"Walking in the Rain" tag for #onelittletag

Hello my friends!
This is a tag I created a few days ago for the watercolour challenge at The One Little Tag Craft Challenge.  For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a Facebook group created by Jenny Barnett Rohs of Craft Test Dummies.  The focus of the group is to encourage everyone to try and be creative every day, or as often as you can.  The theory being that by taking just a few minutes and doing a small tag, nothing elaborate, every day could keep the creative juices flowing. I enjoy making the tags, so I tend to spend a little more time on them.  I don't get to them every day, but I would say I do something creative most days.  I usually go to our art club twice a week and if I'm not being creative, I am often thinking about what I will do the next time I am!  So whether you spend 10 minutes or 2 hours on a tag, you are staying inspired!  It is also a good opportunity to do some experimenting without making a big commitment.  So if there are any of you that are looking for some inspiration or encouragement and would like to share some of your art, or just see what other are up to and to gain some inspiration, I would encourage you to check it out.  It is no longer just tags, anything you create can be posted, cards, art journals, drawings etc.  there is a weekly prompt, that is completely optional.  There are also random draws for giveaways.  A lot of fun and a good group of people.  Anyways, back to my tag, lol

Watercolour is not my medium.  I like to paint, but I paint in acrylics and I just don't have the knack of watercolour.  I suppose some lessons would help.  I do like to play around and drop paint onto a wet paper and let it blend organically, and play around.  I did a landscape, or attempted one, that I have to admit I scrapped.  But I was determined to do at least one scene.  So this is quite simple, but I don't mind how it turned out.  I used Winsor Newton watercolours, and Crayola brush pens on the stamp of the girl with the umbrella.  I struggled with watercolours this week.  But I also had a lot of fun with my "Purple Girl".  I stepped out of my comfort zone, which was the most important thing, more important than the result.  I hope everyone does that once in a while, it helps us discover new things.  I wonder how many things I would have missed had I never strayed from my comfort zone.

Well, lots of words tonight, I usually try and keep things short and sweet.  Thanks so much for taking the time to read and for letting me, once again, share my little pieces of art with you.

Kim  xo

A new "Purple Girl" watercolor tag for #onelittletag

Hello my friends!
Well, this has been another busy week (some of it involving plumbers!) and I haven't had a change to finish a tag until today!  The challenge this week at The One Little Tag Craft Challenge is water colour.  I had a bit of a head-start with this tag as I created this purple-haired beauty for last weeks purple challenge, but didn't get a chance to use her.  Well, I just happened to use water colours to create her, so guess what...!  She was created using a Penny Black stamp.  I used some Jane Davenport water colours and pencil crayons..  I created a couple of water colour background sheets for her dress and the tag background.  I had fin with those!  I dropped in all kinds of different water colours, including some metallic and just let them basically do as they pleased.  And now I have a few extra tag backgrounds left over as well!

I stamped her dress onto the paper I created and cut it out.  I stamped my favourite flourish stamp in gold ink onto the background.  It is so hard to pick up in photos, but there is a lot of shimmer on this card.  There is metallic watercolour in her dress and in the background, as well as the gold s metallic inked stamp.  I had some fin embellishing her dress and   giving her a choker.  I usually like to add a word or phrase to my tags, but there wasn't anything that popped into my head for this tag.  I may leave her a she is, or add something later if I am inspired.

I hope you enjoyed todays tag, I enjoyed creating it.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Kim xo 

An Elegant Purple and Gold Card #onelittletag

Hello my friends!
I am a little behind in posting, but this is a card I made for the purple challenge last week on The One Little Tag Craft Challenge.   I just love the combination of purple and gold.  If you are following along, you may have noticed that.  Most of my purple themed cards or tags are using that combination.

