""Wild Horses" for the music prompt at #onelittletag

Hello my friends!
I am back again with another tag for the music prompt at the one little tag craft challenge. This tag is inspired by The Rolling Stones song "Wild Horses". I had my sister in mind when I created this tag. I was also thinking about my niece who lives in Northern Alberta. So far north that you have to use the ice roads to get there at this time of year. There are many wild horses where she lives, they have to put up fences to keep the horses out of the yard. As a matter of fact, she was recently late for work because two horses were having a scuffle in the middle of the road!

To create this tag, I used my homemade stamp positioner to stamp the horses first in brown archival ink. The stamps are from an Inka Dinka Doo set. Then I'm masked off the single horse using a mask I created from a piece of paper previously. I did not mask off the running horses. I use some makeup brushes that I got from the dollar store as ink brushes sometimes. They work quite well. (little tip!) I used various distress inks to create the background. A little bit of blue in the sky and various browns and green for the ground. I kind of swirled things around to look like dust and use my Copic opaque white ( ilovetostuff!) To create the dust clouds. Then I smooshed a few different distress inks on to my craft mat, spritz them with some water, and use my fan brush to add some splatters. I did the same thing with my copic white. Then I unmasked my single horse, and put my tag back into my stamp positioner. This time I used black ink to stand for horse, but I placed the ink strategically knowing that part of it would be Andy dust cloud so I didn't want it really dark.

To finish off the tag, I mounted it to a burlap paper mat  from a pad I got at the dollar store a while back. I thought the burlap really suited this tag. Then, as usual I finished it off with a black mat..

I hope you enjoyed today's take, and I hope my sister likes it!
Thank you so much for stopping by and allowing me to share some of my art with you.

Kim XO

"Tiny Dancer" tag for music prompt on #onelittletag

Hello again, my friends!
Here is another tag for the music prompt at The One Little Tag Craft Challenge. I am loving this prompt.  This tag was inspired by Elton John's "Tiny Dancer".

I used distress ink and gold ColorShine spray too create the background.  You may have already read this in my previous posts, but in case you are new here, I smoosh the ink onto my craft mat, spritz with water  and drag and pounce  the tag through the ink.  I do a few layers, drying in between, until I am happy.  I love the gold marbling effect created when I added the gold ColorShine.

I used a Cheery-Lynn Design die to cut out several ballerinas from a light pink card.  Then I edged them with purple and gold ink.  I arranged them on the tag finishing off with a gold dancer.  I used my label-maker to create the title.

Once the main panel of the tag was assembled, I used a gold mat and a final black mat to finish off the tag.

I hope you have enjoyed the process of creating this "Tiny Dancer" tag.  Thanks for, once again. letting me share my creations with you!

Kim xo

"Dreams" tag for music prompt on #onelittletag

Hello my friends!
This weeks prompt at The One Little Tag Craft Challenge is music.  This can be  interpreted any way we like, I have been using songs as inspiration.  I knew I would be fired up by this prompt, I have a hundred tags in my head that I would like to make!  This tag was inspired by Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams".

I started off this tag with some embossing.  I thought these bubble-like images would give the background a dreamy quality. I used a kaleidoscope  embossing powder that was glittery  with various sparkles of colour.  This would act as a resist to the ink that I add.

I did several backgrounds at the same time.  I smooshed distress ink onto my craft mat and spritzed with water.  I also added some Heidi Swapp ColorShine gold spray into the mix.  I dragged and pounced my tags through the inky goodness, drying in between layers.  I repeated the process until I was happy with the result.

As you can see here, the embossed areas resisted the ink.

I used a Spellbinders die to cut out the dream catcher from some blue foil board.  I love to use gold and silver foil board, but there is also red, blue and green in the package that I don't use as often, so I was happy to find a use for the blue.  I really liked the look.  I don't know why, but I think of blue when I think of dreaming.  I have heard that we don't actually dream in colour.  I don't know if that is true or not, my dreams seem to be colourful!

