Memories Artwork™

Tattered Angels, Ranger's Tim Holtz and more at Kars in Holland

This past weekend I paid a visit to my wholesaler Kars in Ochten, Holland at their semi-annual event with special warehouse deals, demos and workshops. I had a really great time! The wonderful Ms. Condic, the manager over all of German-speaking countries was so nice! She actually picked me up at my house and let me ride with her. Just awesome! The time just seemed to fly by so quickly.

At any rate....this was my room....a quite old, but charming hotel. Only problem was, someone forgot to turn off their alarm, so it was beeping all night long until I woke in the morning. I just had no idea what it was or where it was coming from. Yikes! So, to say the least, I didn't sleep all that well. (My own fault!)

So, these were the beds...I did figure out that those were actual covers. ;-) ...Being used to big bedspreads, I guess it looked to me like something was missing. hehe

  

Here I was playing around with the camera, testing the light, etc. I haven't really been making many photos, so I needed to practice a bit.

DAY 1 (Demo day)

 

So, here's Tim Holtz, whom most of you might know I would guess. This was early Sunday morning and he was just getting ready to begin his demos. Just looking at some of the stuff he made to decorate was fascinating. He and I believe his team, even sewed a jacket out of grunge paper that you can even wash and dry!! I gotta see this jacket sometime, because I must admit... I am a bit skeptical, but Tim...if you say so, I'll have to trust you. ;-)

Tim started his demos and I was lucky, because I just happened to be there checking out his work. He made (or shall I say "whipped up") three gorgeous tags in a matter of minutes and I was allowed to pick one that he signed. Very cool tags. I had to have the one with the eye, don't know why...just thought the eye was awesome.

 

Now, do NOT ask me what colors of distress ink he used, but know this, I think they were ALL from his new line. I think "wild honey" and "crushed olive" were my favorites. Just beautiful. 

Just take a look at this tag that Tim made. Using several colors by wetting, drying, rewetting, drying, then flicking water onto it and drying again it got some pretty cool colors. Then using his new cling stamps (of which I just HAD to get of course), he stamped using archival ink in two different ways (tapping and rubbing over the stamp) he was able to create different shades of the archival ink . He also distressed it using his distressing tool, then added the metal washers and time plate by punching holes. Then he used his hammer is beat up the brads a bit to distress them as well. Fantastic job. You gotta just love the "eye" don't ya? Anyway...thanks for showing me those techniques first hand. The videos are great too, but it sinks in better when you see it done live.

So... then I was able to get a photo with him, which was pretty cool. Man... some women, they just swoon over Tim. I mean, come ON...yeah, he's incredibly talented and he's nice, but does the man need groupies? I dunno...I mean, he stamps, crafts and designs products, you know? At any rate, he's very down to earth and very patient with the ladies that follow him around. LOL

Just a good kinda guy with talent.

So... THEN I went over to Tattered Angels in Wendy Senger's (CEO) class. Hey! Talk about COOL! wooooohhhh! No offense Tim, you're great too! LOL

Check it out:

All the Glimmer Mists, templates (masks) and stamps with all kind of tags as well. I made the ones below. Such cool colors.

 

Can you see the glimmer on there? How cool is that?

 

And here I am with the CEO herself, Wendy Senger. A really nice gal. And yes... I know I have ink on my fingers and need to desperately die my hair....I am aware. lol Thanks for the pic Miss Wendy! ;-)

Here are a few photos of the Kars warehouse and their beautiful demo room.

 

 

This is Tanja Watts, a Ranger-U instructor. Really cool girl who showed me what can be done with UTEE embossing powders....namely this (below):

 

 

DAY 2 (Workshop day)

So, the next morning I was schedule along with the ladies from Scrappies, two wonderful ladies I might add. ;-) And we made 5 completely awesome tags using various techniques, various inks, distress inks, archival ink, stamps, distress crackle paint and distress rock candy. Too bad the workshop was "only" 1-1/2 hours. lol

Aren't those some really cool tags? Definitely! Do you want me to show you how you can make something like this? Well, I'm planning on it, so stay tuned for the news. lol

Here's another photo with Tim after the workshop. He probably wouldn't remember me now if he walked past me on the street as many women as he comes across, but I thought this memory is worth remembering.

