Pssssssstttt, I heard about a secret

I heard from Lori who heard from Helene that Prima has a secret that they will share on March 5, 2010.  In the meantime, Prima is having a drawing!  Click here for details, you have until Sunday night to enter.  They will announce the winners (one US winner and one International winner) on March 1, 2010!  Good Luck and HURRY!!!!!

Linda

Email

I returned to work today, first time in 2 weeks.  I had 204 e-mails waiting for me.  I got through about a good portion of them.   When I got home I had 10 e-mails waiting for me including one with the subject line of "ATTENTION ALL TIM HOLTZ FANS", I knew it was going to be the best e-mail I looked at today!

It was from Carol at Stampers' Corner!  They expect Tim's new book, Compendium of Curiosities in this week and are having an introductory special.  They are offering the book for 19.99 (plus CA sale tax) instead of the retail price of $25.00. So I am sure you can figure out what I ordered today when I stopped by the store!  I am really looking forward to getting it!   If you want one and you don't live nearby, they will ship it for $5.00 via priority mail!  Stampers' Corner, phone number is 916-686-0651.  Tell 'em Linda sent you! lol

They also have an introductory special going on for the new Distress Inks - buy 11 and get the 12th one free!  I've had mine for a couple of weeks, not that I've had much of a chance to play with them yet.  I will tell you all the colors are AWESOME!   I managed to play with them a bit tonight. . .I'm in the process of making a lily and some roses.  I will show them just as soon as I can!

Take care,

Linda

21st Birthday

No, not my 21st birthday, although I am not THAT much older than 21 (I was VERY young when I had my children, like 4 or 5)!  lol Today is my youngest child's birthday.  My only son.  My baby. (Forget the fact that he's 6'5", he's still my baby and always will be!  And yes each of his 3 sisters are still my "baby girls".   I know I've probably scarred them all for life, but that's their problem! Love you!)

As I've mention, my mom has been in the hospital (for 2 weeks) and is now at a rehab center and seems to be improving daily!  Since this "adventure" began,  I've barely stepped foot in my studio as I have been too drained. 

On the way home from visiting my mom, the van made a left turn (all by itself, I didn't help at all, really!) to go to Stampers' Corner instead of a right turn to go home.  Darn van!  I "needed" some glaze pens. After I found them I wandered around.  Somehow I came home with a pack each of black and green glaze pens, a couple packs of  "Tim Tags" and some Ten Seconds Studio's metal , a pack of "Humungo Killer Tape" sheets and a Big Daddy #7 mold!  

When I got home, I went into the studio and this is what I created (the bottom of the card goes about 1/2 inch beyond the bottom of the picture, I need to work on my photography skills.):

I was quite pleased with the results, more importantly Joseph thought it was "AWESOME"!!!!!! 

Hope you had a fabulous weekend and a fantastic week ahead!

Take care,

Linda

iNSIDE oUT

Just a quick post to give my life a bit of "normalcy", been spending lots of time at the hospital with my mom. She is improving!  

I call this my "inside out" card because I put the sentiment on the outside and the "picture" on the inside!  I made it a couple of weeks ago, but didn't want to post it until the recipent received it.

OUTSIDE

INSIDE

Take care, Linda

Winners!

Today is the big day! The winners of the One World One Heart magic carpet ride are announced on blogs all over the world!

First I would like to say thank you to all of you who left comments!  And the well wishes for all of us.  (My mom has been in the hospital for the last week.  She will be going into a care facility once she is released from the hospital.)

Special thanks to those of you who became followers!  In fact, if my followers will send me their addresses I will send a special ATC to them.  (It may take a while as Mom is my top concern at the moment, but I will get to them.)

And a VERY SPECIAL thanks to Lori - a friend I met on THE Artful Voyage in Mexico cruise with Tim Holtz - she has been great support and encouragement for my blog  AND a consistent commenter. I REALLY appreciate your support Lori!!!

Now on to the winners of the OWOH magic carpet ride!!