This is a "Kelly Creates" stamp set that I got from Michaels.  I love these sets and they are only $5 each! Even less if you have a coupon.  I usually find Michaels a little pricey, but was really happy with this purchase.   They all have about 18 - 20 words.  I thought this was a great deal.  Maybe I will do another post to showcase these stamps.  Anyways, Dreams was one of the words on this set.  I heat-embossed it with Rangers gold embossing powder on vellum.  I wrapped the vellum around the tag.  I did this so that it would mute the background enough for the word to stand out, but still visible behind the vellum.

Then I added a blue foil mat and my usual black mat to finish off the tag.

I hope you have enjoyed my process for making this tag.  Thanks so much for letting me share it with you.  Have an awesome day everyone!

Kim xo

Playing with distress inks and Color Shineto make some pretty backgrounds #onelittletag

Hello my friends!
I had some fun the other evening creating some backgrounds for some more tags.  I love playing around with different techniques which is why I always seem to be creating backgrounds for future art projects.  It's just fun!  This time I pulled out my original distress inks.  I squished them down on my craft mat, spritzed them with water and pressed and swiped my tags through the inky goodness.  I dried each layer and then dunked it again, adding more ink or water as necessary.  I like a little shimmer and  thought I'd pull out some Heidi Swapp Color Shine gold spray to mix in with my distress inks and I love the marbling effect it created.

This one actually has no distress ink in it, it is Gold and turquoise Color Shine spray, but done the same way.  I sprayed it onto the mat and added water and smooshed the tag into it!

I heat embossed a couple of tags to create a resist before inking them up for a different effect.

 I splattered the gold onto this tag

I just love how the gold marbled through the distress ink!

I will be using these backgrounds to create some more tags for The One Little Tag Craft Challenge.  It's all about the process and having fun!  This isn't a new technique for me, although it is the first time I thought to add the color shine.  But every time you do it, you get totally unique results.  So every project that you use them for will be unique, even if you finish them all off the same way.  I hope you have enjoyed having a look at my ink play, and I encourage you to give it a try, if you haven't before, and try it again, if you have!  You will be seeing some of these backgrounds very shortly on some new tags.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Kim  xo

Pretty Tag made from scraps for #onelittletag

Hello my friends!
Well, Wednesday is usually an Art Club day (Ajax Creative Arts), but the weather did not cooperate, and we had a snow day instead.  That doesn't mean that I  couldn't have a crafty day, though.  I will confess, I did not leave the house and wore comfy p.j.s all day!

For those of you that are new to my blog, at the very beginning of the year, I created several background sheets using spray inks and stencils.  I call them my "spray play" sheets and I created them to cut dowm into tags, or collage or use as backgrounds for an art journal page (which I am determined to do this year!)

I have cut out several tags from these pretty sheets already. (if you scroll through my blog you will see many of those tags) and I have been saving some of the scraps to use later to create  a different background

Some of the offcuts just looked so pretty to me that I didn't want to throw them away.  I had little bits from other papers I had used as well and I decided I would save them and create a tag with them.  I glued them down to some card and them trimmed all around.  I edged all around with gold ink.

I also did some die cutting today.  I find die cutting therapeutic for some reason.  I think I get a certain satisfaction when I run a paper through my die cutting machine and it comes out as a beautiful and intricate embellishment.  Sometimes I will die cut for hours and never actually create anything. True story, a Mimi fact, lol.  A snow day is a perfect day to bring out the Cuttlebug!

So this tag has a lot of die cut elements.  I created the flower using some lovely vellum.  Now, here is the day coincidence.  The new prompt for OLTC had not been posted yet this week and it turned out to be "music", to be interpreted any way we like.  So this tag, with its music notes, qualifies although I had no idea when I was making it! I think I will have some fun with this weeks prompt.  Stay tuned!

Thank you so much for stopping by to see what I have been up to.  For those of you that are crafty, I hope I have inspired you to use up some of those scraps instead of throwing them away, and  create something!

