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Another month, another tag for the Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2013 challenge.  I made 3 similar tags this month.  Two were sent to swap partners on swap-bot and one is staying with me for now.

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It’s no secret.  I like tiny things.

So when I saw a swap on Swap-bot for a tiny keepsake matchbox, I was inspired to join and create this for my partner.

Outside of the matchbox

Inside of the box

I wrote my partner a letter about the Steampunk adventure we can take with this tiny kit.  Of course, we can enlarge the items with our handy-dandy shrink-o-matic ray gun whenever needed.  The kit includes a tiny pair of goggles, a few extra gears in case we breakdown, some laughter, and a light bulb to always light our way.  The skeleton key on the outside is good for sneaking into interesting places.

Gotta admit – I enjoyed putting this little guy together.  For details on how to make your own keepsake matchbox – hop over to the Pixie Hill blog for her Lovers Memento matchbox tutorial.  And I want to thank Mar1|1ze on Swap-bot for hosting this swap, otherwise I would never have known about this craft.

Another Month, another Tim Holtz tag.  Yay!

Actually, I made 3 tags this month.  Here are the first two:

The two above had purple and green for my swap partners.  The 3rd one was more green, and I added a word stick for an inspirational quote since that was the theme for that particular tag swap.  The one below is probably my favorite.

And here’s the Tim version that I was trying to emulate:

I didn’t like the tinsel behind the bunny, so I tried some glitter stickles instead.  I didn’t quite like that either, so the 3rd tag used some chocolate colored craft-core – I prefer that look the most.  Now I wish I had sanded and inked the craft core of that bunny.  Oh well, there’s always the next time.

And there were no metal foilage flowers to be found in my town, nor distress paints!  No worries, I just made some fabric flowers using canvas, distress stains, and the smallest of the tattered floral die to make my flowers.

What else did I improvise?  Oh yeah, the die cuts.  I didn’t have that grass one, so I hand-cut my grass.  And I don’t have the bunny die, so I just cut out the bunnies using my Silhouette electronic cutter instead.  That’s why I have a left and right bunny in the top photo.   My other improv was the background paper.  Since I didn’t have the Tim Holtz paper, I made my own Spring themed digital collage using graphics found at The Graphics Fairy and the Tammy Tutterow vintage images.  (Have I mentioned how much I love, love, LOVE the Tammy Tutterow blog?  She’s my favorite blog right now.)

So that’s my tags for March.  Drop me a comment and say “hi” if you’re reading this.  It’s nice to know I’m not just typing to empty ethers over here.

I haven’t been making many ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) anymore.  I find their size kind of limiting and I prefer a little bit more room like a #8 shipping tag works better for my style.  But I recently made an easy little ATC for the Tim Holtz Addicts group on Swap-bot that I would like to share…

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I’m putting my papercrafting and altered arts on the backburner for a few weeks so I can catch up on some dollhouse work.  My little puki dolls are getting restless so I need homes to keep them happy.  (I’m not sure if this was playing or fighting with clothespins…looks like somebody is about to get smacked upside the head.)

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I was reading blogs a few days ago and saw the cutest paper doll on a matchbox.  The legs are 2 matches.  It was the perfect papercraft for the Doll Lovers Swap group I recently joined.  So I made the little boxed dolly above.  She’s on a little 32 count matchbox.  The paper doll is from BrigetteB which I shrunk in a graphics program to make it small enough.

This was Inspired by a project found at the ArtfulPlay blog.

Even though I’m not good at drawing, I want to design some of my own paper dolls on watercolor paper and color them in so I can make more of these.  Matchbox crafts are like eating potato chips – you can’t stop at just ONE.

Another month, another altered tag inspired by Tim Holtz.

Here is his version of the tag (click photo for his tutorial):

I didn’t have that queen of hearts stamp, so I laser printed a tarot card of the Lovers for February and used that with distress markers instead.  I must say – using distress markers on watercolor paper is a whole new world compared to using them on cardstock.  I will definitely be doing more laser prints onto watercolor and then coloring in those images in future projects.  Loved it!  I don’t have many rubber stamps, but I have lots of digital images so I tend to make laser prints rather than stamping – it’s more versatile that way.

