I'm Back! Sorry for the long hiaitus

Edit: If you came here from Tim's website looking for my tag/card, scroll to the end!

Well, here we are. The day after election day. Now that I've started to get over the initial impact of everything and have had time to focus on work and some productive things, I thought I would take a moment and update my blog because... well... I haven't in a while.

Since June, a lot of things have happened. My roommate at the time moved to Toronto, so I had to move into a new housing situation, that then required ANOTHER move at the end of July, so there was a lot of moving going on.

Professionally I had some awesome opportunities to work with some great students in a program called Camp College that helps underrepresented kids explore college options in a weekend sleepaway camp of sorts.

A photo posted by Steve Jenks (@centaurofattn) on Jul 15, 2016 at 7:55am PDT

Of course I HAVE been creating a little bit too. Here is a quick update of some of my art projects I have completed.

I made a lantern and "old passport" project for PortalBurn, a regional Burning Man event that I attend every summer:

A photo posted by Steve Jenks (@centaurofattn) on Jul 24, 2016 at 9:57am PDT

Casually sewing a book together with floss because wax string isn't in my budget haha

A photo posted by Steve Jenks (@centaurofattn) on Aug 2, 2016 at 4:38pm PDT

And then I went off to Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada, which was life changing (cliche though it is to say). Here are some of the art projects I either made or was involved with:

Well, to no one's surprise I made a fun travel document holder instead of packing for my big trip tomorrow. Oops. #BurningMan2016 #timholtz

A photo posted by Steve Jenks (@centaurofattn) on Aug 21, 2016 at 7:25pm PDT

It's heeerrreeee #KindredSpirit

A video posted by Steve Jenks (@centaurofattn) on Aug 4, 2016 at 8:43pm PDT

And two pics of me in the desert:

My daily look basically

A photo posted by Steve Jenks (@centaurofattn) on Sep 9, 2016 at 3:44pm PDT

Space whale

A photo posted by Steve Jenks (@centaurofattn) on Sep 10, 2016 at 12:06pm PDT

You can check out lots of other awesome pictures and videos of my time at Burning Man here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0ByJiFrFAyylQeHhqM1pnNE9heEU

I also made some cards:

Up wayyyy too late, but finished building my bed and made some cards for Facility Services Appreciation Week and a colleague who got a promotion. Love that coffee die set from @tim_holtz

A photo posted by Steve Jenks (@centaurofattn) on Sep 15, 2016 at 10:46pm PDT

Otherwise I haven't been super creative to be honest. Working on my penmanship and read some books (finally). But I did manage to get back on the tag challenge boat. This is my entry for the Tim Holtz tags of 2016 remix challenge for November:

A photo posted by Steve Jenks (@centaurofattn) on Nov 6, 2016 at 6:48pm PST

So with that, I hope to update you all more regularly (and perhaps use the fun blog tab I created on this thing and then decided not to use... whomp. But I guess this can go there soooo I shall tag it as such.

Get excited for the holidays and get started on your cards if you haven't already! Pro Tip: use www.Postable.com to keep track of all of your addresses. Every year you can click a refresh function and everyone gets an email to update their addresses if they moved!

Till next time,
Steve

Summer of Creative Chemistry!

So Creative Chemistry with Tim Holtz has sort of relaunched which is great! I get to review the stuff from Creative Chemistry 101 and then finally sign up for 102 and then 103! Lots to learn and unfortunately probably lots to buy in the near future.

Part of the summer is creative challenges and this time around we were tasked to use stains and stamps. So here is what I made as a quick card for my best friend who loves costumes:

You can find out more about the classes here: http://www.onlinecardclasses.com/blog/2016/05/27/announcing-tim-holtz-summer-creative-chemistry-plus-new-class/

12 Tags of 2016 - March

If you previously took a look here and saw the short post, sorry about that. I was in rush to get some things moving before I hit the road for work. Now I can expand a little bit. Here is my tag for this month:

Classic me, I didn't have a lot of the supplies I would need to follow Tim's example closely, but I made it work. The theme and wording is a little odd because I actually needed this tag to fit with a theme for a gift I gave someone so I had to be even more creative than usual.

