Here's my take on Tim's Day 5. This one was a challenge for me because it didn't translate so easily into an ATC. I just went with one larger fragment instead of multiple small ones. The branch is Hero Arts and the image in the fragment is a large Stampin Up background. I'm not thrilled with the way the colors contrast from the fragment to the ATC, but it's probably more realistic to how my actual tree looks. I have a plethora of ornaments in every color and design from a lifetime of collecting them. I really need to get them up on the tree that's set up with lights and no ornaments. Working on getting some holiday cards in the mail today. Thanks for stopping by.

Back to ATCs for day 6. I only had this tiny little car in a collage type stamp by Club Scrap. I love how Tim made his with the old fashioned car, you can see it here. Used some Christmas sheet music for the background and most of the rest is like what he did. I didn't have the sparkly fluff he used on his tree, so I used some old SU fun flock. It's not as pretty, but it works ok. I really liked the tape trick to rough up the vintage paper. I didn't have any masking tape handy so I used scotch tape, but stuck it to my robe first to take some of the sticky off of it. I've been sick, so I'm hanging out in my pjs this week. Stamping is good medicine. Thanks for stopping by.

Here's Day 7 and it's an actual tag this time. I know I skipped days 4, 5, and 6 and I didn't make an ATC this time. That's just where my creativity went today. In case you haven't been around this week, I'm working on Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas tutorials. I loved making this one. I don't have a white paint dauber, so I used silver for this and I like the silver and gold together. It was like magic when I got to the part where I wiped away the ink from the paint. Seriously, even the black ink wiped off. So cool. I suppose you could get the same look by stamping with paint at the end, but the magic part was worth it. This santa image is by Paper Inspirations. I love how vintage he feels. I have no idea about the purple, I just had to do it. I fell in love with purple on the first day's ATC and had to go there again. Who knew purple worked for Christmas. It just does.

We have another snow day today. There was absolutely no shoveling done yesterday. I forgot about Kyle's cast. Guess I haven't mentioned it here, but he broke his hand in the midst of the whole surgery thing with my mom. Anyways he has a cast on the last two fingers of his right hand up to the elbow. The only good part about the whole deal for him is he can't shovel snow, can't get it wet and can't manuever a shovel and follow the docs orders at the same time. I'm fighting off a bug of some kind, so I really don't feel up to shoveling either. We're snowed in for now. Not such a bad thing. I may hire Kyle's friends to shovel for me later after they get their own place dug out. I guess we'll just have to make more hot chocolate and watch another movie. Enjoy the view below. That's what we see off our back deck. Not too shabby.

Day 3 was so much fun to make. I've done the plaid thing before, but adding in some of the new colors made it more intresting. I forgot to put in the black stripe, but there's so much black stamping that I think it looks good without it. I added in a vintage black snap up in the corner. I pick them up in my treasure hunting excursions for a song and they make a great embellishment. Not enough twine here to wrap up the little set of these that I made, so I subbed in a bit of gold. I think it looks festive, so it works for me.

We had a grand time at Knott's and the snow is coming in like crazy now. We made it home just in time last night. It's a snow day, no school. Kyle's happy about it and I'm just going to let him enjoy his morning before I remind him about the snow shovel and the work that comes along with a snow day. For now, I'm off to make us some hot chocolate. Thanks for stopping by today.

This is day 2 of the 12 tags of Christmas. I'm having so much inky fun with these little ATCs. I didn't have any of those cool metal flowers, so I used a Making Memories flower and sprayed it with walnut gold Glimmer Mist. It's my favorite color. This one came together more quickly than the first tag and I love the colors. I definitely wouldn't have used black for the swirls and sentiment if left to my own choice, but I'm trying to follow along as closely as possible. I love the touch of black here and I'm so glad I used it instead of the brown that made more sense to me. I remember my mom telling me in decorating any room you should always include a touch of black because it grounds everything. Of course Mom is right and it works in creating art, too. Thanks Mom.

We're running away to Knott's Merry Farm today. It's become one of our favorite holiday traditions. We ride roller coasters, listen to carolers and other live holiday music, watch Snoopy on Ice, and eat at Mrs. Knotts for her famous fried chicken dinner. I can hardly wait. It was supposed to start snowing here tomorrow, but I see a bit of white on the ground now. That makes it truly a run away escape day. I'm not a fan of the snow even after living here for 18 years.

Here's my take on Tim's first day of the 12 tags of Christmas. I love that he shares these classes each year. I started out making them as ATCs last year, so I decided to roll with it again this year. Working on a smaller canvas of an ATC means I have to scale it all down. I don't use everything he does, but I do try to follow the background technique. This one was so much fun. I really love the rock candy crackle paint. I improvised on my bird which was a snowman on his design. I painted some grungepaper with gesso, then stamped the design over it with black soot distress ink. When I tried to smear on some rock candy stickles it smeared the distress ink. So, just a little tip for you, the embossing is a necessary step. I ended up clear embossing over the whole image and skipped the stickles.