Kim xo

"Love Tag for #onelittletag

Hello my friends!
I was gone for so long, and now here I am, back again so quickly after my last post!  Feast or famine! The theme for the One  this week was "Love"  I was really pleased with the outcome of this tag.  I would love to be able to take credit for the design, but I can't, it was totally inspired by a couple of different cards that I saw on Pinterest.  I thought the design was simple but so effective.  I really liked it and wanted to give it a try. I'm not 100% sure how those were created, but I did what I thought would recreate a similar look.  I used distress inks in worn lipstick and Barn Door as watercolours.  I "smooshed" them (very technical term!) on my craft mat and used an aqua brush to paint with them.  I didn't use watercolour paper, I used Strathmore Bristol, and it held up well.  I wet the card fist and added the colour..  Then I used a brush pen to write a long script "love".  Then I die cut a heart from a Spellbinders die in my stash to create a stencil.  I used the Barn Door ink to stencil the heart.  I flicked a little water around, as distress inks are water reactive.  Then I "Smooshed" some more ink on my craft ma, spritzed it with a little water and used my brush to splatter it on my tag (I just love splatter!)  Then I scribbled some black ink from my brush pen on the mat and did the same thing..  I mounted it to some heavy black card and called it a day.  Although I am considering mounting it to some red card as well to give it another slim border all around.  Hmmm...

This is the other tag I created this week.  I used some patterned paper from my stash that had the word "love" all over it.  I used some Spellbinders Celebrations Hearst die to cut some hearts out of some of the other patterned papers in the same pad.  I also cut the heaty out of the background and inlayed all the hearts. I used a Tim Holtz stencil with some Barn Door distress ink over the entire background.  I tried to use white ink first with the stencil, but it really didn't show up very well. Then added some white splatters with some watered down white copic ink.  I die cut the "Love" using a Recollections die out of Recollections card.  I used the same red card as a backer to my tag.

I hope you liked my tags.  I have some more ideas for the "love" theme, so I will be back soon with some more tags!
Thanks so much for stopping by
Kim  xo

New #timesup tag for #onelittletag craft challenge

Hello my friends!
It has been quite some time since I have posted.  There have been a lot of things going on in our life and it has taken a bit of a toll on my creativity and the time that I can dedicate to doing my blog.  But, I have to admit, I have missed this.  For any of you that have followed my blog in the past, you may know that I started this a couple of years ago when I joined a FB group called "The One Little Tag Craft Challenge".  The idea behind this group was to try and make a tag a day, even if you just wrote a word on a shipping tag.  The objective was to stay creative every day.  I didn't create any tags last year, although I did till manage to do a few new paintings (I will add photos to the Paintings page).  Well, the FB group, created by Jenny Barnett Rohrs of Craft Test Dummies, is still going and I am back to creating some more tags.  I don't know that I will be able to make a tag a day, but I am inspired to at least try and do a couple a week.  This year, should any of you be interested in participating, you can post whatever you have created, it doesn't have to be tags.  There are weekly challenges to help inspire you (but are totally optional) and giveaways!
I am going to start with the second weeks challenge, because I won the giveaway! The challenge was "black out" inspired by Oprah's wonderful speech at the Golden Globes and the "Me too" Time's Up  campaign.  Here is my tag that was chosen at random to win the giveaway.

The first weeks challenge was "doodling", so I did some very primitive watercolouring (I am not a watercolourist, by any stretch!), and then added some doodling to create my poppies.

The stamp I used was from a new set I just got from Michaels.  It is a "Kelly Creates" set with beautiful brush lettered words.  It is a large set and it only cost $4.99 (that is in Canada, so may be even cheaper in the US stores)  I wanted to mention this because I thought it was an awesome deal, which surprised me because I usually find things expensive at Michaels without the coupon.  There are 8 different sets, and they were created to help to learn brush lettering (which is now a new thing I have decided to try my hand at!).  There are several stamps in each set with some great words.  These are not in the usual stamp section.  There is a new journaling section, in the various local Michaels, anyways, that carries these stamps, brush pens, some new "letter it" Ranger products, journal mad worksheet. So if you would like some of these stamps, you may have to look around for them.  The staff weren't really familiar with them when I was looking for them.  I just thought I'd mention this because I love to share a good deal!

Well, thanks for taking the time to join me and please come back again soon.  Now that I am back to making some tags and feeling inspired to post again, I hope to have lots to share!
Cheers!
Kim  xo

"Merry Christmas" Card

Hello my friends!  Today I am sharing a Christmas card that I have just finished.  As the season is approaching, I want to make sure I have my cards ready.  So if you enjoy holiday cards, you can look forward to seeing several, between now and Christmas.

