12 Tags for Christmas 2019 - Believe in the Magic

So, all it takes is a prompt from Simon's Monday challenge and I'm off! This week's theme is "Cityscape" (add some buildings) and that was the inspiration for tag number eight.

The building image (Carabelle Studio Dans la Rue) was stamped on old book paper, tinted with inks and colored pencils then embellished with dimensional dots painted and glittered to look like Christmas string lights.

The little miss was cut from a Found Relative (Tim Holtz) and the kitty looks just like Howie, my cat, who turned 18 this month. It's Christmas everyday for this little guy who I spoil beyond belief!

12 Tags for Christmas 2019 - Pine Grosbeak

The idea for this third Christmas tag for 2019 was a happy accident that I followed through on with a few deviations in between.  Let me explain.

I die-cut the holly (Tim Holtz Mixed Media Christmas) from a book page and placed it on top of some paper scraps. One of them was an enlarged half-tone image from a vintage book and I thought the various dots peaking through looked cool so I decided to use it.

The bird was cut from a vintage book. It was originally black and white and I added color with red ink and collaged over the branches. I've never seen this bird myself but they live in colder climates. Imagine coming across one foraging in the snow! I love birds :-)

I created an oval with dimensional paint drops (Scribbles) and painted over the outside section to create the vignette.

I distressed it with sanding, added the washi tape and a Remnant Rub and then made it an official Christmas tag by embellishing it with platinum Stickles.

I'm linking to Simon's "Tape It Up" Monday challenge.

Here's a link to Christmas tags from previous years if you'd like to see more (or use the link in the label section below).

Miss Trudy

I'd sure like to know the story behind this lovely little girl but for now, I'm calling her Miss Trudy. She's a Tim Holtz Paper Doll and I stained her clothing with the ink from gel pens (scratching the darker areas a bit to lighten and texturize).

The background was stenciled (Tim Holtz Dot Fade) and I stamp embossed the border using a vintage rubber stamp (1996) by Hero Arts called Violet Border. I am featuring this stamp as part of the company's 45th anniversary Show & Tell celebration for a chance to win their monthly kits.

I am so glad I dusted it off and set about putting it to work as I'd forgotten just how useful this stamp can be!

My tag was colored with Distress Oxides, some gel pen ink and a bit of colored pencil. The bench was made out of washi tape.

I had a lot of fun with it so it's no coincidence that I chose this particular Remnant Rub for the text!

I'm linking up to the Hero Arts Show & Tell Celebration and also to Simon's Monday challenge because this week's theme is Use Stencils.

Tell Your Story

. . . even if no one is listening.

Made for Simon's Monday Challenge - Whatever the Weather

Stamp credit: Stampers Anonymous "Chemistry Notes"

Explore Life

It's "Things with Wheels" this week at Simon's Monday Challenge so I rubbed Distress Ink (Cracked Pistachio, Faded Jeans, and Dusty Concord) on a manila tag, covered it with Tissue Wrap, pasted on a fussy-cut image (thank you, Vintage Everyday), used a Distress Marker (Old Paper) to tint the dress, and added a Remnant Rub.

My go-to glue these days may surprise you: Elmer's Re-Stick.

I've always used glue sticks for convenience (and you can't beat the price) and even though these are smaller than the kind I was using, the glue dries slowly so you have plenty of time to spread it. And this property allows you to reposition whatever you are pasting which is a big plus too.

Love Always

Tim Holtz (Idea-ology) came out with a new product this year called Baseboard Dolls and I received some of them to use on projects for the Creativation booth. The little girl on this tag was a Baseboard Doll that I converted to a regular one by peeling her off the substrate.

She sports one of Tim's new Transparent Wings and I used a flower from the previous version of Botanical Layers that also comes on sturdy paper which I peeled off to make more suitable for collage.

The background was part of the instructions from a needlework pattern that I tinted with Distress Ink.

I dabbed on a very small amount of alcohol ink to tint the wings (originally clear) with a combo of Butterscotch and Watermelon and some hand-sanitizer to help dilute it and spread it around.

They were attached with a drop of epoxy in the center of the girl's back and the remainder of the wing surface moves freely.

