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!

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?

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

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!