Here are the numbers Random.org chose (sorry it's only the text and not a picture of the page. I don't know how to add a screen print or word doc and right now I don't have the energy to figure it out.  I saved a screen print in a word document if anyone wants a copy):

Here are your random numbers:

72

18

Timestamp: 2010-02-15 13:24:21 UTC


#72 was posted January 31, 2010 2:57 AM by


Deedles said...

Very nice artwork. Please add my name to the drawing.



#18 was posted  January 28, 2010 4:34 AM  by


Femmy said...

love your artwork!! please count me in!

I've sent e-mails congratulating the winners and have already heard back from Dee Dee (Deedles)!  She said she'd like the stamps and tags.  So Femmy wins the process art!

Congratulations ladies!!!!


Take care
Linda

Please note, newer posts are below this one.  Thanks for stopping by!

******February 10, 2010, update ***** 
I still plan to have the drawing on February 15, however, we are dealing with a MAJOR family medical issue, that could cause a delay in the drawing. If it is delayed, I will have the drawing as soon as possible after the 15th but no entries after the 14th as stated below will be accepted.  Thank you for your patience and understanding.  Linda

Finally! I finally got my magic carpet ticket! So, are you having FUN yet?  One World One Heart was started in 2007 by Lisa Swifka as a way for bloggers to meet other bloggers!  As I just started my blog about 1 month ago, this is my first year participating!   I am  excited to participate and am happy that you have dropped by!  Please take a look around, leave a comment and come back often for a visit!

What took me the longest to join this awesome event was trying to decide on a prize.  So here is what I came up with, I hope you like the prizes!  The will be two (2) winners.  The first prize package includes 2 gift tags created by me along with a brand new package of Tim Holtz' Visual Artistry "The Journey" stamps.  I have a set of the same stamps and used them to create the 2 tags!

Prize 1

The 2nd prize package is some "process" art.  I made a similar piece for an art class I took last year and had so much fun, I decided to make other pieces!!  I used spray paint and alcohol ink.  (I like it in person much better than the photo.)

Prize 2

To win, just leave a comment by 11:59 p.m. PST ("California" time) on February 14, 2010.  I will use a random number generator to select the winners on February 15, 2010.  The first name chosen will get his or her choice of prizes and the second name chosen will get the other prize.  Please be sure to leave a way for me to contact you.   I will contact each winner and will post the winners on my blog.   I look forward to "meeting" you!  Please feel free to "follow me".  

Good luck!  Hope we get a chance to visit soon!

Take care, be safe,

Linda

New ink, new roses!

Got a call from my LSS on Friday that my order of Tim Holtz' Distress Inks came in!!!! YIPPEE!!!!! I stopped by after leaving my mom's and picked it up.  Then it sat on the studio table being admired and thinking of ALL the possibilities!

Aren't they fabulous?

After much pondering I decided to make some roses!  (Surprise!) I inked them on Friday evening, Saturday morning I started forming the layers. Then life happened.  My mom had not been feeling good on Friday (she's 92, almost 93 and lives independently.).  I called to check on her but she did not answer the phone.  NOT a good thing.  I call my brother to meet us at her place.  My husband and I jumped in the truck and took off to her place. She lives about 20 minutes away.  When we got there, we found her laying on the bathroom floor.  She had fallen and could not get up.  To make a long story short, she has NO broken bones (Thank you God!) but is stiff and sore.  She is in a rehab facilites for a week or two.

In between being at the hospital, driving down to her apartment a couple of times and getting her settled in rehab, I did manage to get 3 roses completed.

The top one is "wild honey", I think I had some "Victorian velvet" on my finger tips and that is why 2 petals look a little different.  The rose on the left is "crushed olive" and the one on the right is "barn red" - my new favorite color for roses!

Hope you had a fabulous weekend!

ScrapMart Vintage inspiration

This is the card I made for the ScrapMart Vintage inspiration that I mentioned earlier in the week.  The prize was one of Tim Holtz new dies.    They announced their winner today, Angela Weimer.  She did a fabulous job, be sure to check it out.