Click to Enlarge

For the first time, I also used a product call Nuvo Crystal Drops (Olive Branch) to make dots along the tag border.  Some of you probably know how much I like to use Scribbles (a 3D fabric paint) or Liquid Pearls to create a similar effect but that paint is opaque and this product is transparent, behaves like a tinted version of Glossy Accents, and I like it a lot!

I'm linking up to Simon's Monday Challenge Blog--this week's theme is Love is in the Air.

12 Tags for Christmas 2018 - No. 3

I've used another Penny Black stamp called Tree of Holly for this tag and I'm linking to their Creative Christmas Challenge and also to Simon's Monday Challenge for the "Let It Snow" theme.

I used embossing ink and silver powder for stamping then filled in the tree with the juiciest, most powerful purple in my arsenal of crafting supplies--Seedless Preserves Distress Stain.

I filled in the holly and berries with paint and glitter, added more bling to the border and placed a Christmas Remnant Rub from a few years back along the bottom.

The snow was made with texture paste and a stencil by Simon Says Stamp called Falling Snow.

To see more of my Christmas tags you can click on the label at the bottom of this post or use the link I've placed in the sidebar.

Simply Discover

You'd think working in monochrome would be easy--yes? I have found it to be easier said than done.

And so, for this week's linkup to Simon's Monday challenge, I took the easy way out and went with a black and white theme.

It started with a background paper (Paper Studio B/W Abstract), layered under a page trimmed for the base from Prima called Epiphany.

The luna moth was printed from some clip art then cut-out and pasted and embellished with gray paint and black and white pens (Sakura gelly rolls and Pitt big brushes).

There's a little washi tape, some Remnant Rubs, and a stamp from a set by Tim Holtz called Stamp Collector.

One of my favorite tools used for the black shading around the moth is a Derwent Sketching pencil--Dark Wash 8B.

Minnie Nolan's Boarding House

My grandmother had a habit of writing on photographs of family members. While maybe not great for the appearance, I do appreciate the documentation.

This photo was the kind that is printed on a postcard. It was identified as "Minnie Nolan's first boarding house in Kansas City."

I used the actual photo (rather than a copy) with its wrinkles, writing and a missing corner and applied a thin wash of off-white acrylic paint to block out the background.

It was mounted behind an Idea-ology Collage Frame dressed up with various pieces of Tim Holtz paper stash (the vines were cut from Wallflower).

The polka dots (Tim Holtz Dots & Floral) were stamped on his new Plain Collage Paper and layered over the upper left corner. I made dots around the oval with Scribbles (3D fabric paint) and distressed some metallic numbers to blend in with the overall color scheme.

I cut a piece of book board to cover the back and painted the edges. I trimmed the frame's border with lines of black and gold metallic inks.

The butterflies are some digital clipart that I printed on vellum and cut-out. The word "legacy" is a Remnant Rub.

I don't think Grandma Nell would mind what I did with her photo, it's better preserved now and her notes have been transferred to the back of the frame.

Glorious Actions

God bless America...

Linking to Simon's Monday Challenge Blog,

this week's theme is Red, White and/or Blue.

Precious Things

What to do, what to do...

I can't bring myself to use the papers included in this month's Simon card kit because they are just too pretty! Seriously.

And I couldn't bear to cover up the background of a tag made with a new embossing folder (Tim Holtz 3D Botanical) because it was just too pretty, too!

So I tried to think of a design where I could leave most of it showing and here's what I came up with.

I really played around with distressing the background. I embossed a rather thin piece of pink paper (after slightly damping it first) and then I gave it a coat of Krylon clear matt finish to seal and protect it.

Then I went crazy with gesso, inks, and paints--brushing on, wiping off (and even a little bit of sanding), just to see what worked the best to bring out those glorious embossed details.

Who could blame me for not wanting to cover this beauty up?!

The girls are Paper Dolls (Tim Holtz) and the butterflies came from the Graphics Fairy which I printed in miniature on vellum and then cut out.

Some tiny jewels (tinted with alcohol ink), a scrap of vintage sheet music, a Remnant Rub (text) and a border made with dots of Liquid Pearls were also used.