For this card I used a Spellbinders die and cut out some gold foil board.  FYI, I get my gold foil board  at the dollar store.  Both Dollaramma and the Dollar Tree have the same foil board.  It comes in a package of 6 sheets 0 gold, silver, red, green and blue.  It's very handy at Christmas time!  I just wanted to mention this because I really like the foil card that I get there and it die cuts beautifully.  Sometimes a cheaper price doesn't necessarily mean an inferior product.   Anyways, I die cut my foil card and adhered it to some purple glitter paper, which I then adhered to a black card base.  It is sometimes difficult to stick to the glitter paper, so I ran it through my Cuttlebug just sandwiched between the plates to squish everything together in an attempt to make it adhere better, which it did. .  It almost made this look like a die cut inlay.  I really like the effect that created.  I added a few sparkly embellishments and left it as it is.  I will keep this in my stash and when an occasion comes up that this card will be suitable for, I will add a sentiment.  I think this is quite elegant with the gold foil details.
I hope you have enjoyed my latest card.  Thanks so much for stopping by to have a look!
Havve a great day everyone!
Kim xo

"Hugs" tag for "purple " challenge at #onelittletag

Hello again , my friends
Here is another tag I made for the "purple" theme this week at The One Little Tag Craft Challenge.  I used the negative space created whenn I punched out the "heart-shaped moon" for a tag I did last week.  I'm glad I didn't throw the scrap  away!  I backed the heart area with some purple glitter paper.  The background was made from some of the "spray play" papers I created previously.  I used a small punch to cut the little hearts out of gold foil card and a Recollections die for the word "hugs", I cut it again from black card that I used as a drop-shadow..  I mounted to a gold mat and a black mat to finish it off.  I am having fun with purple!
I hope you enjoyed my tag and that it will inspire you to make use of some of the scraps that you might normally throw away.
Have an awesome day, overtone!
Kim  xo

New "Dream" tag for "purple" t challenge at #onelittletag

Hello friends,
This weeks theme at The One Little Tag Craft Challenge  was purple inspired by the new pantone colour of the year.  We are doing any purple for the challenge, though.  I had a bit of a crazy week, so I didn't actually finish any tags until Friday night, but I did work on them, in bits and pieces, throughout the week.  Purple is okay.  It is not my favourite, nor my least favourite colour.  I didn't find it overly inspiring, or so I thought!  I thought I would look around for some patterned paper (of which I have reams and reams, lol) but not much in the way of purple.  It's just not a "go-to" colour for me.  Then I thought I would look through my "spray play" backgrounds that I created previously.  I was completely surprised to see how much I actually used purple. That was the jumping off point, suddenly I was totally inspired.  I created several tags this week, and may still make a few more!

I created this tag using a background I made using a variety of spray inks and stencils, this one on shimmer card from Recollections.  I thought the background looked kind of "dreamy" so I used a Recollections die to cut out the word.  One combination I really like is purple and gold, so since I am using purple, there is going to be a lot of gold in the cards and tags that I make!  It's hard to tell in the photo, but there is a lot of shimmer and veins of gold running through this background.  I liked how this tag turned out.

I hope you enjoyed today's tag, and thanks so much for stopping by.  If you did, I have made several tags for the purple themed week, so please come back and check them out!
Have a great day everyone!
Kim xo

New #timesup tag for #onelittletag craft challenge

Hello my friends!
It has been quite some time since I have posted.  There have been a lot of things going on in our life and it has taken a bit of a toll on my creativity and the time that I can dedicate to doing my blog.  But, I have to admit, I have missed this.  For any of you that have followed my blog in the past, you may know that I started this a couple of years ago when I joined a FB group called "The One Little Tag Craft Challenge".  The idea behind this group was to try and make a tag a day, even if you just wrote a word on a shipping tag.  The objective was to stay creative every day.  I didn't create any tags last year, although I did till manage to do a few new paintings (I will add photos to the Paintings page).  Well, the FB group, created by Jenny Barnett Rohrs of Craft Test Dummies, is still going and I am back to creating some more tags.  I don't know that I will be able to make a tag a day, but I am inspired to at least try and do a couple a week.  This year, should any of you be interested in participating, you can post whatever you have created, it doesn't have to be tags.  There are weekly challenges to help inspire you (but are totally optional) and giveaways!
I am going to start with the second weeks challenge, because I won the giveaway! The challenge was "black out" inspired by Oprah's wonderful speech at the Golden Globes and the "Me too" Time's Up  campaign.  Here is my tag that was chosen at random to win the giveaway.

The first weeks challenge was "doodling", so I did some very primitive watercolouring (I am not a watercolourist, by any stretch!), and then added some doodling to create my poppies.

