Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Week 23

Hello to all. If you celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a blessed day full of good food, friends, family and fun! I've been loving my 4 day weekend which is sadly coming to a close tonight. But, I thought I'd get my submission in early just in case I can manage to find any time to play along with T!m's 12 tags of Christmas later this week. I'm so excited i can hardly stand myself!

Linda's challenge this week over at Studio L3 is the Double Distress technique (details of the challenge can be found here at her blog and details of the technique can be found on page 40 of T!m's Compendium of Curiosities. I've departed from my pennants for this week.

Double distress was done with the brick & woodgrain texture fades (on the fireplace front in grungeboard & and trim pieces in paper, but my Silhouette was working OT on this challenge. I cut about 45 holly leaves for the wreath and several sets of flames, all of which were colored in one way or another with distress inks and sprayed with perfect pearl mist. The stockings were also cut on the Silhouette. The paper (as almost always) comes from Club Scrap (it's just the best quality stuff out there!!). I've used several pieces from an older kit called Old South. The fireplace and hearth are constructed from book board (which I cut on my power miter saw....felt good to use a power tool for a change!) The Peace On Earth text was just done in PSE and printed onto another piece of CS paper from Old South, and the banner is a trick I picked up from the abundantly talented and lovely Jennifer McGuire.

I'm planning to dig through my basement stash and find an 8x10 shadow box frame (which I know i have somewhere, lol) to put this in. I was thinking of making these as gifts, but this one took me so long, I'm not sure i have enough time to invest for the number of them I'd like to make. Now that I've made one though, I'm sure subsequent ones would go faster.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Week 22

I'm going to keep this short and sweet as time is a precious commodity for me lately. This is my Compendium of Curiosities Challenge submission for week 22 (yes, 22!!!). You can find the details of the challenge here but you have to buy the book here for the details of the technique (which might be my favorite so far) It's well worth the money.

I've used a variety of stamps from a bunch of names I don't know right now. I've used Club Scrap paper (from the Blossom Kit) for the base & the offset shape around the r.

Take care all and thank you for looking.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Week 21

My muse is apparently back on it's late track. It's been a crazy busy week for me, so I'm just happy to post anything. Starting school is proving to put a real cramp in my crafting, so I've got to get better about budgeting my time.

This week the challenge put forth by Linda at Studio L3 is called Perfect Distress. All the wonderful details of which can be found on T!m's Compendium of Curiosities Book Page 38.

I really do like this technique all the way up to the last couple of steps. Then it feels like I'm ruining a perfectly (pun intended) lovely image! Oh well, I did it anyway and didn't get a lot of result from it, so I was happy with the way it turned out. This is the E for my CRE8 banner. Just one more letter to go and I'll have to come up with another inspiring word (suggestions welcomed and appreciated!)

I've used papers from Rusty Pickle & Club Scrap (Gratitude & Scholarship kits). Fired Brick & Vintage Photo distress inks. Heirloom Gold perfect pearls.

Have a great week y'all!

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Week 20

Something must be seriously wrong because I've already completed my Compendium of Curiosities Challenge and it's only Tuesday??? What's up with that? This week, Linda has tasked us with the Industrial grunge technique which is found on page 54 of this fab book by the genius T!m Holtz.

I've used the wings & crown grunge shapes and a piece of K & Co paper for the pennant itself. The 8 (for banner CRE8) is cut on my Silhouette from a piece of paper from Club Scrap's Scholarship kit. The metal time piece is from another Club Scrap kit (i just don't know which!).

Hope all is well with you and yours on this election day....thank goodness the commercials can stop airing!!!!

In addition, I'm submitting this piece to these other challenges (all first timers for me!) Go check em out.

• Paper Playtime - Clock, ticket or tag
• Aly's Sunday Challenge - Distress
• For Fun Challenges - Use Metal
• Incy Wincy - Anything Goes
• Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Week 19

Taking it to the EXTREME with masking this week over at Studio L3's Compendium of Curiosities Challenge. Check out T!m's blog for information about getting your very own copy of this inspirational manual. This technique appears on page 61.

Give me a C!! So, here's what I've decided to do for the remainder of my submissions. I'm creating a pennant banner for my room that says CREATE (and whatever else I can come up with)...so here's the C. Back to using the reds, yellows and oranges with this one. Guess I'll have to face the fact that i'm drawn to these colors although I never wear them.

I've used a number of reds, oranges & yellow Distress Inks for this on paper from Club Scrap (Gimme a Ring & Scholarship kits); a cutting file courtesy of Laina Lamb and stamps from a variety of sources (too many probably, lol).