 

He's probably gritting his teeth underneath that smile and I can't blame him. Even my cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling so much and I wasn't even holding classes!

So, to conclude this quite long blog entry....here are a few other little things that I made as make & takes or took along with me. The flower is from a great gal who designs for Cosmo Cricket. 

 

This was a card I made with a Basic Grey card kit and a little goody bag from DCWV cardstock.
The flower is cosmo cricket and was designed by Natasja Verbeek, a designer at Cosmo Cricket. What a sweet, cute and incredibly talented girl! Just fantastic!

This was a me&my BIG ideas mini-album kit that I didn't have time to complete there, but aren't the colors awesome? And lots of glittery stickers, etc....which, of course I LOVE!

I met another awesome lady named Rozella Méyer who designs for Kars, a Dutch scrapbooking magazine and Prima I believe. Very sweet and talented. Her layouts just "stunned" me, seriously now! Check out her blog! It's Dutch, but just check out the layouts! Here is one layout so you can get an idea on her talent:

So, ladies (& gents...if there are any out there paying attention), that's all for today. I will be translating all of this tomorrow...whew.... I know, it's long, but I just wanted to show you how fun it was and will be happy to pass along to you what I've learned!

You all take care and scrap your life!

Decorative Tag for Wine Bottle - Thank you gift

Let me start off by saying that we have an absolutely awesome pediatrician who really goes beyond his call of duty to help us. He's really helped us out a lot concerning Danny's ADHD symptomatic and returned our desperate calls during Christmas vacation and although he was actually on sick leave! I don't know of any doctor who will do that!

So, I was thinking....we need to thank him in a very special way. I thought, well, a good bottle of Tuscan wine and a Kristina Werner card that I recently purchased would do the trick. But as I saw that bottle of wine standing there, I thought... something is just missing. I need to dress that thing up a bit. Finally, I decided I would make a long tag, punch a hole through the top so that it would fit snugly over the wine bottle and then decorate the tag....which is exactly what I did. ;-) 

   

I inked the edges with Tim Holtz fired brick distress ink, then I took this fabulous Hero Arts vintage thank you stamp, embossing ink, and Tim Holtz Walnut stain distress embossing powder and embossed it, rubbed the crystals like he always says to achieve a distressed look and tied a piece of jute? Not sure what that is called. Afterwards, I decided to emboss around the circle with a 7Gypsies clear stamp and some gold embossing powder since I wanted it to look elegant as well as vintagy. It's simple, but classy, which is what I was aiming for. 

We'll be dropping it off tomorrow. I really do hope it shows how grateful we are to him for all of this support, but I think it will do the trick. ;-) I hope this inspires you to create something of your own as a gift for someone special.

Everyone have a beautiful Sunday!

Fun gals at my Basic Scrapbooking Class!

I just wanted to give a big thank you to all the gals who attended my class yesterday and who where patient with me.  I am a bit embarrassed to say that I was late for my own class. I had everything set up, but miscalculated the time as I hauled everything all by myself up and down stairs, in and out of the car....and let me tell you ...it was a LOT of "stuff" ;-).  Close to starting time I realized that I still needed to freshen up with a shower as I had been sweating up a storm.

Thank the LORD for my friend Antra! I don't know what I would have done without this gal. She's just a great friend, what can I say. :D She was there just in time for me to drive home for a quick shower.  She checked off the girl's names as they came in, took in  the money and gave them their handouts and their goody bags (see below). So, I was about 20 minutes late to my dismay, but it was the fastest shower including hair that I have ever taken. LOL Lesson Learned! In the future I will set things up the evening prior!