I tinted the Paper Dolls with transparent acrylic paint and the white of the pearls and lace were made with a Gelly Roll pen. I had a tiny butterfly that was just the right size for sitting atop the little girl's hair bow.

I'm linking this up to Simon's Monday Challenge Blog, this week's theme is Anything But A Card.

Now, what to do about those pretty papers...

Extra Ordinary Joy

Embracing the old and the new and some extra-ordinary joy with this tag, made on-the-fly today because I could and I did.

I have a lot of side-projects going on related to reorganizing my crafting space. Like converting some favorite wooden stamps to cling now that I have a stamping platform. I tested one of them today (French Collage) using a Big & Juicy stamp pad (remember these?) on a manila tag. And I just couldn't leave well enough alone. So....

I curated a Found Relative (the latest release has new images) and fussy-cut it like I used to before there were Paper Dolls.

I cut out some images from a newly purchased stamp set called Stamp Collector, then foraged around for more paper bits and found the leaf/vine cutting and the polka dot paper (I save most of my scraps).

Put it all together with a glue stick, add some Remnant Rubs and Scribbles (the dotted border) and there you have it. Extra Ordinary Joy!

Limited Edition

Inspired by a mood board for Simon's Monday challenge this week, I have created a tag that is a very literal translation. But I just couldn't help myself as something about a cracked egg as a vase for flowers resting inside a tea cup really spoke to me.

I didn't have a tea cup stamp so I printed an image of one and the flowers were cut from the Wallflower paper stash. The background stamp is by Heidi Swapp, the tinting is Walnut Stain Distress Oxide and regular Distress Bundled Sage (on watercolor paper) and the text is a Remnant Rub.

Cool in the Shade

My favorite teachers? The passing of time, experience, practice, experimentation, mistakes. Case in point this tag (made for Simon's Monday theme "Whatever the Weather"):

1. Learning how to use Photoshop's recompose tool to crop this photo without losing the photograph's border frame.
2. Experimenting with Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Ink technique on glossy paper with mixed results (too much water, not enough ink?).
3. Applying crackle medium to paper, the product I use has to be applied really thick--it was too thin this time to show up.
4. The benefit of delaminating some Idea-ology paper stash to reduce bulk when collaging (text piece is full thickness, report card area was made thinner). Each time I try this, I get better at it. The trick is to gently rub off the back with a little water after peeling away as much as you can.
5. The flowers (Idea-ology ephemera) were also delaminated because they are easier to refine with cutting when the paper's not so thick.
6. Proved again that for me, the best way to tint a photo is still using a dab of ink from a gel pen with a little water (the turquoise in the wallpaper behind the teacher, for example).
7. Appreciating that without adding a little whimsy to the piece an observer might think it too serious and wonder about my mental state. (Perhaps you should anyway.)

The weather connection is in the Idea-ology text from the Memorandum paper stash. I do believe this teacher is cool in her shades. Also note the Red Precipitate Ointment which is a nice touch--don't you think?

By the way, my favorite human teacher was Mrs. Jennings who had the patience to work with me in the 5th grade when I refused to learn multiplication tables and provided comfort from bullies.

Feeling Noteworthy

The bird's crown is a Remnant Rub. Many of the older rubs have been discontinued. I am unhappy about that because I find them so useful. So I have no other choice but to hoard them.

Anyway, today my intention was to make a valentine-themed tag but I veered off-course (a good excuse to try again later) and made this tag instead.

The botanical bits came from an older 7 Gypsies paper collection called Conservatory. A vintage Germania postage stamp, scraps from a book page and yes, more Remnant Rubs (don't get me started) were also used.

I thought I'd speak a bit about my dotted border. As I use this decorative element quite often, I have a few tips in case you want to give it a go. I prefer Scribbles which is a dimensional fabric paint but also use Liquid Pearls.

When applying, don't touch the applicator tip to the paper as you will get a splotch instead of a dot. Rather, gently squeeze some out from the tip and delicately touch only the drop/paint to the paper then pull it away. Don't worry if it peaks a little, it will settle as it dries.

