Tag 7-26 "Don;t Forget to Fly" A Steampunk Dressform tag #onelittletag

Hello my friends!

Today I have decided to make some tags.    I started my first blog ever, this one, January 2nd of  this year.  At the same time I started my first ever FB challenge, .The On Little Tag Craft Challenge  Some of you who have been following me for a while may already know this, but those of you that have more recently joined me, won't know this.   The idea behind the challenge is to create just one little tag a day, even if you just write a word on a tag, it doesn't have to  be perfect or even good.  The propose is to inspire you to be creative every day.  I must tell you, it really works!  I have been very delinquent with my tags.  I was doing really well until I went to Florida in March.  I  have created some tags since then, but not keeping up as I had been.  As time has gone on, I have gotten more and more behind.  By my calculation now, I am 85 tags behind.  Will I catch up?  I don't know, perhaps some of them.  But I am not going to worry about it.   Fortunately, I have still been creatively inspired.  I have been working on other things, but I do think about making tags, which I do enjoy.  So, I am going to attempt to get back to it.  Maybe not every day, but more frequently than Ii have been.  

Often there are prompts for the tags each week.  These are not mandatory, but designed to help prevent "tag artist block", it can be hard coming up with a new tag every single day.   I am going to ignore those prompts for now and just make the tags that I feel inspired to make.  My challenge to myself today was to use backgrounds and die cut pieces that I already had in my stash.  I have a lot!  I have created several backgrounds and whenever I am die cutting, I always cut extra.  So I have a pretty extensive "stash".

 I will forewarn you, I will have a few posts today, I have been busy!

First, I grabbed some die cut pieces from my stash.  I had the idea some time ago, that I would like to do a sort of steampunk dress form and had already worked on some of the die cut pieces.  So I decided to continue with that idea

All of the pieces I ended up ising had been cut with Ti Holtz dies.  I had adhered aluminum tape to card before cutting the dress form, and then embossed it with a Tim Holtz embossing folder.  I cut away some of the dress form to make it work for my design.  The bodice (?) was also made from a dress form that I cut up and embossed.  The skirt (which was originally a bird cage) was also embossed.  Once embossed, I ran the silver ink across them lightly to pick up the embossed areas..  I had done all  of this ages ago.  Today I edged the wings (which were not part of my original plan) with silver ink.  Then I assembled my dress form.  I already had the sentiment, a Prima stamp, which inspired to rest of the tag.

Ii had selected a few different backgrounds and wasn't sure which one to choose, so I tried them all out.

I chose the green, which was actually a surprise to me because green is definitely not my "go-to" colour!  I used mu Hero Arts stamp, one of my all-time faves, with my silver ink in the background and also on the little butterfly I punched with my Fiskars punch.

All that was left to do was assemble my tag and mount it to black card.

Thank you for joining me today.  I hope you enjoyed my tag and will enjoy then next few I post tonight!

An Awesome Foiling Technique! Foiled borders using your Spellbinders dies

Hello my friends!  I was inspired to try this technique by a video I saw  by Becca Feakin. (I will share the link at the bottom of this post)  She used her Spellbinders Labels dies and her laser printer to get  awesome foiled borders!  I have been wanting to try this for a while and now I finally have and I love the look.  I am going to use my tag from my last post to help illustrate how I did this foiling technique (and some other ones!)

First I dug out some of my Spellbinders Labels dies

Now, I knew I would be isong these to creat tags, in this instance, so everything I did was with that in mind.  You may want to make cards, as Becca did. if that's the case, keep that in mind as you position your dies. I will probably use this technique to make some cards as well.  I chose the  dies that I wanted to use and positioned them on some blank white card.  I adhered them in place using a tiny removeable adhesive dot.  I postioned them so that I could cut them out into tags.  I should mention that if you are making cards, you could take a Card Creator or rectangle die that would fit the perimeter of your card panel and position that as well, to give your card panel a nice gold border too.

I positioned 2 smaller dies that I would use for sentiments alongside a tag on this sheet

I scanned and made a copy of these.  I think Becca just put her dies directly on the scanner, but I wanted to have copies I could use again.  Not only that, but I found that the copies weren't really dark in some areas, maybe because the dies are shiny and reflective.  So I wanted to darken them as well with a marker.

Then I got some light cardstock, some white and some patterned and all trimmed to 8.5 x 11"  to run through my laser printer.  NOTE:  You must use a laser printer, an inkjet printer will not work.  You could also use photocopies, but your copy must be toner based!

I copied my images onto the card and cut them down into tags

Now for the foiling!  I use a laminator and I find it works just fine, but if you have a Minc, you would of coarse use that.  I use a plain copy paper, folded in half, as a carrier.  I chose the foil that I wanted to use, placed it over the copied image (pretty side up!) placed it in the carrier sheet and ran it through the laminator.  I usually run it through twice just to be sure.

