It's MARCH already!!!

A very warm "HELLO" and  welcome to everyone who is reading this.
It has been quite a while since I posted anything...
I don't know how it goes with you, but I came to a time when I seemed to be reevaluating everything. I love ART in many forms, and it wasn't about giving up my papercrafting...I just didn't seem to know what direction I wanted to go in. I was very busy with a scrapbook I was working on for a grandson's graduation from college (important stuff right???) and a great-granddaughter's baby scrapbook...they were so much fun for me...
but somehow blogging about them or putting any of those pages into challenges just didn't seem to be something I wanted to do.

I continued to read your blog entries and devour all the tips, tricks, new techniques and ooh and aah over all the new stuff to buy. But I kept myself from buying hardly anything because it seemed like I had so much stash already that buying more was almost greedy. I used the stuff I already had and tried to put the new techniques to work. I think that all of us who do this for the love of crafting, come to the place where using the stuff that's been hanging around becomes a real challenge.

In keeping with the idea of using stash we already have on hand, I also decided to take some new classes or participate in free tutorials that are around the internet. I need an injection of new teaching with stuff I have and don't really know how to use all that well. It isn't that the information is not out there...it  just takes time to work along with someone who is teaching new ways of using a product and learning it so well that you can apply it to whatever you are wanting to make.

So, on to my first project I have made to enter into a challenge.

I chose http://www.simonsaysstampandshow.blogspot.com/ because they feature Tim Holtz AND I like their site a lot.

I Stamped the tag with TH wildflowers stamp, using VersaMark and then embossed in white.
I then layered Distress ink colors onto the background and spritzed with water to get the colors to blend and topped it off with Tattered Angels' "Wheatfields" spray. I love that spray...it's very subtle but beautiful.
I stamped and cut out the TH bird on a limb and colored it with watercolor pencils.
The fence is a TH die cut and I tied brownish hemp cord over it.
I colored an acrylic round, small tag with alcohol blue & green ink and attached an orange butterfly to it.
It is slipped onto the hemp rope with a small ring.
I just watched TH attach beads to a new tag he made and I loved that look. So, I did the same by attaching the beads into the ribbon at the top of the tag.

I am happy with the results. There's lots more I want to learn to color & embellish my projects but this is a good beginning.

I am giving this to a friend for a belated Birthday. Hope she likes it.

Thank you for reading through my ramblings.
If you have anything to share with me from your life...I would love to read it.

Blessings,
e