Snow Birds

Many birds migrate to the Arizona desert during the winter months and we call the humans that come here "Snow Birds."

Their presence is keenly felt right now--it's a big change from the slow quiet pace of summer and is my inspiration for making this tag.

I used a stencil (Stampendous) to create the trees which were covered with Crackle Accents (Ranger Ink) to give the illusion of bark.

It's been my experience that when you use this product on paper it's best not to use a liquid over the cracks for emphasis because the product may peel-off. So I used oil pastels instead.

The birds are from a stamp called Birds on a Wire by Tim Holtz and I used a gel pen to ink them individually before placement.

A bit of white from a Souffle Gelly Roll pen was used to accent the branches with snow.

I'm linking my tag to Simon's Monday blog challenge--

this week's theme is So Glossy.

Life Mind

This month I worked through a blog challenge presented by A Vintage Journey where participants were asked to incorporate Tim Holtz techniques, style and/or products into their art journals.

Using the large format Dylusions journal, my first page was completed a few weeks ago and features a stamp from Tim's Flower Garden stamp set. It coincides with an online course I just completed on the subject of Mindfulness.

For the second page, I used only Tim Holtz stamps and if you don't count the Remnant Rubs text and some paint, I stayed true to my goal. I'll admit that the subject matter might have been a bit more interesting if my stash were larger but it was great fun just working with what I had.

And so, I'm also linking this post to Simon's Monday blog challenge--this week's theme is Throwback where you make something from a previous challenge. I picked the first challenge from July, 2013 called A Little Stamping which is what gave me the idea to use only stamping on my journal page.

To see more detail as you browse my images you can click on them to open the larger, lightbox view.

Journal Page No. 1

Journal Page No. 2

Birds

When I was a kid, there weren't many horror movies compared to today and they were pretty harmless by comparison. But I'll never forget one that really scared me and gave my sister nightmares--it was The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock.

So I made this tag for Simon's Monday blog challenge where this week's theme is Monster Mash. I used Distress inks and two stamps by Tim Holtz (the large bird and filmstrip) and one by Penny Black (Winter Ledge). The house was an image transfer of the school building from the movie and I hand-lettered the text.