Now I take the coordinating die, place it over the foiled image, cutting side down.  I use some washi tape to hold it in place.  If you have a look at your Spellbinder labels die, you will notice that the cutting blade is not at the very edge of the die, but in the middle. 

Because of that, you end up with 2 pieces with foiled edges that you can use, the inner and outer die cut shapes.  If you use a different kind of die with the cutting blade at the very outside of the die, you will only have a foiled edge on the inside die cut shape.

Now, how did I do the gold foil outside border?  And the foiling on the flower embellishments?   Stay tuned for another post on some different  foiling techniques. I've been doing some experimenting and as soon as I get everything together to post, I will be happy to share.  If you like foiling, you will love it! 

I hope you have enjoyed this post and will give this foiling technique a try.    Give Becca's video a watch, it is very helpful and she is really sweet and she makes it easy to follow.

If you liked my post and found this technique fun and informative, please share it!  And let me know if you would like to see more technique based posts.

Thanks for looking, have an awesome and artful day!

Becca Feakins video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAicoQBRt5Q

           Scrappin' Great Deals (SGD)  http://www.scrappingreatdeals.com/home.php

Note:  I use ThermOweb Deco Foil and Minc reactive foil

Tag 5-6 "Smile" Foiled Tag #onelittletag

Hello my friends!

This is tag 5-6.  This tag is for the "mothball" challenge, which challenges us to look in the back of the cupboards or shelves and dig out the forgotten treasures that we haven't used for a while, dust them off and give them some crafting love!   I haven't used my Spellbinder's Labels dies in ages!  I have actually been wanting to use those dies to try a foiling technique, so this was a good opportunity to get them out.  I and I am really happy with the outcome!  I have been doing some experimenting with foiling and I have used a few different techniques on this tag.

I will be dedicating a few posts to sharing these techniques with you.  So if you like foiling, be sure to come back and check them out, you will love them!

Thanks so much for stopping by and have an awesome, artful day!

Tag 4-19 "Peace starts with a Smiile" #onelittletag

Tag 4-19  Fiber prompt

Welcome to my blog! As some of you may know, I have been participating in  the One Little Tag Craft Challenge on FB, hosted by Jenny Barnett Rohrs of Craft Test Dummies.  We are given prompts once a week to keep us inspired in creating our tags. I have not completely finished all the tags for April, but I have done a lot and have decided that I am calling it a day and moving on.  I am still behind for May, but that is what I am going to focus on, as well as some other art projects (and experiments!) that I am working on.

The idea behond this challenge is to be creative every day.  I have to admit, doing this challenge is definitely keeping my creative juices flowing!  I have decided that I am not going to get hung up on the challenges, or prompts, which are just a suggestion anyways.  I will probably try a couple and then just do what I feel inspired to do.  If I am enjoying the prompt, I will stick with that.  Either way, these FB groups have really been motivating.  On the days I don't get a tag created, I am usually still experimenting with something, or working on a painting, or sometimes just thinking about what to do next.  So now I think I am hooked!  I also participate in a group called Mixed Media Morsels and I have also been sharing my tags and art on a G+ Group called Creating and Sharing Mixed Media Art.  So a big shout out and thank you to those of you out there who are putting in the time (and I am quite sure there is a lot of time donated) and effort to create and maintain these inspiring groups (and there are many!)

Tag 5-10 "Delightful" Another Napkin Tag #onelittletag

Hello my friends! Welcome to my blog. I have a few more tags to post, continuing with the napkin prompt on the One Little Tag Craft Challenge.  For those of you that are new to my blog, this is a Facebook challenge, hosted by Jenny Barnett Rohrs of Craft Test Dummies.  The idea is to do just one little tag a day (or every few days, or a week or whatever you can manage) and the objective is to be creative very day and keep inspired.  Jenny provides a prompt every week to help keep everyone motivated because let's face it, it's hard coming up with a new idea every day.  It is just a suggestion, in no way compulsory.  However, I am finding that I am getting a little hung up on these challenges sometimes, feeling that I should be doing them when sometimes I just want to do my own thing.  Doing my own thing is perfectly fine and sometimes I need to remind myself of that.  Using napkins in your art happens to also be a prompt in another FB challenge I am participating in, Mixed Media Morsels.  It is MMM #17.  Having said all that, I am surprised. I am really enjoying this challenge and I didn't expect it would be this fun.  So it goes to show you, it pays to at least give something a shot, even when you don't have high expectations!

I started off with my dollar store napkin find.  First I peeled away the extra layers (usually napkins are 2 or 3 ply) as I mentioned in my previous post.  I them glued it to some card with mod podge and trimmed it to the size I wanted

Then the fun begins with mark making and finishing touches.  I used distress paint in white, black and bronze to splatter and make marks with plastic caps.  I edged the tag with black archival ink.  I used a Fiskars stamp on card, trimmed it out and punched the corners.  I then edged it with distress ink before adding it to my tag.  And, as I usually do, I mounted it to black card.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed this tag.  I have another coming right up!