April Showers??

I just had to share what we woke up to this morning.

I know we've been a little short on the April showers but was this really necessary?

As I looked out the window first thing this morning this is what I saw. It looked like the leaves popped out over night while it was snowing. The apple trees are about to burst into bloom. I hope they don't mind a little snow because the daffodils sure don't look happy :(

Mother Nature always gets the last word in doesn't she!!

Well knowing that it will only last a few hours before it melts away makes me smile and enjoy the beauty of it all.

Happy Earth Day

I hope your all having a wonderful Earth Day!

I've been thinking recycle this week because the tag theme over at Kard Krazy is Recycle, Re purpose and Reuse. How appropriate that I finished it today on Earth Day.

I found this challenge fun and easy. I used old cereal boxes for all my die cutting instead of bought chip board. All the papers I used were bits left over from other projects which is what I usually do for my tag and card making so that was a given.

This challenge really got me thinking about all the other things we throw out that I could have used. I'm looking forward to try to use more things in my art that I would normally throw away.

So now I'm going to go check out all the other tags to see what they found to recycle, re-purpose and reuse.

Copper flower

I've been doing some more experimenting!
I saw this flower technique over at Ink on my fingers . This is a variation on Wendy Vecchi's famous rose. Wendy uses grunge board or paper with stamps and ink. This variation is done with metal with a cardstock base for support. It was quit easy to do with her step by step instructions. The most difficult thing was to make the flower template since I didn't have a flower stamp with 6 petals. Now that I've tried it I can think of a few variations of my own. First of course is to add some colour with alcohol inks. Now what to put it on...I think I'm seeing an interesting canvas developing!!?

Now I'm off to the Originals Spring Craft show with some friends. This should be very inspiring!

Two Tags

Well it's Tag Tuesday again over at Kard Krazy and the theme is to use a word or saying that inspires you. I found this weeks theme just happened. I love when that happens. So I made two.

I had two tags sitting on my work space already base coated with metal and a few different kinds of texture mediums. I was experimenting for another project I'm working on. I thought I'd use every kind of texture medium I have and see how they react with the tag, paint and inks. So I covered one tag with metal in one corner and Frescolino and Crackle Texture past in the center and the other corner. The other tag I covered with Relief paste and Modeling paste along with the metal. Then I used paint to base coat one colour and added Distress inks and Glimmer mist with stamping, applicator and masks. The clock on the Journey tag is my first ever shaker bubble. I used the acetate from a Ranger package for the bubble and stamped the top with Stazon. I wasn't sure what to fill it with so I used some seed beads and glitter. I think next time I'll skip the glitter it seems to be sticking to the acetate so you can't see through it very well. Oh well create and learn:)

Did you make a tag this week?

Now I'm on my way over to check out the other tags this week. Come on over with me and take a look here.

Oh yeah and if you haven't checked out the beautiful jewelry over at the Vintaj blog, their is still time to vote for your favourite.

Vintaj Contest

Well I've finally done it. I've been watching the challenges over at the Vintaj blog for many months and telling myself that I would try it one of these days. Well a piece I was working on just happened to work for the theme this month which is Spring Riverbed. I wish all challenges I tried worked out this easily. This was a new technique I was trying out and the beads just naturally seemed to turn into a "riverbed".

I am very excited about this new technique so let me know what you think and head on over to Vintaj to vote for your favourite.

Tag challenge

I'm really enjoying these tag challenges. Well anythings wonderful that lets me play with my tags and ink and glimmer mist and stamps and...oh how I love my stuff.

I was thinking while doing this tag though how odd the creative muse is. I thought this would be a really easy tag to do with just a sketch to go with but it took me a lot longer than I thought it would. I started off with a tag that was already misted and was still sitting on my work table from doing Easter tags and cards on the weekend. The flower is a stamp set I haven't used too much yet so I thought this would be a good time to try it out. It's stamped on grunge board and then cut out and inked and misted. The semi-circle is a piece of scrap I found that just needed a little extra ink and glitter. The border and Create sentiment were made from metal scraps. As you can tell I love to use my scraps on my tags and card. You usually only need such small little bits so it works out really well.

I'm off to check out the other tags from this weeks Tuesday tag challenge over at Kard Krazy. Have you seen them yet?

All kinds of tags

I've been busy making and listing jewelry for Etsy. These tags are going to be listed in the next few days if I can get some good weather for photography. They're made of Vintaj Brass. The flowers are riveted on. I think I've finally got the hang of riviting and have all sorts of ideas to try it on.

Well now I must go and create my tag challenge for this week at Kard Krazy. The challenge this week is a sketch. So go check out her tag and give it a try.

Easter

Happy Easter. Have a wonderful day.

Spring

Ah beautiful Spring. Have a wonderful weekend.Every spring is the only spring - a perpetual astonishment. ~Ellis Peters

Riveting

Well I may not be riveting but I have learned how to rivet.

These necklaces both have rivets on them. After stamping an image on the flower on the right I riveted it onto the disc and then shaped the petals.

I've riveted different heishi beads onto the second disc to make small flowers.

I've also been playing with texturizing(is that even a word...well I think you know what I mean) the background discs. One of them I used the Big Shot and a Cuttlebug embossing folder...it doesn't get any easier than that. The other one I used the side of a large screw for some of the texture and a wire for the stems of the flower. Now my mind is spinning with other ways to get texture on these blank disc.

Oh how I love to learn and experiment with new things. I'm off to try something else new in my jewelry world.