If you goof-up (and you will, it's inevitable)--fear not. Just keep a toothpick handy and scrap off the mistake as best you can. Then move on. Keep dotting ahead. Afterwards, you can go back to the boo-boo and use a knife to scrape away the dried bits that might still be there. Then put your new dots back in. I had two areas on this tag that I had to re-do and no one (except you) will ever know.

Find Away

I like challenge blogs and my favorite is the Simon Says Stamp's Monday Challenge Blog. And I really, really like challenge blogs when the theme is to create a tag or something with a tag attached.

As I am rather fond of the format :) for this week's Tag It challenge, I used both suggestions and made a tag with tags.

Tim's tiny stamps, washi, tissue wrap, remnant rubs, found relatives and fabric bits were used to create my, dare I say? unconventional masterpiece. No matter what you might think of this tag--you gotta love that faucet (so much detail in such a tiny stamp)!

12 Tags for Christmas 2017 - Joy to the World

♪♫ ♪ "On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me ..." ♪♫♫♪

Ten years ago today, Tim Holtz began the tradition of blogging about techniques for creating 12 Tags for Christmas and I've continued to make them every year since then to decorate my presents.

This year, I decided to post them in 12 consecutive days beginning December 1st just like he used to do and my first tag features a simple, understated design with an early American or Georgian vibe.

The background is pearly paper with clear-embossed snowflakes (Kaisercraft Frosted) that was tinted with Faded Jeans Distress Oxide.

I coated the book paper die-cuts (Carta Bella Joy Wreath) with Glossy Accents and created additional contrast by using a blue gel pen and a water brush (which soaked in underneath).

I gave the entire surface a wash of dilute white acrylic paint and took advantage of the resist properties of the Glossy Accents by wiping the paint away from the die-cuts where there was overage.

I used a Remnant Rub to complete the phrase and made a frame border with 1/8" silver metallic ribbon (Offray) tinted with off-white acrylic paint.

To age the appearance a bit more, I rubbed on Frayed Burlap Distress Ink here and there and added some Liquid Pearls along the bottom for a touch of Christmas bling.

Kept Her Word

I've been experimenting lately with image transfers over stenciled texture paste using large, solid designs so I thought it was time to try the technique over a more intricate stencil (Tim Holtz Floral).

I used one side of a page from Tim's Memoranda Paper Stash to cover the stencil and another page from the same collection was used for the tag's background.

The little miss is also an image transfer, Remnant Rubs were used to cover the red-bordered labels and a Clippings Sticker became the sentiment.

I consider my experiment a success although it was a little harder and more time-consuming but doable just the same.

And, because this is Not a Card, I'm linking it to Simon's Monday Challenge Blog where the theme this week is to make anything but. Two entries in one week will double my chances of winning and I'm itching to buy some Christmas goodies. Wish me luck!

Labels

This is an artist trading card (ATC) and it's the size of a standard playing card. It was made (along with three others) for this week's theme at Simon's Monday Challenge Blog.

I'd never made an ATC before but it's not much different than a tag size-wise and I like working small. Mine became a series rather naturally as a result of using a group photo fussy-cut from a book.

Below is a view of the four of them together but you'll have to open the light-box view (just click on the photo) to get the full effect.

Here's what the original photo looked like before I began to assemble the collages. The children (students) were all lined up in front of their rather impressive school building.

It was my intention to use materials/design elements that best reflect my current style: The fussy-cut figures, Distress Ink stains, stamped tissue paper, Remnant Rubs (Gilded Accents), postage stamps, polka dots (washi tape) and machine stitching.

The children's manner of dress (some without shoes), the mix of age groups and their expressions (perhaps being photographed for the very first time?) are all very endearing and illustrate perfectly why I like working with vintage photos so very much.

Cat Nap

This week's theme on Simon's Monday challenge blog is Little Critters and I found myself pouring through my "stamp book" (I keep a record of all my stamp images in a 3-ring notebook) to look for one.

One benefit of participating is you end up doing or using things that you might not otherwise consider.

My tag was made by stamping (vintage Stampin' Up, circa 2001) on a notecard made by Prima, tinting it with colored pencils and a bit of Distress Ink, placing dots around the edges with black Scribbles (3D fabric paint) and using a few Remnant Rubs.