The stamp I used was from a new set I just got from Michaels.  It is a "Kelly Creates" set with beautiful brush lettered words.  It is a large set and it only cost $4.99 (that is in Canada, so may be even cheaper in the US stores)  I wanted to mention this because I thought it was an awesome deal, which surprised me because I usually find things expensive at Michaels without the coupon.  There are 8 different sets, and they were created to help to learn brush lettering (which is now a new thing I have decided to try my hand at!).  There are several stamps in each set with some great words.  These are not in the usual stamp section.  There is a new journaling section, in the various local Michaels, anyways, that carries these stamps, brush pens, some new "letter it" Ranger products, journal mad worksheet. So if you would like some of these stamps, you may have to look around for them.  The staff weren't really familiar with them when I was looking for them.  I just thought I'd mention this because I love to share a good deal!

Well, thanks for taking the time to join me and please come back again soon.  Now that I am back to making some tags and feeling inspired to post again, I hope to have lots to share!
Cheers!
Kim  xo

New "Tags" page and up-dated "Paintings" and "Cards" pages

Hello my friends!
I don;t have a post for today, but I did want to let you know, for those who may be interested, I have added a new page to my blog, "Tags".  I did many tags last year for the One Little Tag Craft Challenge, all of which are posted on my blog.  I thought I would do a page of tags so that it could easily be scrolled through for anyone who likes tags or is looking for some tag or card inspiration.
I have also added some photos to my "Cards" page and my "Paintings" page.
Please have a look if those are of interest to you.
Have an amazing day everyone!  xo

"Peace" Another Christmas card in my series based on the #onelittletag colour challenge

Hello my friends!  Welcome to my final (so far!) Christmas card in a small series i am doing based on a colour challenge inspired by Jenny Barnett Rohs and her FB group called The One Little Tag Craft Challenge   based on the photo below.  She used a colour mixer app to draw a colour scheme from the photo of the pot of fall mums.  I have based this series of Christmas cards on this colour scheme.  I love the fact that these cards don't follow the "traditional" Christmas colours!




I first blended some distress ink on my background.  Then I splattered some water, with a little perfect pearls mixed in, over the inked card.  One of the fun things about distress ink is how it reacts with water.  I die cut my elements out of black card and for this card, I switched up the light tan for gold foil card, to mimic the colour challenge.  I added some Wink of Stella to my black card to give it a little sparkle. I assembled all my pieces and layered my card with the same golf foil card , and then onto a black card.

for this card I used seedless preserves, worn lipstick and shaded lilac distress inks.

I used a  Tim Holtz Sizzix die, a Penny Black die and a Memory Box die for this card

Thank you so much for letting me share this little series of Christmas cards with you.. I hope you have enjoyed them!  If you haven't seen them already,  please check out  the other Christmas cards in this series created using the colour challenge from The One Little Tag Craft Challenge

This is my final post for the day, and the final card in the series, for now!  I can't promise there won't be more later because I am really enjoying this colour scheme.

Thanks again and have an awesome and artful day!

Deer in the Forest Christmas Card based on the #onelittletag Colour Challenge

Hello my friends! Clearly, i was on a roll!  Welcome to the next Christmas card in a small series i am doing based on a colour challenge inspired by Jenny Barnett Rohs and her FB group called The One Little Tag Craft Challenge   based on the photo below.  She used a colour mixer app to draw a colour scheme from the photo of the pot of fall mums.  I have based this series of Christmas cards on this colour scheme.  I love the fact that these cards don't follow the "traditional" Christmas colours!




I first blended some distress ink on my background.  Then I splattered some water, with a little perfect pearls mixed in, over the inked card.  One of the fun things about distress ink is how it reacts with water.  I die cut my elements out of black card and a light tan card, to mimic the colour challenge.  I glued the die cut images together, offset just a touch, to give a highlighted look.  I assembled all my pieces and layered my card with the same light coloured tan card , a black layer and then onto a black card.

I used wilted violet, picked raspberry, squeezed lemonade and abandonded coral

I used a couple of Tim Holtz Sizzix dies for this card

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you have enjoyed my latest Christmas card!  If you did, please check out  the other Christmas cards in this series created using the colour challenge from The One Little Tag Craft Challenge

Warmest Wishes Christmas Card using a #onelittletag Colour Challenge

Hello my friends!  Welcome to the next Christmas card in a small series i am doing based on a colour challenge inspired by Jenny Barnett Rohs and her FB group called The One Little Tag Craft Challenge   based on the photo below.  She used a colour mixer app to draw a colour scheme from the photo of the pot of fall mums.  I have based this series of Christmas cards on this colour scheme.  I love the fact that these cards don't follow the "traditional" Christmas colours!