Last, but not least, a special thanks also goes out to my wonderful husband Erik who is so supportive of me and puts up with my scrapbooking mania!! Love you dearly!! XXOO

At any rate, everyone introduced themselves and we got to it.  Unfortunately, will 9 attendees, it was a bit tough to get around to everyone and instruct all appropriately. I will either have to limit the seating the next time or come up with a different concept. Maybe an actual layout sketch for everyone to follow or something to that effect. Just so they get the feel of things. I do plan on continuing holding classes (I promised!) maybe more in the way of special techniques or special subjects, etc.

So, with no further hold up, here are a few impressions of yesterday's fun class!

Stay tuned for more classes! If you haven't signed up for my newsletter yet, you may do so using the link way up at the top left side on this website.  You'll receive information about upcoming classes as well as tips, tutorials and trends (TTT). ;-)

Everyone have a wonderful Sunday!

XOXO,

Selling my Making Memories Pink Slice Machine Starter Kit on Ebay

It's used, but just barely.  Just bought it a few months ago. So, if you're in search of one of these babies, check out my auction on Ebay with the below number.

Go to www.ebay.de and look for article number 170435710628

Basic Scrapbooking Class is fully booked!!

My Basic Scrapbooking Class is fully booked for the 23rd of January!!! Not to despair...this will not be the last class I teach as there seems to be quite the interested bunch out there!

Sign up for my free newsletter if you have not already to receive the latest class updates as well as tips and trends in scrapbooking and cardmaking!

And don't forget to have a great day!

Jackie

Acrylic Mini-Album with basic instructions

My resolutions for 2010....documented within an acrylic mini-album..

     

   

   

Acrylic Mini-Album

Instructions:

There are different types of acrylic or other translucent materials.  In this case, I just got some thick transparency at a hardware store in A3 size and cut down the number of pieces I needed to 6x6 inches with a guillotine paper trimmer, which worked great. 

Then you have all of your pieces laying in front of you that you need. After that I wanted to vary the pages a bit. So, what I did was to cut various pages into shapes, but using a template I made from a Making Memories journaling pad. I used a permanent marker to trace the edge of the journaling page and then just cut it out. Since it was going to be covered anyway, the marker would be covered up. If you like you can ink the edges with staz-on ink or with acrylic paint in case you don't want to cover it with paper.

Generally, with acrylic albums, you're doing to want to plan out the pages carefully, maybe even with a sketch as you'll want to cover front an back pages equally, so as not to have adhesive, or the back of other paper or embellishments showing through the page. Sometimes, it's a good idea to use double sided paper and then you can cover any bits of adhesive with embellishments. At any rate, plan ahead so you don't run into problems there.

After cutting some of the pages into shapes, I also stamped some of the pages with stay-on ink as well for a variation in the background. Staz-on is the BEST!

Two holes are sufficient to hold the album together. I made sure to put in the holes before I started designing the album to make sure I don't cover up anywhere where I wanted the holes to be. You can use jump rings or ribbon or you can bind it with a regular binding system....whichever way you would like.

For the first time I used fabric in an album as a background. It looks as if it's sewn onto the album, but I just machine stitched a frame on the fabric and adhered with regular old tombow adhesive runner.  This worked surprisingly well. After that I needed to see what to place on the back side. Every double spread is matching in color to prevent chaos for the eyes. :-)  Generally, one page will contain a photo and the other some very important journaling.

On the page with my hubby and I, I stitched a heart on the other page before adhering the fabric, which I then also filled with buttons and pearls using gluedots.  The key I adhered with fabric glue and the keyhole with diamond glaze, which is really almost as tough as super glue, yet acid-free. I left the back side of the heart, because I liked the way it looked on the other side.

As for my resolutions, I'm thinking that if I spent so much time with this album, I just might stick to them better. Who knows?

New Basic Scrapbooking Class

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and are ready to close out the year with some good memories despite the tough economic year.

To capture and document some of those memories, I will be offering another Basic Srabooking class on the 23rd of January from 2 to 5 p.m. To sign up just write me a quick email and I will send you the details.

The price is €20 and includes supplies I will be providing as well the use of necessary tools, adhesives, etc.

Come join the fun and remember that seating is limited, so register soon!

Have a wonderful and healthy New Year!

