sheet music. The background floral image is from the new Vintage Birthday Cards collage sheet. I went through some of the images I had scanned and found this girl. I made the girl image more of a sepia, so that it stands out just a little bit from everything else that is in bright color. I could have printed her out, colored her with Copic markers and scanned her back in. Then she would be in color and match everything else. The wings are a scan of pink German scrap wings that are sold at Collage Stuff. Everything else is brushed in, in the software.
I wanted this postcard to have kind of an etherial spring-like feel, but I added the grungy numbers to spice things up a bit. A little grunge is always good and sometimes a little, goes a long way! I also wanted a number to kind of tie in with the birthday card image. I think the birthday card images are versatile and are not limited to birthday-themed art. Birthdays past bring back memories.

Close to You Collage Sheet

Here's another brand new collage sheet - "Close to You". These images are perfect for Valentine art and or any romantic-themed art. It will be available this weekend at Collage Stuff. This is not a free image for download.

New Collage Sheet

I made it home safely from the CHA show. While I was away, a box of vintage greeting cards arrived. They were so lovely, that I sat down right away to make this new collage sheet - Vintage Birthday Cards. The background is vintage sheet music in a sepia tone. The colors are vivid and beautiful.

It will be available this weekend at Collage Stuff!

Last Day at the CHA show

Today was the last of my CHA adventure. I had a class at 7am this morning by Simply Swank - soldering. I have tried to solder before and it hasn't been pretty. I think I did a little better this time!

Here's the class kit. We didn't keep the tools in the zip bag. We did keep the pink "purse". The "purse" contained many of our class supplies.

The large project is 2 x 3". It's bigger than you'd think. There are actually 4 panes of glass in this project. The background is the first layer. The wings and legs are the second layer. The girl's body with the crown and the words comprise the next layer and it's finished up with the 4th pane of glass. I had a hard time getting the jump ring soldered on this one. The bigger one was harder to solder. The little charm is about 1.25 x 1". We were given collage sheets with a lot of images, so we could choose the images and words we liked.

I went by the Sizzix booth to look at the Tim Holtz Alterations dies. They demonstrated the dies and they cut through matboard easily. They will easily cut grungeboard. I went to Product Performers next and took this photo. They carry all of the Tim Holtz products. I don't think I'll carry these dies as normal stock, but I can definitely order them in. It's not a problem to special order something I don't have in stock. I think I like the bird cage die the best.

Here's a close-up of one of the new Tim Holtz paper packs.

Here's the other two paper packs. If you can see the numerals to the middle right - they have been redesigned. The numerals now are only numbers and the price is something like $5.99 instead of $9.99.

I walked the show today looking for grungy embellishments. Everything is bling. I couldn't find a grungy anything. I went by the Axelrod booth and ordered these two filagree corners. I had these in stock a couple of years ago. I ordered them both in silver and gold. It is possible to distress these with black paint.

I ordered in these large bird brass charms. They will be around $1.99 each. This is most reasonably priced large bird charm like this that I've found.

I always have to go to Eyelet Outlet. I ordered in these brads. They look elegant.

These dove brads are new. I ordered these. I also re-ordered the tweeting bird brads.

I ordered these anodized heart brads. They come in a mix of two different sizes in gold, silver, copper and maybe one other color. I re-ordered the anodized loopy brads.

My last class was with Tattered Angels - Glimmer Mist 101. I've seen this stuff and wanted to learn more about it. Here's what we saw when we walked in to the class. We walked out with a stencil thing, 4 bottles of Glimmer Mist and a ring binder full of Glimmer Mist techniques that we did in the class.

Here's a photo of one of the techniques. It's nice as each page has the name of the technique. We could write notes on the backs of the pages.

For this page, we used a coordinating clear stamp and overlay thing. We stamped first. Then we put the matching overlay over the stamped image and finally sprayed the glimmer mist.

White I was walking around today searching for grungy embellishments, I went back by the Advantus booth and did the Tim Holtz make-n-take. The lines are always really long for the make-n-takes and I hate standing in line. I had to wait about 15 minutes to do this one. This is an ornate plate with a dictionary page inset. The little keyhole is one of the new keyholes and it is attached with mini fasteners. I like these new keyholes a lot better than the old style keyholes. The little key is in the same package with the keyholes. The bird charm is in the package of Tim Holtz charms. I don't know where the pearl drop and bling drop came from. We also tied on some little bits of white tulle.