The mojo is slowly making it's way back to me, but finding the time to do anything about it is getting increasingly hard.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Week 18

Another week, another Compendium of Curiosities Challenge at the Studio L3 blog....this week it's Dabber Resist. My papers (as almost always) are from Club Scrap....these are from the Textiles & Notions and Simply Beautiful kits (oldies but goodies). I think this corner stamp is from Kelly Panacci, but don't quote me on that! I've added some dollar tree jewels and some lavender stickles for a little sparkle. Oh, and I used dusty concord & Rusty Hinge distress inks as well as my favorite pearl glimmer mist.

I'm still feeling like someone has stolen my creative mojo, but I managed to eek this out just under the wire. I wish you all a productive and creative week ahead! I'm super excited because I'm starting an accelerated college course tomorrow night (yes, at 43 years old I'm going back to school!) I guess you're never too old to learn, right?

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Week 17

This weeks Compendium of Curiosities Challenge (graciously hosted by the lovely Linda at StudioL3) is Fragment Charms. I'm embarrassed to even submit this sorry little piece, but it's all i had time for since I just returned from a wonderful 10 day vacation!!

After the Club Scrap Retreat, my sister and I spent several days exploring Door County in Wisconsin. If you've never been, I highly recommend it. Just a wonderfully quaint and beautiful area with oh so many picture taking opportunities. We saw (& photographed) a few of the peninsula's lighthouses and I plan to make a mini scrapbook of them (and some others I've visited). This will be one of a few charms which will adorn the spine. It's a photo of the Cana Island Lighthouse which is really the only "traditional" lighthouse in Door County. The rest were different than any others I've seen. Click here if you want to read more about it.

I hope to be able to submit something a bit better for the next go round, but thanks for looking!

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Week 16

Wrinkle free distress - This is this weeks challenge at Linda's fabulous blog....not my favorite technique (more my fault because i don't seem to do it well than the fault of the technique iteself). I chose to use it on my leaves (although i'm sure you can barely tell). I added veins using the tea dye distress ink with a paintbrush. Then I sprayed them with Copper glimmer mist (love a little shine/sparkle).

I am frantically trying to finish packing and all my other little creative chores before leaving on a jet plane for the very long anticipated retreat at Club Scrap. My sister and I are meeting up at Chicago and flying the next leg together. CAN'T WAIT.

The Gala dinner is 20's Gatsby themed, so I found this hat at a thrift store and made these paper flowers & leaves to match my dress (maybe a pic of that will find it's way here eventually). This will be a sneak preview for anyone who will be there and also happens to view this blog (that's probably just one other person!). The papers are (of course) from Club Scrap. The green leaves are from the Castaway kit and the flowers are from a kit I have called Road Trip. All were cut on my Silhouette and sprayed with Pearl Glimmer Mist

Hope you are having a great day. I'm so excited i can hardly stand myself, so i must rush off to prepare for much fun.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Week 15

It doesn’t matter how many times I use AI’s, I fall in love all over again! They give such amazing results (usually!). So, for this week’s Compendium of Curiosities Challenge over at Linda’s fabulous blog the technique is called Alcohol Ink Agate on Grunge (it’s on page 53 of T!m’s amazing book).

I departed from making cards again for this one because I have had it on my list to do for far too long to make one of these earbud holders that I saw here. That one is leather and much more costly, but I knew I could duplicate this with Grungeboard the minute I saw it. I just created a pattern, traced and cut it out of grunge board (harlequin). For the strap, I just cut a straight rectangle of grunge and notched it so that you can easily hook and un-hook it. I used glossy accents to glue the strap to the shape and voila, my creation is fini (mixing my languages a bit there I think). Of course I could punch the hole and add a grommet/eyelet and chain to be able to clip it to something, but I've chosen to not do that just yet until I decide how i plan to carry it. I made 2 of them (including the strap) quite easily out of one sheet of grunge board and I plan to make more as gifts. The blue one is for my phone earbuds, so I stamped it with the words Call Me! and Hello from Club Scrap kit called Gimme A Ring. The pink/purple one is for my ipod and is stamped with the words Rockin Girl and a very small stamp of sheet music. You could also add your name or initials or anything you want.

Pardon my blurry photos...not sure why I had such trouble photographing these.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Week 14

Mask Basics - Oh how I love a good mask! For my card I used T!m's mini mask called Florets and a mask i made from my butterfly cut on my QK Silhouette. I cut the butterfly and the square in the lower right from T!m's Lost & Found paper pack. Initially I used the mask on that square, but i didn't feel like that was quite enough, so then I decided to ink the entire front of the card. Once again, I'm using the wonderful papers of Club Scrap. This time from the Castaway collection. I sprayed the whole works with pearl glimmer mist. Oh, and I followed sketch # 71 on Priscilla Styles Midnight Madness Sketch challenge blog.