Catching up - Tim's 12 tags

Day 3

I'm trying to catch up with Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas. He shares so many wonderful techniques, like the tag above.  I don't have all the supplies he uses in hos projects so have made substitutions, which I think is a good thing as it makes me dig out things that haven't been used for a while like the the background stamp I used in day 3's tag.

Day 4

For Day 4's tag I used the carved ornaments 2 die as I don't have the snowman die or the snowflake on-the-edge die so used the icicle embossing folder.  I'm really pleased with the way this one turned out. 

Day 5

This one is a fairly simple tag, but I love the mirror text stamp and the archival ink stamping on alcohol ink technique.  Added embossed snowflakes to the bottom with a bit of bling.

I spent most of my weekend working on an explosion box card commissioned by a work colleague - this is the first one I've ever done - I really hate to have to measure anything and wasted so many sheets of cardstock.  I'm really happy with how it turned out and have to thank fellow ATT members for the inspiration and the instructions on how to create the rosette snowman.

It's started!!! Tim's 12 tags of Christmas

I know I still haven't updated my blog with the rest of Tim Holtz's Crafting in the Caribbean Cruise but I will get round to it soon.

I can't believe it's the 1st of  December already, I love looking forward to seeing what Tim's going to come up with each day, had a sneaky peak at work :)  really just wanted to get home there and then to make my version.  I don't have the Noel die(yet!) so used Tim's Joyful Christmas stamp embossed in silver instead - this is my favourite Christmas greeting stamp.  I love the tattered pinecone die and the festive greenery.

Tim's version is here  and this is mine:

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 1

I still haven't got all my Christmas cards made yet, just a few but I always find that Tim's tags inspire me to adapt his ideas to use in my cards - I just need to clear some space on my table so  that I can actually get to work :)

Gesso background card

Telescoping Card

Stepstair Card

The cruise part two...

CocoCay, Bahamas

Monday 26th September was a beautiful day and we arrived in the Bahamas at CocoCay, an island owned by Royal Caribbean.  It was so warm, the sea a beautiful blue, soft sand and palm trees everywhere - paradise.  I had booked myself on an ecoboat tour, but had a bit of time to kill beforehand so wandered around the colourful market.

CocoCay Coconuts!

Perry, the tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and entertaining.  CocoCay is also known as Little Stirrup Cay and is part of the Berry chain of islands, and is about 50 miles from Nassau.

Freedom of the Sea at CocoCay

 It was so refreshing to feel the seaspray and cool breeze while on the tour, and every so often we'd stop and Perry would stand in the bow of the boat with a big fishing net then pull things out of the sea.

Conch

 First we got to hold a large conch, beautiful colours and Perry told us that this one was around 5 years old and was going to be his dinner that evening :)

 Next came a large starfish, they become hard to the touch when out of water to protect themselves, and would soften again when returned to the sea and no longer felt under threat.

Stingray

After the boat tour, I wandered around the island for a while, and had a paddle in the sea.

I spotted a little hermit crab trying to climb it's way up the steps to the bar - maybe it wanted a Crabbies Gingerbeer(teehee).

We had a barbecue lunch on the island, and I found a great spot on a picnic bench in the shade of some trees.  A few people were making their way to another table then all of a sudden I saw them tearing off in the opposite direction - I wondered what was happening then I spotted the cause of the uproar, two iguanas decided that they wanted some lunch too!  There were chickens wandering about too, and they didn't seem bothered about the iguanas, so I couldn't resist trying to get close for some photos.  I was trying to get him head on, but he decided that his profile was much more photogenic

iguana

ready for my closeup

 

 Back on board we had our first workshop that evening. I was in group B, our class was at 8:00 that evening.  We decorated an insert for a cup, great first project and the cup proved to be very useful to take to class without worrying about spilling drink on your projects.  It didn't take very much materials to complete the project but as always with Tim we had more then enough supplies to make a different insert for every month if you were so inclined.

Cup of creativity

Back to reality - can't believe it's over..

All ready to go!

It's been a few weeks now since I returned from the most wonderful holiday - Tim Holtz cruise to the Carribean.  It was an amazing experience, even better than last year - I think because it was my second cruise I knew what to expect and wasn't so nervous, and I was sharing with my roomie Carolyn from last years cruise too.  This time we were sailing from Port Canaveral, so the flight was a bit longer than last time.

We decided to spend the night at the Disney All Star Sports resort in Florida before the cruise, we had hoped we'd arrive in time to meet some of the others for dinner, but it took us so long to find the right place to get the Disney Magic Express, then get checked in that it was too late. We hit the diner then just crawled into bed - long day of travel.  Loved the towel mickey on the bed though!

Next morning we had a few hours to kill before taking the shuttle to Port Canaveral to board the ship.

First order of the day was breakfast, pancakes with warm strawberries and extremely crispy bacon, the pancakes were so good - must be healthy a wee bit - did have fruit with them :)

We then had a walk around the resort, the place is so big and beautifully laid out, there's a wonderful pool, a Disney store, diner, amusements - we didn't see all of it.

While walking around I saw a shadow darting across the ground, and found this wee fellow on a tree, who knew lizards could be cute?

I loved how the stairs to the upper apartments were made to look like lifeguard stations - and just loved the beautiful blue sky.

The shuttle came to pick us up, and we got to see some of the other resorts and beautiful scenery on the way to the port.

Near Port Canaveral

Disney ship at Port Canaveral

Boarding the ship went really smoothly, and just as we stepped on board I heard voices calling my name - it was Pat and Lorraine, who Carolyn and I had met on the cruise last year.  It was so great to see them and catch up.

Lorraine

Pat

This time our cabin was on deck six, just above the Promenade deck, which made it so handy for getting to the conference centre for class and Mario's marketplace.  Last time it took almost to the end of the cruise before we worked out the easiest way to get there!

Children's pool

Promenade

Later that evening we had our welcome reception, we were given our ScrapMap cruise tote - a mini rucksack, and then all madly swapped out our trades before Jim West introduced Tim and his team.
My trades seemed to be well received, and I gave one to Tim too - think he liked it.

My trades - dress form pencil holders

It was great to see fellow crafters I'd met on the New England cruise, and to put faces to the usernames on
cruise yahoo group.  There's so much to write about and photos to share that I'm not going to try and cram it all into one blog-post.  Stay tuned for the next installment :)

!3 Tags of Halloween - and a sneaky peek :)

!3 Tags of halloween

Back of tags

 I've spent most of the weekend immersed in distress ink, glimmer mists, rubber stamps, ribbon, tags, die cutting, embossing folders - great fun:)  Wanted to complete my tags for the All Things Tim Yahoo group 13 tags of Halloween swap.  This is my first swap on the group so hope they are well received.  I stayed up late on saturday night to work on them and to take part in an online chat with Jim, Tim and Mario about the cruise in 2 weeks time - but I got so caught up in playing that it was almost 2:00am before I signed in and everyone was saying goodbye!

I still haven't finished my cruise swaps but plan to do so this week, my case is already mostly packed.  Really looking forward to meeting up with some of the lovely ladies I met last year and making new friends and of course Tim's workshops, Mario's store and the studio at sea.(And the food, sightseeing, warmer weather, and not forgetting the towel animals)

Vampire blood vial!

 
This year I've decided to enter Craft Stamper Magazine's Stamper of the Year competition. I finished one entry today and I think it's turned out really well.  Don't want to give too much away but I've included a couple of sneak peeks below