I went back by the Ranger booth a couple of times. They had cool make-n-takes, but the lines were too long. The second time I went by, there was a huge crowd and I knew that it had to be for Tim Holtz. I was right. Tim was doing some demos and the people were lined up around 6-7 people deep. If I were 7 feet tall, I might have been able to see something.

I went by the Nunn Design booth yesterday. I ordered some new bird charms and heart charms. I got them in silver, gold and copper finishes.

One intersting thing I ran across today - Ice Resin. This is a resin that is jewelry grade, crystal clear, NON-TOXIC and takes about 24 hours to set up. I have resin, but it's like hazardous to use. You could use this stuff in the pendant trays. It looked really nice. The booth personnel told me it always works if you follow the directions. The mistakes that people make include measuring incorrectly and stirring for too short a time. If you're interested in checking this out - http://www.iceresin.com/ One other thing, they showed paper that they coated with this resin. It was cool. It kind of darkened the paper and of course made it really strong. They said you could coat one side of the paper, put this on wax paper and then coat the other side. The side that dries on the wax paper is a matte finish and the other side is a glossy finish. They made jewelry pieces with the paper. It's hard to describe, but there is a tutorial at the Ice Resin website.

I am going home tomorrow. I have a ton of stuff to pack. I hope I can get it all in my suitcases. I think I'll be able to get it all in my suitcases, but the problem will be lifting the suitcases. All of the catalogs and goodies from the classes are heavy.

I had a lot of fun at the show. Thanks for sharing my CHA adventure!

Day Two at CHA - Classes and Wrapping Up

I didn't take as many photos of the classes today. This house themed project was the second class. This one was sponsored by My Little Shoebox. They have scrapbook papers. They aren't exactly my style, but they are fun. I photographed the cover and a couple of the pages.

This was my first class. I was late as I got held up in one of the booths while I was ordering. This one was called Amazing Stamped Mini Book. I'm not sure how amazing the project was, but I got a ton of cool stuff from this class.

This is a Hampton Arts clear stamp that I really liked.

This is a snapshot of all of the loot that we got from this class. I think there were 4 stamp sets, 5 ink pads, 2 WM stamps, embossing powder and 2 of the Smooch inks. I'd never used the Smooch inks. We painted them on the stamps and stamped with them. They're kinda cool, but I don't know if I'd use them enough to buy any.

Wrapping up - I also went to my Victorian scrap wholesaler. I usually have to get these shipped from Germany. One of the former employees of the company started a wholesale distributor business here in the US. So now I can buy the Victorian scraps here in the US and I can order lesser quantities and have a bigger variety. Plus if I run out of something, I can get it in stock again in a few days. I was very happy to learn this. I've ordered about 25 new Victorian scraps. I'm not sure when they will be in.

Today was a long day. The show started at 10am and my last class finished at 8pm. Tomorrow I have a jewelry soldering class from 7-9am. I'll go to the show until my class at 4pm. My class at 4pm is one using the Glimmer Mist. I haven't used this stuff before, so I'd like to learn more about it.

One thing I forgot about Maya Road. They have a new product called "Maya Resist." It's like a liquid mask. I ordered in a few of these.

Thanks for taking the time to share in my CHA adventure!

Day Two at CHA- Seven Gypsies

I decided that I wasn't going to buy a bunch of stuff at Seven Gypsies, because by this time, I'd already spent a lot of my show budget. When I got to the booth, that decision went out the window. This is the Receipt Holder. I hoped it was ATC size, but it's not. It's 4 x 6 or so. Notice what's in the holder - the mini notebooks - Petit Carnet. They are about 3.5 x 5.5 inches, well constructed with pockets in the inside covers and 60 blank ivory pages. When I saw these, the first thing I thought was how cool these would be to alter. There are two more styles that aren't shown here. These are on order. I ordered in the 6 x 6 or 8 x 8 paper packs of the new Venice and Avignon collections. Here's the Avignon paper pack

Here's the Avignon 97% complete tags. These tags are MUCH smaller than the regular size Seven Gypsies tags. I also ordered the matching stamp sets and paper tape sets. The great thing about Seven Gypsies is that they have clearance stuff at ridiculously low prices. I cleaned up! I got the ATC tins, naked pockets, stamp sets, photo turns, gaffer tape, acrylic blocks, and more on clearance. You'll the like prices! I also ordered in a few of the Printer's Trays (ATC size trays) in black and the new white.