the tan has faded, however, the memory will last forever

I suppose there is something ironic about disappearing for five months (to the day) after posting my excitement in reaching 100 blogosphere posts. Although contrary to good posting, you have to admit I have the sense of mystery down pat.

My first post back into the blogosphere world is really out of order in its creation.  I have been working on some new-to-me techniques and I wanted to share this particular journal page with you, and The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge team as my entry in challenge #32: Put a Stencil On It.

This was round two for this new-to-me technique of adding glaze to a page.  I did a trial run first, with a different stencil, in my practice/experimental journal.  And now I'm addicted. I might glaze everything in sight.  I might also use the Stencil Girl 17002 building stencil for every project.  It is crazy amazing gorgeous. It is almost a shame I covered it up; maybe next time I will create a page that highlights the stencil itself.  Oh mad stencil love.

As I mentioned this journal page isn't the first to be created in this journal.  It is the fourth page of my travel journal commemorating our trip to the Caribbean in 2014.  The photos are taken in Oranjestad, Aruba where the ocean was turquoise and the streets were lined with iguanas. Apparently, you may also choose to dine on iguana (not on an iguana as a table; the iguana is the dining bit), however, we decided to stick with swimming and eating on the cruise.

I have no great story to match this photo of a horse with a lampshade on its head (for some reason I think his story may be far more interesting than anything I can create).  I just loved the contrasted colours in this room.  There was so much dark ornate wood surrounded by white supporting structures which made this room really regal and beautiful.

Thank you to those who stayed on with me even though I took a lengthy blogging absence.  And thank you to my new friends on Instagram.  I appreciate the support.

Keep getting messy.

ever tried. ever failed. no matter. try again. fail again. fail better - samuel beckett

Blogosphere friends, you will have noticed that I wasn't the successful picture this! challenge blog design team member this time.  Don't fret.  It wasn't my time and I will keep trying.

This was the moodboard that inspired me to design a layout filled with aqua and pink bubbles.  As you know, I love bubbles and will add bubbles and circles to everything if it wasn't just plain odd.

I adore Audrey's elegance and style and have been using photos of her in some of my layouts and journal pages.  I have been waiting to find the right inspiration to use this photo and design this layout.

I love using bead paste and see it appearing more often in my work.  And I love creating embossed inked backgrounds.  You'll see this technique in quite a few of my other recent projects.

I am submitting this layout in the august 1st picture this! challenge: moodboard.

you can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. you have to go to them sometimes - a. a. milne

Oi.  It's been five months since I've posted anything on the blog.  I'm not sure why I have found it difficult to post regularly (Instagram is feeling almost the same level of neglect).  Maybe it's just a matter of paying more attention to posting once the photos are snapped.

The post neglect is not for lack of crafting, that's for sure.  I have been a little crafting chipmunk.  Busy, busy, busy.  Which means one thing friends, you're in for a craft downpour here on everythingshetouches.  A craft downpour.

I created the background of this birthday card using bisters and tim holtz flower garden stamps.  The layered forest is a memory box series of dies: grand forest archway, medium forest archway and small forest archway.  Makes for a gorgeous layered forest, no?

The focal stamp is santoro mirabelle tell me something.  I'm obsessed with everything santoro.  My collection of mirabelle and gorjuss is outrageous.  I think they are simply elegant, beautiful and diverse stamps.  And yes, very easy and fun to work with.

Here's a better view of the background.  Bisters on watercolour paper equals gorgeous and quick backgrounds for any paper craft - cards, scrapbook, memory book or mixed media.  Amazing.  And I'm hooked.

Stay tuned folks.  More rain to come ..

interpretation of tim holtz's 12 tags of 2016 - technique remix - january

 

I had to make some paint adjustments because I realized that I do not own black soot distress paint as I pulled out my tools in preparation to make this tag.  I know.  I was pretty shocked myself.  It took me a good half hour of searching in a state of disbelief to concede that I would need to find a decent, but different, replacement; raw umber and black acrylic (sorry, you might not be black soot but you're both very dear to my craftiness).

 

I also went with the most adorable robot stamps and complementary gear embossing folder. 