This is an embossing folder that I received as a gift with a card-making magazine

 I will, of course, be sharing art, experiments and other tags and cards, as well.
Thank you so much for stopping by!  

Tag 9-15 "I can see clearly now" #onelittletag

Hello Everyone!  Here is another tag for the song lyric prompt.  Jimmy Cliff's "I can see clearly now"  I have always loved this song, something about it just resonates with me.

I wasn't sure what image i wanted to do to go with the lyric.  This ws actually a background I had created a while back.  I really liked it and have been waiting for the opportunity to ise it, and this seemed to fit.

I believe these are the colours I used when I crested this background.  That is a Tim Holtz stencil.  You may have noticed that most of my stencils are well used!

I hope you enjoyed today's tag.  here is a link if you would like to enjoy today's song, as well!

"I can see clearly now"

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Have a bright sunshiny day everyone!

Tag # 9-14 "Puppy Love" #onelittletag

Hello my friends!  I am back to making a few tags, lately.  The prompt at The One Little Tag Craft Challenge has actually changed, but it was song lyrics.  So my tag is based on a song lyric.

I recently got a new Tim Holtz stamp set, "Crazy Dogs"  and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use it.

I stamped the images onto some card stock.  I roughly sponged some distress ink over the images and went in and added a bit of detail with my distress markers and a white gel pen.  I had sponged over the eyes.  My intention was to add some "googly eyes", but do you tjink I could find them???  S,o, I coloured in the eyes with my white gel pen and added the pupils.  this actually worked out well because it allowed me to direct the dogs gazes.  

I used a background from my stash that I had created earlier.  I had used distress ink, a Tim Holtz stencil, some distress paints applied with bottle cars and some splatters (which I love, as you may know!)

I  cut out the pups (I don't have the dies, yet)  which is kinda tough when you can't see, so they definately are not perfect!  I also stamped the images on my background.  This helps to add detail back in that may get cut off, whiskers for example.  It's a good little trick if it's not something you do already.  I punched out my hearts and printed out the lyrics from Donny Osmond's "Puppy Love".    Am I dating myself, lol?

I inked the edges and mounted to black cards, as usual.

Thank you for joining me today, I hope you enjoyed my "Puppy Love" tag.

Have an awesome and artful day!

Tag 9-4 Another Christmas Tag using the crackle background #onelittletag

Hello my friends!

Today was my birthday and my friend Bonnie gave me the new Kaisercraft "Frosted" stack.  So naturally, since I enjoy making them anyways, I'm in the mood for Christmas tags.

I have been wanting to make a tag using the background I created using the crackle technique for Mixed Media Morsels. I knew I wanted to use it for a Christmas tag

I cut out ephemera from my new paper and edged it with vintage photo distress ink.  I took a sled I had previously die cut from gold card out of my stash.  I also got a "Recollections" Christmas flower from my stash.

I used some Glitter Snow, Diamond dust and Stickles to embellish the tag.  I layered onto some white gold shimmer card and then mounted onto heavy black card.

Thank you so much for stopping by!  I hope you enjoyed  my tag today.  If you are new to my blog and have been enjoying my tags and like to make tags yourself, you may want to check out the FB group that started me on this tag making journey! it is The One Little Tag Craft Challenge

Have an awesome and artful day!

Another "Merry Christmas" tag Tag # 5-25 #onelittletag

Hello again my friends!  This is my Christmas tag for May.   This catches me up, although honestly, I am enjoying making these Christmas tags.  I have a lot of stuff in my Christmas stash to use up, so I may just keep making them for a bit.

For this tag, I used a Tim Holtz stencil to create the brick background.  I used Barn Door Red and Vintage Photo distress ink.

The door was from my stash, cut using a Tim Holtz die.  It was cut from Recollections shimmer card.  I edged the door with distress ink.  I die cut my sentiment from a new  Yvonne Creations die I recently got.

The wreath and bow were from my stash, also cut from a Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers  die. I alsoe edged these with distress ink.

I punched out a door knob fromf gold card which I also used to create a background layer

After assembling the card I mounted it to black card.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and checking out my latest Christmas tag.  I hope you have been enjoying them.

Have an awesome and artful day!