If you want the details, here they are:

The main image is a Hero Arts Artprint "Woman in Profile" stamp.
The background stamp is Hero Arts "Old Letter Writing".
Harlequin stamp is from the Tim Holtz' "French Market" Visual Artistry collection.

The main image was stamped with Stazon Jet Black, all other ink used was Tim Holtz' Ranger Distress Inks (including ink on the lace trim).

The flower is Tim Holtz Idea-ology Foliage, cut, curled and painted with acrylic paints.'
The suitcase is a grungeboard circle covered with paper ("bonjour" was computer generator prior to covering circle). The suitcase handle is 2 "unused" staples (my daughter Erinn's idea!) painted black with alcohol ink and the suitcase "feet" are 2 Hero Arts black pearls.

The card base. the background and the main image paper is a cream matte finish paper from my LSS (they package it and it doesn't have a name on their packaging). The paper on the suitcase is K & Co "Life's Journey" script pad. I suspect the green mat is DCWV but I can't swear to it. I have no idea on the brown mat, which has kind of a shimmery finish to it.

Take care,
Linda

Satisfaction!

After I posted this card, I was not happy with the way it looked.  I felt it needed a little more.  Kind of like stamping the image on plain paper (see post below). . .it's OK, but. . .

So I played with it some more and came up with this:

Since everything was glued down, I was limited in what I could do.  I managed to slip about 3/4" strip on the left and a 1/4" strip on the right.  The strips are an old manilla file card that I inked and stamped with Wendy Vecchi's bacground alphabet stamp.   I also slipped a "well worn ticket" (another Tim stamp on the manilla file card) under the "Journey" tag. (I added a little Spiced Marmalade to the ticket for a bit of contrast.)  I like this version a whole lot more than the "unfinished" card above. 

Let me know what you think. 

 I REALLY like getting comments! 

Take care, be safe

Linda

one image, 3 backgrounds

As I was blog hopping, I ran across a blog that had a request for help (another besides your's Lori! lol).  And me being the shy person that I am, I left a comment with a tip about using a damp rag to wipe Distress Ink off embossed images  and a note saying I had more tips if she was interested.  She was interested and responded requesting more tips.  I created a little tutorial for 3 backgrounds using distress ink and thought I'd share here too.  The differences in techniques are what I did before I stamped the image.

The base for all images is cream cardstock. The image itself is from Tim Holtz' "Traveling Friends" set from Stampers Ananymous and was stamped with Jet Black Stazon. I used Tim Holtz’ Distress Inks in Faded Jeans (FJ), Peeled Paint (PP), Antique Linen (AL), Old Paper (OP), Vintage Photo (VP) and Black Soot (BS)  

The 3 options I show are: 1) do nothing before adding image; 2) add some background color before adding image [on this version I misted the ink with water and dried with a heat tool but the one below I did not add the water], and; 3) adding some background color with "texture".  Here are the 3 backgrounds with images only.  (please note, these 3 are not the ones I used with the colors below because I created these after I finished the others. While I was previewing my blog entry it dawned on me, that perhaps I should have taken "before" pictures as well as the "after" pictures. lol) 

This first image is stamp directly on the cardstock without any color added before I stamped. After stamping I added FJ & PP.

This second image I used AL & OP before I stamped the image, then I added FJ & PP.  Just some subtle differences but are really noticable in the child's face and the dog.

The third image I used AL & OP, crumpled the paper up a couple of times, (when I say crumpled, I really crumpled the paper)

then I dragged VP over the peaks, misted the paper, ironed the wrinkles out (I use a paper towel between the image and iron because some of the color will come off), then stamped the image and added FJ & PP

Here is the card I made using the last image.  I tore the image and inked the edges with VP and decided it wasn't quite dark enough so I added some BS.  The "Journey" was embossed using Tim's embossing ink and black embossing powder on the same cream cardstock as the main image.  While adding color to the embossed image, I grabbed the black blending tool instead of the brown one so there is a bit of BS along with FJ, PP and OP.

Please let me know what you think!  If you have any questions I will try to answer them!  Take care,

Linda