 

This was my first attempt (you're seeing public version number 2; I had to make an adjustment to my choice of embossing powder.  When Tim Holtz says use this particular embossing powder because it works you should listen and not get distracted by watching Hell on Wheels on the telly) at the chalkboard technique.

 

I added a few fun embellishments and some copper outlining which works well with the raw umber.

 

And here it is, my interpretation of the January 2016 tag:

 

 

Today is my birthday and I want to thank my amazing friend for the most incredible birthday gift.  It is truly a thoughtful gift and I cannot wait to free it from its packaging, warm it up and create something crafty. 



a twinkie and mirror paper birthday

I crafted this card for a little guy who turned six this year.  Thought Twinkie had the right amount of enthusiasm.

 

 

I have taken to colouring on mirror paper lately and I strongly recommend you give it a go.  It's quick, simple and the results are spectacular.  Add a little glossy accents and the final product has tremendous wow factor.

remembering a mixed media collage with finnabair; dreams do come true

Last summer I participated in a Finnabair class.  I have always loved her style and craft elegance.  After the class I can honestly say she is one of the most talented, incredible and lovely people you can hope to meet.  Her teaching ability is as great as her talent.

The class focused on building layers using an image as a focal point, gesso, sprays, little treasures you find around your home and odds and ends from other craft projects. 

I'm participating in another Finnabair class this July.  This time we'll be working with paper instead of canvas and although I didn't think I could top last year's excitement, I am simply over the moon with anticipation.

tim holtz march 2015 tribute tag

I have been wanting to play along with mr. holtz in a monthly tag adventure for a super long time and I finally did it.

As many of you know, I cannot help but add my own style to whatever I do.  I was planning on making two tags; one that more closely resembled tim's version and a second which followed the same techniques with some interpretation.  The first tag never happened.  I simply ran out of time to craft it.

So here is my interpretation of tim's march 2015 tag:

In lieu of tissue tape I stamped tim holtz flower garden petals onto tissue paper with black archival ink and adhered it to a manila tag using gel medium.  I added mustard seed, abandoned coral, cracked pistachio and salty ocean distress paints using tim's paint swipe technique and once dry, I doodled with a white gel pen.

I stamped and clear-embossed one of the crazy birds over the tissue paper images and paint.  By chance, and less by design, he ended up over the flower with petals which look like bird feathers so I simply emphasized the feathers with my white gel pen.

I added the tracks using tim holtz tracks stencil, gel medium, silver paint and glitter paint.  After I peeled off the stencil I covered the wet medium with silver embossing powder.  When heated it has a gritty silver texture.

The crinkle ribbon was dipped into tea dye and salty ocean distress paint and heat set.

Thank you mr. holtz for great craft fun.  I'm looking forward to April's tag!

I am entering my tag in the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #10 Birds of a Feather.

you can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me - c.s. lewis

Each summer, the daycare that Alex attends, has a tea party for children and parents on the last day before summer vacation.  It is incredibly charming to watch one and two year old children sipping lemonade and juice from proper china tea cups and munching on scones and sandwiches.  The staff dress up in elegant tea party wear and floppy sunhats and the outdoors are transformed into a lovely tea party.  It is quite the dichotomy if you get to witness the effects of International Mud Day which occurs only a few days earlier.  The photos used in this layout are from the tea party three years ago; Alex's first summer at daycare July 2010 when he was one and a half years old.

I'm entering this layout in three challenges:

1. Berry 71 Bleu September sketch plus mixed media challenge

2.  About A Boy September 1 black white + one challenge.  Creating a layout using black, white and one other colour (green).

And 3. Scrap Around the World September 2013 Challenge 5 bold graphic.  The mood board is striking and definitely inspirational:

The bottom centre image of the child holding the adult's hand inspired my selection of photos for my layout.  It's often fun to observe our children engaging in more "adult-like" behaviours, such as gently sipping tea lemonade from tea cups, however, I don't want Alex to grow up too quickly.  I want him to truly enjoy, savour and value his childhood.  

I covered the 12x12 manila cardstock with gesso and white acrylic.  Across the bottom and up the right-hand side I added homemade crackle.  It worked out so well that I decided to use the same technique on the tea cup itself which was cut out with, along with the black and white butterflies, the Silhouette Cameo.  The tea cup, saucer and steam were cut out of Tim Holtz grungepaper and the two vellum butterflies were cut out using a Memory Box die cut.