Jackie

Christmas Decorations & Cards

Hello out there! I'm still alive, just busy busy!! Aren't we all? Some of the busy time was spent creating nice things for Christmas and I wanted to show you some of what I've been doing and hope to inspire you to make some wonderful Christmasy creations of your own!

Here I took an ordinary frame and turned it into Christmas decoration for my mantle.

   

This was inspired by a card I saw on Kristina Werner's Blog. 

 

Gold embossed pillow box for small items, such as stockings, socks, jewelry, chocolates... the list is long. ;-)

I love hanging little things like jingle bells....they're so cute!

If you would like to give money, a little tag holding a gift card or money is really cute!

okay... one more card...

I'm really into the sheet music and birds (Jen Wilson digifile). I recolored the bird in photoshop, cut it out and adhered. The scroll is also made with PS Elements.

Hope this gets you into the Christmas spirit! I'm off to a Christmas market now to show children how they can decorate gingerbread men! And to freeze... LOL

Advent Calendar

Isn't this Advent calendar just gorgeous? This was displayed today on the Making Memories blog with a supply list and instructions. Wish I had the time to make one!!!

Awesome family photos / videos by Michael & Tara Whitney!

I just wanted to share something with you.... a family video, no, not my family, but a wonderful family video that Michael Whitney filmed and Tara Whitney photographed. These two are just so amazing! Their work is so incredible that I wish I could just fly over to the states and have them take our pictures and film us right away!!!! What great memories!

The Cameron Family Film from MS - Client Proofing on Vimeo.

It's been awhile...

I apologize for not posting for a while now. There has been a bit of turmoil lately in my life. On the one hand my job is very stressful, especially during "event season", but I must say I am loving my job even though I have work up to my ears, so that I barely have time for scrapbooking as I work a lot in the evenings from home as well.

Then Friday a week ago, my husband's grandmother died, the day before I was supposed to attend an event for work, so I was panicked about what to do with the children since my husband had wanted to leave to be with his mom. I did find someone, but it took forever! The next day I woke up with a terrible headache and started vomiting. It was the stress of it all apparently, but I thought it was some type of virus as I had never had that happen to me before. So, pressure from work was on and I felt really bad about letting them down that day. There was just absolutely nothing I could do about it. The next day I attended, still feeling sick and a bit weak, but I made it through the day. Luckily.

On Monday, my mom calls and says, "Your grandma was next." She died that day... only 3 days after my husband's grandmother. What a fluke! So, wow... no more grandparents around. You begin to start thinking about your life, how old you are, whether you're enjoying it enough, what you could do better, etc. Ah, yes.

I also have a bit of custom work waiting on me to have time as well, plus cards and things that I want to sell at the artist's market coming up the end of November, so that is always in the back of my mind. I just wanted to show you a few things I was able to do. (click to enlarge)

 

Ooh, I see I need to make more vertical cards! My next batch! More to follow...

This is from some custom work I'm doing right now...just a few accents.

This tree stem I just kind of eyeballed and cut out. Then I rough-cut the top of the tree from green cardstock, embossed it with my cuttlebug, inked it with distress ink, adhered it to a scrap orange piece of patterned paper and cut around the tree to frame it a bit.

 

This was made using my cricut expression die-cut machine.

 

 

In case you can't tell.... that is an ice cream cone I made from scratch.

I love creating different accents for my layouts that fit perfectly to the theme or the patterned paper. So, even if I don't have anything bought that would match the page, I'm always finding new ways to make my own and it's really a lot of fun.

These are busy times and they will stay busy until Christmas vacation. I'll be off for THREE weeks! YESSSS! Can't wait. 

NOTE: Any custom orders for Christmas must be placed with me by no later than 1 December in order to arrive in time for the festivities!!

Goody bag made with one sheet of paper

Now this is the cutest idea and the best part is, it's made of only one sheet of paper and no glue so speak of! Awesome, huh? I made this cute little bag to maybe put some candy in ...or maybe a rubber spider...hehe, that is if I don't scare myself out of my socks with it first. LOL

Really quick and fun! Check out the below video for the tutorial by Linda, a stampin' up demonstrator! So, go ahead, get yourself an 8-1/2 x 11 " piece of paper, grab your bonefolder and go for it! :D

Christmas Cards & Journal Notebook Class

Hey Peeps!!!