I've been slammed with life stuff, so not much art time. Trying to play catch up today. Hope you're finding some creative time amongst the hustle and bustle of the season.

Butterfly ATC

Still working along my journey of making the 12 tags of Christmas in ATC form. This one is based on Day 10. Oh, so many wonderful little discoveries in this one. Have you tried the distress reinker, perfect pearls, and water in a mini mister yet. This was my first real go at this combination. I am in love with the shimmer. It's really amazing. I don't know why I waited so long to try this, but I'm so glad I finally did. I used the mister over the new masks that Tim Holtz has out. I first saw these at a convention and thought they were too big. Fortunately I have a dear friend who thought better and sent me two last week. Thanks Jan. I was able to mask 4 ATC's at once with the large mask. Cool stuff.

The second really wonderful thing about this tutorial was that Tim used snaps in his flowers. I didn't have the ones he makes, but heck I have lots of old sewing stuff around here. These are vintage snaps that I bought in my treasure hunting. Such a fun new twist on a flower center. It's the little things that make me so happy, and using snaps in my papercrafts makes me smile.

The third thing I tried new here is the grungeboard treatment. In the tutorial Tim stamps an image onto plain grungeboard, embosses it and then cuts out the image. I didn't have any plain sheets of grungeboard, but I do have a plain set of nature grungeboard, so I used a butterfly out of the set. Then I embossed a background design over it and painted with perfect pearls and water like he did. Such a fun way to dress up grungeboard.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Day 8 ATC

Here is the ATC I've been trying to share with you for days now. It's based on day 8 of Tim's 12 days tags.

Now if I could just figure out how to resize photos in this new photoshop elements 6, I could show you more. Love the new computer, hate trying to get answers. ugh! It's been snowing here since early Monday morning and we are buried. We gave up on the shoveling today and decided to stay in.

day 6 ATC

I'm still working on doing all of Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas tutorials. This is my ATC take on his Day 6 Tag. I gotta tell you I love painting with alcohol inks. I've been meaning to try this for such a long time. I'm so happy I finally did. He does a great tutorial about it on his blog. It's so easy to do and the results are amazing.

I painted behind my colored images with gesso instead of the paint dauber he used, and it worked just fine. I didn't have all the fun embellie goodies he used, but the basic part of this is the same. I added in a rub-on sentiment and some stickles on the ornaments. The stamped image is by Stampington. Thanks for stopping by.

day 3 ATC

This was a fun ATC to create. I'm still on my journey with Tim Holtz. Here is the link for his day 3 tag that inspired me. I know mine doesn't have the same image or fragment thingie, but the layout is the same and so are the techniques. Ok, here's the scoop. I have 2 santa stamps and you'd think that would be enough. Well, neither one translated well for ATC size and for this technique. So, I tried out a reindeer that didn't work and then spied these little redbirds. They are perfect because I could color them with the same red and green inks.

Next roadblock was the fragments thing. I don't have those yet. I saw them, but couldn't imagine what I'd do with them. Tim is a genius that way, showing us all these things we need. At first I thought I might just cover with crystal effects and use that. I also thought about those clear bubble stickers, but I only have little ones. Clear buttons came to mind, same problem, too small. Then I remembered I bought a package of mica when the scrapbook store closed. I had to find it first, then play with it. I loved geology in college and thought about it the whole time. I do have an affinity for rocks, collecting them on my travels. So, the mica was a great solution for me. It also cuts really easily if you separate it into thin sheets. If you use it, be sure to put a heavy book over your project to keep it flat as it dries. The paper underneath a tendency to buckle a bit and pull away from the mica. I adhered it with crystal effects.

The rest pretty much follows his tutorial. I didn't add any metal to mine mostly because Terry and I used up most of the wintry words I had on our snow people. I do like that he painted them white to get white in the letters. Wish I'd seen that before we made the snow people. Off to see what day 4 has in store for me.

12 ATC's of Christmas

I love to read tutorials online, but I rarely ever actually try them step by step. This time I thought I'd give it a go. These ATC's are my take on Tim Holtz's 12 Days of Christmas Tags. I started on Day 2, but am planning to try to give all the days a go. I was fortunate enough to have been able to take a full day of 3 classes with him last year at my local scrapbook store. He is such a great teacher and to be able to have online tutorials from him is amazing. I'd love to know how he got the speckles on his tags without getting the mixative everywhere. I made quite a mess last night with a toothbrush.

Other than the colors of alcohol ink and the glossy cardstock, everything I used was a variation of what he used in the tutorial. It's really about the process, so don't fret if you don't have all the supplies he uses. I used pearl mixative instead of silver because I don't have silver. I used black soot ink with clear embossing powder since I threw out my black embossing powder. I hated getting little black spots in stray places. I used regular brads with my grungeboard pieces instead of the idea-ology line goodies. Of course I used different stamps too. I do love the stamp set he used on day 2, just didn't have it. Ok, well now I'm off to read what he's created for day 3.