I added green (Dylusions Ink Spray dirty martini) and black (black acrylic paint mixed with water) splatters across the entire layout and a tea cup stain at the bottom right for some whimsy.  The black paint mixed with water created tiny bubbles and the effect as they popped was fantastic.  Alex is very familiar with the bubble technique.  He sometimes uses dishsoap, food colouring and water to create his own bubbly art in a larger bubble version.  On small or large scales bubbles are fun, beautiful and make very lovely art pieces.  

I punched out the three little butterflies from vellum and tissue paper, placed them on the tea cup and doodled some bits both on the butterflies and tea cup.

 

I love the layered and rough frame in Debbie's sketch, especially against the delicate butterflies and flowers, and recreated my own pseudo-frame with two different layers of washi tape.

The butterflies were stamped with random images and one was embossed.  I was aiming for non-uniformity.  Success.

Inspired by Holly's (in the fun lane) post on dipped beads I tried my hand at dipping.  I like dipping.  A lot.  But I have made a mental note to make sure that I (a) secure my dip object to the wire better(one poor bead took a plunge and got a green bath) and (b) secure a proper drying space before dipping instead of running around with a dripping dipped bead trying to find a good location to dry.

I modge podged one bead with green tissue paper and the tissue gave the bead a really nice texture.  I love modge podge and tissue.  Wonderful and dangerous duo (tissue loves modge podge as much as I do).

I love Alex's expression in this photo below.  

Years ago, just after Alex was born, Canadian Tire had an incredible sale on sewing machines.  Although I had not sewn anything since Home Economics in grade 8, I had ambition to start sewing.  Major project: create new cushion covers for the couch, love seat and chair in the sun-room to match the developing naval theme.  Minor project: sew paper and material to incorporate stitching in my paper projects.  My ambition remained in the planning stage - until now.  I'm still working on lightening up on my lead foot but with a few attempts the end result was successful.  Onto the major project!  First step: find naval-type fabric.  Second step: Check my sewing apprehension at the door and go for it!  Maybe step (1a) is: create a small-sized cushion cover.  Until then, I will definitely be stitching all over my paper projects.

and now for something completely different ..

When one of the deal-of-the-day websites offered a deal on a glass fusion class I hopped out of my chair and onto that train of crazy fun without hesitation.

Lara, owner of the Glazing Pot Studio & Gifts, created an amazing first experience with glass.   It's actually a pretty easy process. You get a base piece of glass and add your glass pieces in a design of your choice.  We made three items in total: two necklaces and one plate.

Necklace One:

Necklace Two:

Finished fired product Necklace One and Two:

As I was leaving the house for the class Alex asked if I would create one of my pieces for him.  I didn't have much trouble coming up with designs for the pendants, however, with the larger medium the pressure to create was amped and I struggled a bit with deciding on what to design.  I was very grateful, at that point, for Alex's little voice to remind me to devote one of my pieces to him.  My little muse is very much enamoured with octopuses (grab a coffee and take a look at suction cup the yarn octopus).  I created the following piece:

And the final fired product:

My octopus' garden made the Glazing Pot Studio Facebook page!

All three pieces together:

Alex loved the end result so much that we signed up for camp at the Glazing Pot Studio this summer and Alex made a stunning spider in a tree hanging from a web:

I'm entering my glass fusion pieces into PJ Challenge New Technique Challenge September Motivator as my second entry.  It's not a card or a layout or a tag but it definitely is a new technique.

My crafting space is undergoing some minor adjustments and renovations and I am definitely going through crafting withdrawal.  I did manage to open my art journal and start a page which is a great leap in the right direction.  Very happy with the beginnings of my first page and I can't wait to get it ready to be posted and to share.  And thank you for stopping by!  I love the comments and support.  It's incredible to have so many talented people comment positively on my projects.

washi .. pamshi birthday card

Have you had a chance to check out PJ Challenge yet?  My amazing friend Jo (Three Cs) has put together a great blog with the sole purpose to challenge creators and allow us to create using our cache which we collect (that's me using Jo's Three Cs in context (context is a "C" of a different kind - ack double parenthesis!): Collect, Cache and Create).  The prize is self-satisfaction and if you really want to push the envelope check out the New Technique Challenges where you can demo a technique that's "new to you".  You are encouraged to learn something new and then show off your nouveau mad skills in your own project or interpretation.