Yes, I know... making Christmas cards again.... but I look at something and then get so inspired that I have to do something about it. It's like an itch. LOL Anyway... I made a few Christmas cards again and wanted to show you a few pictures of the journal I made in Karla Dudley's Journal 3 Ways Class. The class has already begun, but I'm sure she will be having more workshops. Now, I have to tell you, this woman amazes me! She has 5 kids, including 2 sets of twins...two boys, two girls and the oldest is another boy. Wow... is all I can say. Then she's got kids getting sick all over the place, but takes the time to shoot videos and show her students how to make cute journals. I have to hand it to her, Karla: My hat is off to you girl! You are just a cool gal!

Little "medallion" tutorial here:

So, I made these two cards with "medallions" on them that I made myself. The easiest way is to take a 12" strip about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2" wide, cut along the edge with either scallop scissors or zig zag, but it should be something that is uniform, no tearing scissors or anything like that. Next you want to fold the piece back and forth like an accordion, maybe scoring each line before you do that to make it work a bit easier and look straighter LOL. Then just glue the ends together with tacky tape so it doesn't come apart, then push down on the middle part to make it flat....go ahead, I promise it won't fall apart. But, in order to hold it together, you're going to need something sturdy to put on that middle part. Use a scallop circle, a big button, or a regular circle, a flower, anything you want, but you will have to make sure you use a good adhesive to make it stick. I used glue dots, which seemed to work pretty well. Make sure they're heavy duty and the cardstock is fairly heavy weight. Chipboard might be even better.  Then just use 3 D glue dots or pop dots to adhere to your card or layout. I really love the look of it. Next time I'm going for ones a bit smaller though. ;-)

On this one, I originally stamped the flourishes with opaque white stazon ink, but you could hardly see it, so I went over it with a white gel pen to make it stand out more. Truly had fun making the medallions!

Now to Karla's Class! She's so sweet and her videos were so cute. Making the journal was easier than I thought. Tomorrow is week two! Can't wait to see what she comes up with! :D Check out the journal I made today.

The angle of the photo I took, makes it look crooked, but it's not, trust me. ;-) I got this free Katie Pertiet border swirl brush from Designer Digitals. Go check it out!

These are the inside pages using Karla's swirls from the class. Love those swirls! Can't get enough of them.

Here are the pages with the journaling brushes that Karla designed. Don't you just love her handwriting? I mean, okay, mine is not the worst handwriting, but I just loooove Karla's... kind of looks similar to Ali Edward's style of handwriting.

So, folks, that's all for now. I've really got to get to bed! ughhhh....busy week... what am I saying? Months!

Nite all!

Jackie

Christmasy items - cards and gift boxes

I know, I know....Halloween has not even happened and I'm already going on and on about Christmas! Sorry...that's the way it is. At any rate, I was googling and stumbled across some pop up cards that inspired me to make this one.

just simple, but ok

this part was a bit more difficult as it was my first time making a pop-up card, but I love the look of it so I may try out some more and post. I saw a video from an Australian stampin' up lady and I believe her name was Robbie, but I'm not sure!

Then I googled for gift boxes and once again, landed on Kristina Werner's blog where she had a video of an origami box with a matching lid. I never thought it would be that easy! Aren't they just cute?! Cool! Please check out her blog for more inspiration.

 

Google origami gift box and you'll be sure to find her video on the box.

Of Halloween Minialbums and Christmas Tags

Good evening all... or should I say nite nite? ;-)  Well, I haven't done much this weekend, besides work some for my day job, grocery shopping, taking the kids to the indoor playground, washing clothes, cooking, etc....BUT, I did get in some scrapping, YESS!!!

