Day 48 & 49: Tim Awesome Holtz

I have a friend. Yes, it's true. Introverted, obnoxious and insane Tessa has a friend. She's actually been my friend for over 10 years. That makes it even more unbelievable, right? Her name is Erin and she is awesome. Since I've been unemployed, Erin's given me projects and paid me for my work. They all were projects for the company that she works for, up until this last project.

She has a sister that competed in a triathlon last year and Erin wanted to create a scrapbook for her sister's birthday this month. Erin's problem is that she has no time to do anything, sometimes not sleeping until she gets what she needs done. She's hired me to create this scrapbook for her and I was SO excited to do it!

But my anxiety is kicking in. I was going to start on the project several weeks ago when Erin first presented it to me, but two days later I got on a plane and left to Utah and didn't get back until last weekend. And then I got a job and I start on Monday (tomorrow). AHHH. My blood pressure rose just now.

I started on the project immediately after I got home from Utah and placed an order through Two Peas in a Bucket for supplies and Walmart.com for the photos. The photos took several days to print and then the photo quality wasn't very good. I got better photos from Erin and paid extra for the one-hour photo. At this point in the story it was Friday the 13th and I hadn't received my order from Two Peas in a Bucket. I double checked my order confirmation in my inbox and found the order wasn't even supposed to ship until the 18th of this month and I ordered it on the 9th. What? Yeah, that story makes me angry, let's just say I had to cancel the order and ran to Hobby Lobby to get what I could and placed another order through Scrapbook.com.

So I've been scrambling to try to get this thing done. The 8x8 album I got has a total of 20 slots for pages. So far I have 9 pages done plus some miscellaneous details that will be on future pages. I have to send it in the mail next weekend so Erin can have it in time.

These photos were taken with Adam's brand new iPhone 4. Lucky him has a company that loved him and paid for the phone and his service. It takes better photos than my camera!

Opening Page

Page 2

 

Page 3

Detail of Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6 - note super white Kate (poor photo quality), but there were almost no photos of her in her wet suit.

Page 7 - They couldn't take any pictures of her actually swimming, so this is Kate running somewhere after she finished the swimming portion.

 

Page 8

Page 8 detail

Page 9

Page 9 detail - I spent a long time on the swimming, biking and running length letters.

This is where the title "Tim Awesome Holtz" comes in. Scrapbooking can be a personal thing. Photos are a personal thing and you personalize the photos even more in a creative way that means something more. I had a hard time starting this project because I wasn't sure how to create the album in a way that would be meaningful to Kate and have the end product be something she would think is neat. She's not a very girly-girl and she doesn't have kids. She's not a fan of the colors pink or purple and sparkles or glitter would be too over-the-top for her. So creating an album that looks like either of my projects in my previous post would be a bust. I figured Tim Holtz's style would be a fabulous option. I've been browsing his blog for inspiration and found his 12 Tags of Christmas.

Dude. This.man.is.awesome. He's so inventive and smart and creative and GAH! I want to be more like him. In reading the tutorials on how he made his 12 tags I learned so much about the products that I already own. For instance my beloved Distress Inks are also embossing inks.

Had I not known the ink was also an embossing ink, I would've stamped this with red and then again w/ the clear embossing ink. Hooray for inventive people like Tim!

Again, how could I have not known this until today!?

And I can make stamps out of die cuts. Well, I'm not sure that I can yet, I haven't tried, and I'm pretty sure my Cuttlebug won't cut through a thick layer of foam, but still! Another trick is dying ribbon.

I had this ribbon that I purchased a few months ago from my Hobby Lobby's clearance section. I'm not much of a baby-blue girl. So I dyed it using the technique on Tim's blog. Awesome!!

I also learned a lot about using his embossing folders and that you can ink the actual folder before you emboss your paper. 

 

Only 11 more pages to go. Oi...