I first blended some distress ink on my background.  Then I splattered some water, with a little perfect pearls mixed in, over the inked card.  One of the fun things about distress ink is how it reacts with water.  I die cut my elements out of black card and a light tan card, to mimic the colour challenge.  I glued the die cut images together, offset just a touch, to give a highlighted look.  I assembled all my pieces and layered my card with the same light coloured tan card , a black layer and then onto a cream coloured purchased card.

I used wilted violet, picked raspberry, squeezed lemonade and abandonded coral

I used a couple of Impression obsession dies and a Memory Box die for this card

I also used a sentiment from a Penny Black stamps set.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you have enjoyed my latest Christmas card!  If you did, please check out  the other Christmas cards in this series created using the colour challenge from The One Little Tag Craft Challenge

Santa Christmas Card using #onelittletag colour challenge

Hello my friends!  As some of you may now from my recent posts, I am in the Christmas card mode!  Those of you that have been following along for a while, may also know that I have been participating in a FB group called The One Little Tag Craft Challenge  .  I started off the year very diligently, but as the year has progressed and life has gotten busy, I have not been posting as often, but I have not abandoned my very first challenge, and really my inspiration to even start my blog (along with wanting to share my art with my sister).  So, while these next few posts are not tags, they are still inspired by Jenny Barnett Rohs and her FB group.  Her most recent challenge was a colour challenge based on the photo below.  She used a colour mixer app to draw a colour scheme from the photo of the pot of fall mums.  I have based some Christmas cards on this colour scheme.  I love the fact that these cards don't follow the "traditional" Christmas colour s!




I first blended some distress ink on my background.  Then I splattered some water, with a little perfect pearls mixed in, over the inked card.  One of the fun things about distress ink is how it reacts with water.  I die cut my elements out of black card and a light tan card, to mimic the colour challenge.  I glued the die cut images together, offset just a touch, to give a highlighted look.  I assembled all my pieces and layered my card with the same light coloured tan card , a black layer and then onto a cream coloured purchased card.

 I used wilted violet, picked raspberry and abandonded coral

I used a Lawn Fawn and a Cherry Lynn Designs die for this card.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you have enjoyed my latest Christmas card!  If you did, please check out my next few posts with the other Christmas cards in this set created using the colour challenge from The One Little Tag Craft Challenge

Tag# 9-26 "Rock your Sweater"

Hello my friends.  Just a very quick post today sharing my latest tag.   I am still participating in The One Little Tag FB Challenge .  I am not getting a tag done every day, but I am still inspired to make tags and be creative and I enjoy seeing other peoples creations..  This tag was made using my new Elizabeth Craft die that I got at Scrapfest.  So it may look familiar to those of you that had a look at my Scrapfest haul.  I have been wanting to use it, it looked so fun.  So now I actually have about half a dozen sweaters done up!

I used mostly off cuts from previous projects to die cut the sweater from and trim the tag from.  I used 2 different stamps.  The top stamp is a Kaisercraft stamp and I masked off "...be jolly"

I hope you enjoyed my tag for today.  

I am thinking of doing a "12 days of Christmas" tags or cards tutorial.  If you would be interested in seeing this, please let me know in the comments.  Also let me know if you would like tags, cards or a combination.

Thanks so much for joining me!

Craft Haul! Things that I didn't expect to find at the dollar store.