I wanted to show you this sweet little pumpkin I made. I got the idea from Jennifer McGuire who posted it on www.twopeasinabucket.com and I thought it was so adorable, I just had to try it out! It's very easy! (Her photo is a bit nicer though....love how it's always mirrored at the bottom. Wonder if I can do that in photoshop. ;-)

 

The one on the left is Jennifers and mine is on the right.

I've started on the cover of a Halloween mini-album...something that I've been wanting to get around to for a long time and when someone on Simea's Design Team asked for Halloween stuff, I thought, NOW's the time! So, with some papers from the Basic Grey Eerie collection and an SEI mini chipboard album, I got to work...or rather "play". ;-)

Then, I checked out Kristina Werner's blog, since she always has such awesome video tutorials on her cards, and I found the most awesome acrylic Christmas tags! You MUST go visit her website!! So, I decided to put my cricut diecut machine to work once again, cutting out tags out of thin acrylic. Worked like a charm! ;-) So, I made these cuties. I just luuuuv acrylic, don't know why. It just gives it a clean elegant looking touch.

Just love these! Can't wait to attach them to a Christmas gift (which is still a loooonnnng ways off!).

I also needed to gift wrap my daughter's gift to her kindergarten friend for her birthday, but I didn't have any giftwrap at home, so I did this.

I'm so into kraft colored paper (this is actually post office wrapping paper) and butterflies. This butterfly is from a clear stamp set by Amy Butler and I think I've fallen in love with this butterfly....it's so awesome, there's so much detail. I stamped it with fluid chalk ink, cut it out and pop-dotted it. Very simple, but it has a great effect.  "Laura" liked it. ;-)

I'm still working on some custom work, which is also fun, but very time-consuming. ;-) So, I'll have to touch base with you some time this week! Stay tuned! ;-)

Scrapbooking things over the weekend

I was experiencing a bit of withdrawal from scrapbooking, but I really need a creative break after finishing a large wedding album that I really put my heart into.... here is a peak:

In November I will be attending an artist market and I'll be selling all kinds of Christmasy items, such as cards, tags, frames, gift boxes and minialbums (if I make it that is..lol). So, I got started with a few cards this weekend (I know...ughhhh...it's only September and the weather is still so beautiful!). Anyhoo....here are some of the cards I made... one of them is not a Christmas card. I just saw a German stencil I picked up at a hardware store and got an idea. ;-)

This card above was inspired by Kristina Werner Design. You should check out her blog, just awesome!!

 

And THEN, I made another something inspired by Lisa Tutman-Oglesby and her fabulous ideas. You should go check out her blog as well. Very inspiring!  This was made very quicky, using modge podge to adhere and then cutting off the excess paper around the edges. You have to work very fast with modge podge as it dries very quickly. Slap on a few stickers and violá! There you have it! An entirely new and personal notebook.

That's all for now! Stay tuned for more!

Weird looking ladybug

Of all the things I could post about (and there are a lot), I'm posting about a ladybug we saw in our apartment this afternoon. I'm not sure if I've ever seen one quite like this. It's black with two large red dots on it's back, almost like they're painted on. :-) Super cute!!! Isn't he (or she) neat?

Super Halloween Cards tutorial video

Ladies (and Gentlemen...in case you're reading)

Wow, just had to share this with you!! Kristina Werner makes fantastic videos on her blog and now she's made yet another fabulous video tutorial for three (yes, three!!) awesome Halloween cards she's designed. They have really cool shapes and cute details.  Check it out on her Blog and lots of other videos. Now just sit back, relax and enjoy this load of creativity!!!

Fantastic Flower Video Tutorial by Donna Salazar

This video tutorial is a bit older, but I thought I should share it with you anyway, since some of you may not have seen this. Donna Salazar makes these terribly cool flowers in this video, just awesome. Watch this to see how they are done!

I'm still here!!

Just to let everyone know that I still exist!!! I'm just on vacation that's all! As soon as I get back there will be lot's to post.

I have so many ideas in my head! :) I do plan to send out another newsletter when I return home from gorgeous Bavaria in which I will be incorporating a free tutorial for you. Hope you like it.

This photo is the view from the terrace of our house. Breathtaking isn't it? ;-)