Tag, You're It!

The new challenge at Dilly Beans Designers and Friday Challenge blog is to make a tag and I couldn't resist...

 

 

I used Ginger and Cinnamon digi stamps and used my Promarkers to colour them in summery shades of yellow and orange before cutting them out:

 

 

I cut a tag from kraft card and inked the inside of an embossing folder with Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink before running the tag through the folder. 

 

 

I attached the cut-out images using foam pads and finished things off with some layered flowers, a few teeny tiny gemstones and some ribbons.

 

 

I love how this tag came out. The colours are all warm and bright and summery and the two girls look like they're standing in a summer garden. :)

 

I'm going to enter this tag into a couple of other challenges:

Crafts 4 Eternity Recipe Challenge - Anything Goes

Cut It Up - Summer

Graph'It Colour Challenge - Blonde Hair

Simply Create Too - Anything But a Card

Crafty Ribbons - Anything with a Ribbon

MilkCoffee Challenge - Emboss It

Creative Moments - Anything But a Card
Divas by Design - Anything Goes

 

 

All the leaves are brown...

...and the sky is grey...

 

Well, it certainly has been recently! Thankfully, the worst of the weather seems to have moved on now and we even had sunshine for most of today! I'd almost forgotten what it looked like! :lol:

 

Appropriately enough, the theme of this week's challenge at the Dilly Beans Designers and Friday Challenges blog is autumn colours and I decided to play with my Distress Inks and make a pretty autumn-coloured tag:

 

 

 

I used Distress Inks and Perfect Pearls to make the background and coloured the image with my Promarkers, adding a few highlights with a white gel pen. I stamped the sentiment (a Stampotique stamp) and some foliage (a K&Co stamp) in black Archival ink and rubbed a little Inka Gold around the edges, finishing things off with some butterflies cut from gold textured card (cut with my Stampin' Up! Beautiful Wings Embosslit - I use this die sooo much! :lol:) and some lace and wooly fibres.

 

One thing I'll say about using Perfect Pearls... much as I love the effect they give, it doesn't half make it hard to photograph the results when using a daylight lamp! :lol: Might try and take some better photos in daylight tomorrow. In the meantime, here's an attempt at a better look at the sentiment and here's what the tag looks like without the daylight lamp... the autumn colours look really nice and warm in artificial light. :)

 

 

Curse you, Tim Holtz! ;)

I've had to go to my local craft shop twice in two days, thanks to you! :lol:

I bet they're loving the Creative Chemistry 101 course as much as I am, though for different reasons! :D

First I had to go buy some light-coloured Adirondack inks to complete one of the techniques from Wednesday's class, cos although I had Adirondack inks (as listed on the class supply list), I only had em in black and brown. And then I had to go back again today to get some Cut n Dry felt to do one of the techniques from Thursday's class! Thank goodness they had what I needed in stock cos I'm an impatient gal and it sets my teeth on edge when I can't complete everything from each class. ;)

So, now that I've managed to complete the missing techniques, here's a round-up of my technique tags so far:

Aren't they looking fabulous? :) I've already repurposed a big ole book ring to store all my tags - it's going to be a fabulous resource to have hanging in my craft room when the course is over.

WOYWW - 21 March 2012

It's Wednesday once again (technically) and time for another whistle-stop tour of craft desks the world over. I've been a busy little bee tonight so my desk is looking quite creative in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

I firstly finished off a funky little project I'd been working on (more on that in a later post - it's lurking in the photo below though, if you can spot it ;D) and then after that I cracked on with Day 2 of Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 101 course.

I had lots of fun making these tags... I've tried all these techniques before, with varying degrees of success, but it makes such a difference to follow Tim's "live" instructions on the video, rather than just reading the instructions in a book.

Looking forward to tomorrow's "lesson"! :)

12 Tags of 2012

Have made a rather last-minute decision to join in with Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2012.

I've always liked the look of his 12 Tags of Christmas but things are just too manic in December, especially in the last 2 years(!!), for me to have time to join in. So I like the idea of doing Tim's tags at a rather more leisurely pace - although this one was a bit of a rush, given my late decision to take part! :lol:

I didn't have half of the yummy stash that Tim had to play with so I did my own take on it, using the same or similar products where I had them and making the rest up as I went along! :)

A Rather Goth-y Tag

Here's a little tag I made for a couple of challenges. It came out rather goth-y! :)

My original idea was altering the microscope slide by stamping the Ching Chou Kuik (from Sweet Pea Stamps) image onto it. I heat embossed the image and coloured it in using ProMarkers. I then painted gesso over a torn-out dictionary page and used that to back the slide - you can faintly see the text through the image in this close-up:

 

I decided to mount the slide onto a tag - I used black card and clear embossed it with a Crafty Individuals flourish stamp before spritzing with Lava Red Cosmic Shimmer ink and splattering Hot Pink Mica Dylusions across it. I attached the altered slide and, to finish, added a ruffled flower made with black lace (originally a scrap of cream lace which I recoloured with a black inkpad!) and a pink Prima felt flower, and more black lace, along with some black fibres, at the top.

I'm entering this tag into the following challenges:

Passion for ProMarkers - Alter something not square

Sweet Pea Stampers - Embossing

In a Sweet Pea Dream - Anything Goes

Blingy enough for ya?

This week's challenge theme at Simon Says Stamp and Show is Bling! And seeing as I'd just recently invested in some new colours of Stickles, it seemed like a match made in heaven...

This photo doesn't really capture the "bling"...

But this one does. :)

I coloured this tag with Distress Inks and then rubbed a thin layer of various colours of Stickles over the top and left to dry. I then edged with Tea Dye ink and stamped some TH steampunk images to form a background. I then stamped the umbrella man, the clock face and the wording and heat embossed the last two with black embossing powder. To finish I added a length of TH film strip.

I love how this turned out. It's at once vintagey and distressedy but glittery and vibrant. :)

Butterfly Tag

This is a tag I created for this week's challenge over at Simon Says Stamp and Show:

I had lots of fun with this getting inky and messy and playing with lots of different techniques. I stamped a couple of swirls (using a Crafty Individuals stamp) in white Adirondack Paint Dabber and then inked the background with Distress Inks, wiping the ink off the paint swirls to let them show through. I then stamped a few background images in Sepia Archival ink (using Tim Holtz stamps) and spritzed with lemon juice and heated for a funky aged effect (as used in the latest issue of Craft Stamper magazine). I then had a play with some UTEE, stamping into melted UTEE to make a chunky embellishment (also a technique featured recently in Craft Stamper magazine):

I then stamped some butterflies across the bottom of the tag and embossed them with clear embossing powder (a bit hard to see in the main photo):

I stamped the wording in Sepia Archival Ink and then stamped more butterflies in brown StazOn onto acetate, cut them out and folded up the wings and attached with Glossy Accents. To finish off I edged the whole tag with Sepia Archival ink and added a scrap of cream lace which I'd inked a little with Tea Dye Distress Ink.

Vintage Tag

Had a play last night with some of my yummy Crafty Individuals stamps and made this tag:

Stamps are CI-306 and I used Distress Inkpads in Spun Sugar, Tattered Rose and Tea Dye for the background and Sepia Archival Ink for the stamped designs and used the Tattered Rose inkpad to paint in the corset and parasol. I added a piece of cream lace and stitched a border with brown cotton thread.

I'm entering this tag for the monthly Crafty Individuals challenge (pink,cream and brown colour scheme) and also the weekly Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge (stitching). :)