This birthday card, made for my mother-in-law, will count as one of my two PJ Challenge entries and I am also using it to demonstrate a new technique which I have now added to my ever-growing repertoire.

Washi is a style of paper first made in Japan and it translates to mean Japanese (wa) paper (shi).  For more information on washi link to the wiki page.  Here's my introduction to pamshi - paper created by me, Pam.

How to create your own washi tape in three easy steps for pennies a strip:

1.  Roll your double-sided tape onto tissue wrapping paper.  I like making loads of tape at one time and I love the slight imperfections in the strips as you line up the adhesive and attach it to the paper.  Both items, the tissue paper and double-sided tape, can be found at the dollar store of your choice.  You can play with types of paper (doesn't have to be tissue paper although it does give you that fun transparent style and if you check out my final product you can really see through the paper fringe which is fun) and you can play with the width of your tape.  I didn't want very many thin strips in this project but I did run two thinner strips of double-sided on the pale yellow tissue paper.

2. Rip the taped paper into strips.  And again, you have a choice depending on your style or the style of your project.  You can (a) rip the strips carefully and enjoy the rough edges, (b) cut the strips out to get more accurate and straight lines or (c) combine both techniques.  I, as you might have guessed, am a rip-and-fall-in-mad-love-with-the messy-rough-edges kind of girl but guess what friends - I ended up with (c) combining the two techniques.  Ripping was great for most colours of tissue paper but for some reason (maybe the fibers are more dense for different dyes or different manufacturers make certain colours) some of the colours didn't rip as easily.  To ensure that I didn't muck up the whole strip I ended up cutting some of them out.  You can wait to cut up your strips of washi after you have stamped your images onto the tissue paper, however, I like to capitalize on my paper and so I place the tape rather close to each other and because I didn't want the stamps to run into each other (or maybe I do in the future - that could be fun) I cut the strips out before stamping.  If you notice I left the two lines of thinner tape on one tissue strip and stamped the flowers onto both at the same time (fifth from the top in the image below).

3.  Stamp the tissue paper side of the strip.  Et voilà. Washi tape haute couture to match your project.  You may use whichever stamps you have in your arsenal, however, I found the ones that work really well are those that repeat in pattern or are small enough to repeat by hand.

Side note: enjoy the messy.  Imagine this:  tissue paper all over my work table and strips of double-sided tape sticky side up.  It didn't take long for one of those lightweights to accidentally get stuck onto my double-sided tape in a crazy random askew kind of way.  As I gently pulled the tissue from the tape, thinking I would just have to cut that section out I had a lightbulb moment: enjoy the messy.  I decided to rip up tiny pieces of tissue and randomly stuck them onto the double-sided tape.  Hence the two strips of messy pamshi which somehow reminds me of ballerina tutus. Seriously, this was the most fun I had in creating this project.  There will be more messy pamshi in the future!

The end product:

Prima Doll's backdrop was created with Tim Holtz's distress inks (tea dye, black soot) on watercolour paper.  The Prima Doll, herself, was stamped onto script cardstock paper from the Recollections: Tattered and Worn ginormous book of cardstock paper and her dress was made from scraps of various cardstock paper and leftover wrapping paper (see mr. everythingshetouches? there is sometimes a method to my madness in keeping random wrapping and packing materials which means there has to be a different better nicer word than hording).

The wings (Graphic 45 Steampunk Spells stamp set) were stamped onto the same script cardstock and highlighted with my Viva pearl pen.

The Happy Birthday tag was created from leftover watercolour paper from the main backdrop and distressed with black soot.  The brad is from Recollections collection and the little butterfly punch was a treasure found for $1.50 at Michaels.

 

I had been playing with the idea of this card for a few months.  I really wanted to highlight the washi tape and keep its integrity.  The front of the card is, therefore, a bit shorter than the back and the washi tape is a fringe along the length of the card.  I adore the transparency and delicate personality of each strip.  

PJ September Challenge #2 soon to follow: stay tuned my wonderful blogster friends.  And I greatly thank each one of you for the amazing words of encouragement.  You're all so very very sweet.