So here’s one of the tags I made:

Wanna see it closer?  The text is the tarot card description of the Lovers card.

Then I scooted out to the craft store for charm bases and made another card so I could try the charm technique.  Here’s the 2nd tag:

Close-up details:

My glossy accents dried all wonky and I didn’t notice that until I took these photos.  So I need to add another coat to smooth that out.

I liked the techniques this month, but I must say I didn’t like using tissue tape for the string and I won’t be doing that again.  I much prefer dying the rayon ribbons for that.  I also lean towards stitching somewhere on the tags as an embellishment.  It’s nice to hone in on one’s own style and doing these 12 tags of 2013 is already teaching me what sets my style apart from others.  A worthy excercise – to say the least!

I recently joined a swap in the art doll group on swap-bot where we were to make a piece of jewelry inspired by an art doll.  So this is what I came up with…

A few trinkets were attached to the chain, along with a flower brooch and a pocket watch with a doll face inside.

The pocket watch is not the Tim Holtz ones, but instead I got the Explorer brand from hobby lobby.  I think the watch case was $4 when that brand was 50% off.

Press the button on top of the watch and the front pops open.  The dollface is polymer clay molded in an Amaco push-mold.  It was antiqued and painted after it baked, and then glued into a bezel and placed inside the watch that was lined with tissue tape.

The flower is cut from wool felt, lace and tulle using the Tim Holtz tattered flowers die.  A vintage rhinestone button was added for the center and then I attached a pin back to the flower so it can be removed from the necklace or positioned elsewhere.  I liked the idea of transformer style jewelry.

The necklace was wrapped around a crochet doily and placed in a velvet bag, with an altered art tag added for fun.

The necklace looked so great adorning the dress form in the photos.  I picked up that fabric form at goodwill for $7 and it now sits in my craftroom window.   She looks naked without her necklace.  I’d better get busy on the next one.

I love swapping on swap-bot because the swap themes give me a nice jumping off point for a craft idea.  And the deadlines make me get off my butt and MAKE something.   Here’s an altered art tag I made for the “love themed” tag swap in the Crafting Queens group on swap-bot.

The fabrics were from 2 shirts – a pink floral blouse and a beige lace blouse.  Rip ‘em up and sew the bits on – that’s my motto.  The ripped cotton strips also make pretty ribbons to hang art tags with.  Near the bottom of the tag where there’s a zig-zag stitch on pink rosebuds – that’s some washi tape from Maya Road that I found at the Archivers store.

The free-motion embroidery text was sewn onto a piece of felted wool before attaching to the tag.  (yep – an old wool blazer gave up it’s life for that!)  I pulled the text from an old Lenny Kravitz song title.

I liked this tag a lot, it was hard to send it off.  But there are plenty more tag swaps in my future to keep me busy crafting new stuff.

I sent this plaque off to a swap partner last week because she was a Star Trek fan and had a Vulcan alter ego.  I totally get it, because Vulcans are my favorite race on Star Trek.  They’re so logical and patient, yet they are good-hearted people.

The plaque was a piece of canvas with various bits of fabric patches sewn on.  The fabrics were all 2nd hand garments like aqua silk, pink linen, and a vintage doily.  The printed fabric was actually a little girls dress.  I printed the Vulcan proverb onto muslin with my inkjet printer.  Then a few vintage buttons were added for texture.

After everything was sewn to the canvas, I glued the canvas to a wooden plaque using tacky glue.  Where do you find wooden plaques?  You go to the thrift shop and look in the picture section.  You will find lots of ugly plaques just waiting to be painted over and repurposed – usually for less than $1.

And for all my Star Trek loving friends…did you know JJ Abrams has a SECOND Star Trek movie coming out in May 2013???  I already have the cinema gift cards reserved for those tickets and I’m so excited to see the new Kirk and Spock and Bones again!  So until next May…

Live Long and Prosper.