Move Over Tim Holtz, Gloria is in the House!

I gotta admit that I think Tim Holtz is the most talented guy out there. Besides, a guy who likes to play with ink and paper?! You gotta love him, right? My friend Lori was showing us a "Tim Technique" at our LSS club meeting the other night, so I decided to come home and poke around on Tim's website - mostly because I was supposed to do a Tim Holtz inspired tag challenge for Crop Stop for today. I got inspired and pulled all my distress inks and a bunch of other stuff that was gathering dust in my scrap mess. Here is the tag I ended up making for the Challenge. (Go the Crop Stop Message Board, and check the Cuttlebug Folder for my tutorial on how to make this tag!)

While I was at it I made a few more tags for some other projects (which will remain secret for a few more days/weeks.) I just had the fever to play with all my inks and stamps. Then it hit me what I wanted to make! A number of years ago, I took an altered art journal class and I've since lost the journal (or given it away). But I remember how much fun it was to make and I have wanted to make another one for a while now. I also had to do a project for MOSD for today and I thought, why not use a MOSD Hip 2 Be Squared album and make another journal? And that's exactly what I did! Check it out!

I used two shades of green alcohol inks to color the front acrylic cover. Then I added my altered art piece to the cover. Each of the 6x6 Hip 2 Be Squared chipboard pages is a "chapter" heading. I then added 5-6 blank 6x6 sheets of heavy cardstock between each "chapter" for my journaling and artsy musings. I bound the whole thing with my Bind-it-All tool. Here you can see the inside front cover.

This is one of the chapter headings - Sketches. Each chapter heading has an altered tag art attached. This is the one I made for the Crop Stop Challenge. See how I used the Cuttlebug Embossing Folder on the Grunge Board hinge?!

Here is another chapter tag. This time I stamped on the Grunge Board butterfly. Very cool, right? Below are a few more chapter headings.

(This one is blurry, sorry.)

Below are a few of the journal pages. Besides being a place to journal, these pages are for trying out different art techniques. It's a place to play and be creative.

I adore this arsty book! And 6x6 is the perfect size! I hope you are inspired to make a mess, too! I will have more altered art coming soon! Once you get all this messy stuff out, it's best to make the most of it! Thanks for looking!