Hello my friends.  Today I am doing something a little different than I normally post.  I don't usually do hauls.  I did do one with my goodies from Florida, but as a general rule, it's not something I normally dot.  I have always found handy things in the craft aisle at the dollar store, but occasionally there are some little unexpected gems.  All of the items in this post, with the exception of the stamp sets,  were purchased at Dollarama..  First let me clarify one thing.  Not everything in Dollarama is $1.  In fact, most things are not anymore.  At first they jumped up to $2, then $3 and now items range up to $4.  That being said, sometimes $4 is still a good deal.  I find a lot of things that I can use, but what I don't usually find are brand-name products.  It is a hit and miss thing.  When there's something good on the shelves, they don't usually last long.  Not all stores seem to have the same things  I imagine these are probably discontinued items, but that doesn't bother me at all.  I did not get all of these things at the same time or at the same location, but I wanted to share the things that  I ave found so that if they are the kind of things you are interested in, you can keep an eyes open for them the next time you are in your local Dollarama,  if you have one where you live.  There are a few items that I am also going to show you that came from an independent dollar store near my friend's cottage that I also considered a good find..  As we all know, crafting can be an expensive hobby, so it's always nice to find  a good bargain and still fell that we got a quality product! Maybe your local dollar store will have some nice surprises sometimes.

These are full sized, 12" x 12" cardstock  pads(not light paper)..  Some sheets are embossed and all of the sheets in the Glitter pack have some glitter on them.  There were some nice and interesting pages in them.  $4 each.  I felt that they were a great deal.  Especially considering that the regular price at Michaels (which I NEVER pay!) is $29.99 for similar paper stacks from the same company.

These were very pretty vintage style  die cut heavy papers.  They are all printed 2 sides.

 

Recently, I have been seeing a few different Martha Stewart products available in Dollarama.  The glitter is irredescent and very pretty.  Something that I can't capture in a photo.

Some K & Company embellishments and ephemera for $1.

I was very surprised to find some EK Success punches for $3 each.  These were found at different locations.   The large punch with the stars is a 2-step punch.

I have had these paper pads for a while, every once in a while I would see them  at Dollarama and grab them.

I particularly like this paper pad and I have made several cards with it.  I have to confess, at $2 each, I have a few in my stash!  To be truthful, I have at least a couple of each paper pad and stack that I really like.  I'm sure these are all older products, but I am making cards and tags, not promoting products, so it doesn't matter to me if they are out-dated as long as I like them.

Now these stamp sets were not  purchased at Dollarama.  They were bought at an independent dollar store near my friends cottage.  Lynn called me up and told me that they had these cute stamp sets and asked me if I wanted her to grab them for me. The price was $1.85 each. !!! Granted they are not top quality, but they aren't bad clear cling stamps.  There are several in each set and many that I will find useful.  Those of you that are stampers know how expensive some stamp sets can be.  Great find, Lynn!  There were some other things that Lynn picked up for me as well, but I wanted to share the stamps.

There are several other items that I get from the dollar stores.  I find a lot in the craft aisle at the DollarTree as well.  There are glitter paper, metallic  cardstock, adhesives,  small paper pads, embellishments and more.  Another thing that I keep my eyes open for  are some cool paper napkins that I like to use as backgrounds and collage elements.  It's a great technique, here are a few examples if you are interested "From London to Paris tag"  Elegance tag"  "Bonne fete tag"
 There are a lot of regular products usually found in these stores.  But I wanted to show you a few of the little gems that aren't usually found, not in the stores where I live at least.  So have a look around your local dollar store and perhaps you too can find some little treasures and get more out of your crafting budget.  Sometimes finding these little goodies are almost as fun as using them!

Thanks so much for joining me!  I hope you are as lucky at your local dollar store  as I have been at mine.  Actually, a thought went through my head as I was doing this post.  I think that I will challenge myself to make a couple of tags just using dollar store items.  So stay tuned for those!

Have an awesome and artful day, my friends!

Another "Merry Christmas" tag Tag # 5-25 #onelittletag

Hello again my friends!  This is my Christmas tag for May.   This catches me up, although honestly, I am enjoying making these Christmas tags.  I have a lot of stuff in my Christmas stash to use up, so I may just keep making them for a bit.

For this tag, I used a Tim Holtz stencil to create the brick background.  I used Barn Door Red and Vintage Photo distress ink.

The door was from my stash, cut using a Tim Holtz die.  It was cut from Recollections shimmer card.  I edged the door with distress ink.  I die cut my sentiment from a new  Yvonne Creations die I recently got.

The wreath and bow were from my stash, also cut from a Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers  die. I alsoe edged these with distress ink.

I punched out a door knob fromf gold card which I also used to create a background layer

After assembling the card I mounted it to black card.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and checking out my latest Christmas tag.  I hope you have been enjoying them.

Have an awesome and artful day!