The beginnings

One day long ago, well not really it's only about 3 years ago now (ha ha) I was introduced to the style of Tim Holtz.  Little did I know he would take me on this amazing creative journey and inspire almost everything I create.  It first started with the foamy tool and the distress ink pads and my creative world skyrocketed from there.  From the little metal embellishments to something as simple as a stamp, the sky is the limit and this is only the start.

I wanted to share my first real creation that I made for a friend of mine from Toronto.  He has been on his own journey of fighting cancer and a special day came along for him that I wanted to celebrate by making something special.  So my chipboard albumn journey began.  Many hours of my heart and creativity poured out into this project and it's one of my proudest accomplishments.  Not only because I loved it when I was done but because he appreciated it even more (I wish you continued positivity in your journey Nicolas).

Canvas printed

Photo is printed on sticky back canvas (LOVE)

 

A Day of complete creativity

Yesterday was a wonderfully creative day with a really good friend.  We accomplished a lot and had some fun doing a little shopping at a local Christmas craft fair which has become a yearly outing for us.  Thank you Barb for an awesome day.

So what did I get done well just wait for it!

1. A wonderfully delicious little gift tag with a bit of grunge factor to it.  Tim Holtz your my inspiration!!!

 2. 4 sets of my FUN little Christmas card and gift tag boxed sets.  These were a hot little seller at my work last year so I thought I would create some new and fun one's again.  My inspiration was a 2011 paper line from Cosmo Cricket called Dear Mr. Claus.   Eeeeeps, Christmas and retro all rolled into one!  Heaven!!

Set #1  - Tis the season for baubles and snowmen

 Set #2 - You light up my Happy Holidays

 Set #3 - Isn't he lovely

4 - Christmas greens and reds

 

I also had a few minutes to throw this little gal together.  Doilies are an awesome and easy way to dress up a card or page!

 
 

Hanging out with the pretty things

Quite some time ago I came up with an idea of how to display/store my wonderful jewelry.  Why have it hiding away when you can look at it each and every day.  Also it's a reminder of what I do have in my arsenal ;)  So today I finally took on the challenge of creating my creation.  Voila my jewelry a la frame was created.  The best part .. it only took me about 15 minutes.  How did I do this you ask?  Well here you go:

I found this fabulous frame at a garage sale in the spring.  It's an art trying to find actual wood frames nowadays and this one is all wood.  I cleaned it up a bit but did not do anything with the color.  Isn't she fabulous??  Next I had traveled to the hardware store and found some mesh wire to use at the background to hang the earrings on.  I cut the wire to size so it fit right into the groove on the back of the frame.  Next step .. staple, staple, staple.  I stapled the wire right into the frame and that was it.  Yes really, that's all it took to do this.  Preferably if I had some cording I would finish off the back of the frame to ensure none of those sharp bits end up hurting the wall but for now it looks wonderbar!

I love taking something old and making it new again and this by far is one of my favorite projects to date.  I have a whole bunch more of these frames in my storage which I will be working on as a winter project.

Next I'm off to my annual creative paper crafting weekend.  Imagine, log cabins, the forest, the lake and 3 wonderful days of creating.  Eeeps, I'm a little excited because a) the scenery (just bought a new camera. b)the togetherness of friends and creativeness and c) getting pampered (we get fed and can go for "optional" massages .. really, optional and massages should not be in the same sentence.  Who wouldn't want to get a massage???

Anyhoo ... tally ho, will check in after my weekend.  I'll leave you with this.  The Art of creating is taking oneself and immersing one self in your inspirations.

Michelle

Some of my past creations.  These are projects that took me quite a bit of time and at the end of it I felt so AWESOME and the best part was the reaction I got when I gave it to the recipient :)

A albumn of all the favorite things I like to do as far as papercrafting goes.  This took me hours and hours but it was sooo worth it :)  This is just part of it.  Everything on here was either made from scratch or altered to fit the theme.  Tim Holtz was a bit of inspiration for this one.

 My neice's graduation card.  She loved it :) :)

 My nieces grad present - A shadow box of the creations that helped her get into Emily Carr.  She LOVED IT!!!  The picture is not that great but that giant black frame in the middle was just fabulous.  It was my 2nd inspiration .. right after her pictures.  She has such talent.

My newest venture.  Refinishing trunk sale finds :) FUN!!!!  This one is for sale $200.  Great as a outdoor patio bench or a entryway bench.