Some highlights to this technique are cutting out a stamp with an exacto knife since I didn't have a small die that would work here. Behind that is a tag with thinlets from the butterfly/French stuff collection that revealed a nice pattern. Instead of the distress crayons, I just used a few layers of distress paint and water to get a similar effect. Here is Tim's tag for the full effect:

12 Tags of 2016 - February

Something odd happened with this tag. I waited until a little later in the month because I had other things to work on (like work... life... stuff like that) and so I found myself making a Valentine themed tag well after the actual holiday. It felt weird. Like I wouldn't make a Christmas card in January either. Just strange. But it still came out great haha. Here is my tag:

Some of the highlights here are the background, which turned out really well. I also really liked the contrast of the hearts on the blue. It turned out better than I had thought it would. When I added the lace to the top I mistakenly left it a little too wet and it made the top bleed--which turned out to look really cool! Yay for happy mistakes! I also finally bought some flashcard things and added my own script to make it a little more V-Day. I discovered my alphabet chips set is very light in the "L" department but finally found one. For the button, it was already zig-zagged and I added more texture paste and red and rust colored embossing powder to make a puffy heart. All over I opted to use a red to do the edge distressing instead of my usual vintage photo, which made for a nice contrast.

Here is Tim's tag, which this is based off of (including the same photostrip pic, even though I was sure I picked a different one...grrr...):

Get excited for the March tag next week, lovers!

-Steve

I got a new calligraphy pen and now I can't stop!

Greetings friends! So I have been using a flat-edged ink pen for some of my fancier writings for a while now, but finally broke down and bought an actual pen and nib to do nice calligraphy with. And now I can't stop! But that's okay because lots of people have been getting great little gifts and letters. I think I may have mentioned recently that I try to write two letters every Wednesday for More Love Letters, and so I try to get some practice in there to send a nice note to a stranger or two.

Recently, Lindsey Bugbee over at The Postman's Knock challenged her readers to create four things using our creative juices. Some of the projects even came with some great extra stuff that I will link to as relevant.

The first task was just to illustrate something. I drew a lotus with my pen and then water colored it in with Distress pens and a water brush. Then added a small reminder to relax so that I could place this on my desk haha.

Next was to make a card for someone. I made this for my boss after a nice chat on the bus. She likes peonies and wanted to be a radio DJ when she was in college. Tried to throw that together with my usual stuff and TA DA!

Then we had to make a goal sheet that showed off what we wanted to accomplish in the new year. This beautiful work is faux calligraphy by me, but awesome template by Lindsey. You can check out her post on how to get it FREE here: Printable Goal List

Finally, I needed to make an artsy envelope. For this I used a ton of stamps, some washi tape, texture paste, and my fancy pen. This envelope didn't take my nib too well so it looks more like a love letter from a pirate than some of my nicer penmenship, but I'm sure it will be well-received all the same (it's for a card for this weekend, obviously! But I won't share the card until next week as to not spoil all of the surprise).

So that's all for now. The next post will hopefully be my tag for the month because I haven't done that yet, but it could be something else. Who knows?!

-Steve

Congrats and Good Luck Cards

Quick post of some cards I made recently. One of my colleagues got a new position and had her last day on Friday. Saturday was another co-worker's audition for a masters program in viola. So naturally I stayed up super late on Thursday to make some cards :)

The Good Luck card is on the left and features a music paper background and then watercolor paper with Distress Inks and stamp. The Good Luck card is on the right and is ink and watercolor paper as well. All of the stamps were from Tim Holtz collections.

Sam Sparro - We Won't Need Anything But Love - Lyrics

My whole life I had this feeling
What we see is not the ceiling
Must be more than what they're teaching us
Thought that all we needed was love

Nights I lie here contemplating
Why we spend our lives just waiting
For something that might be saving us
When all we really needed was love
Was love

Maybe when the world stops spinning
It will only be beginning
Galaxies are spirits living above
We won't need anything but love
No we won't need anything but love
But love

12 Tags of 2016 - January!

So this year Tim Holtz is doing a "remix" theme on his tag challenges where he takes two older techniques and remixes them together to create something a little new. I don't know if any of my readers are tag makers (or, like me, just do this challenge) but I have a ton of tags and nothing to use them for. Or so I thought...

Here is my tag:

Not only did I remix the techniques, but I took my thriftiness to a new level. Here are some fun facts on this tag:

• I didn't have any black paper, so this is a blue chalkboard. Get over it.
• People always jokingly ask if I'm going to reuse my holiday paper...I did. In fact, the person that gave me that present then received this tag made from the paper out of spite so I hope he noticed :)
• I needed a birthday card and also a way to make this wonderful tag disappear. So I turned it over, added some calligraphy paper and wrote a nice message on it. I then slipped it between the gift and some yarn. Ta Da! Birthday Card, One less tag, and no need for an envelope!

Here is the tag that inspired this:

Hope everyone had a great New Year and I'm excited to share a bunch of new things this year. I've taken up calligraphy recently so expect a ton of writing samples to randomly pop up.

-Steve