Tag 28 - Let it Go

Tag 28 - I am slightly behind, I've had a few busy days (but artful days!) I must admit, I did not put a lot of time into this tag (which I have to remind myself, is perfectly okay). I did stick to this weeks challenge. Laurie shared that great gellatos video, which reminded me I had those sample swatches, so I used the black velvet one for my background.

 When I did tag 23, I first started off brayering my ink, which didn't give me the effect I wanted, but I saved the paper and so I punched my flower and petals out of that. I used a quote from my stash and I did some edging with some distress ink and i edged the tag with my gelatos

Hope you enjoyed.  See you soon with tag 29!

Tag 27 - Creativity #onelittletag

Tag 27 - this tag was made from the beautiful kleenex box I found yesterday, but didn't use.

 I also used the quote that I was going to use yesterday, but that just didn't work on my tag.The bytterfly was one I had in my stash, already coloured, and the lattice (Tin Holtz) is also something from my stash. Some metallic thread that was attached to something else and I reclaimed. I tried to use some distress ink and I did use my PITT pen. Something to keep in mind, some kleenex boxes have great designs on them, but they also have a varnish that will resist ink. So if you want to use one, you might want to base your design around that.



Tag 26 - Found Objects #onelittletag

So Jenny added a new challenge this week, to The One Little Tag Craft Challenge. She challenged us to use some found objects in our tags, to recycle and up cycle. So I dug around for a few things I could use to meet the challenge.

I had a few things out and I wasn't exactly sure how this tag was going to go, so I let it evolve. I trimmed my tag out of the card backer of a stencil I had , my image is actually from a card I had printed a few years ago of a mixed media painting I did, the brad I used came from a second hand store. I gessoed the tag and then painted with distress and adriondack paints, then used a Tim Holtz stencil with Broken China DP, added some markings with gold and white DP.

 I did some edging with the gold and assembled the tag, mounting to black card. I will use some of the other bits that I had out on other tags this week. I love the design on the Kleenex box...





Christmas Tags

Tag 25 - I have decided that the 25th tag I do of every month, will be Christmas or Winter themed. That will give me 12 days of Christmas! I may do random Christmas tags as well, just because I like doing them, but 12 for sure. This first one is based on some of the Christmas cards I did for 2015. I actually did 2 tags, since I had my Christmas scraps out. It didn't translate as well as I had hoped to a tag. I felt it was missing something, so I added a little bling. Sorry about the glare,  trying to photograph that foil card is tough!



To the Moon #onelittletag

Tag 24 - I was experimenting with my Colorbursts last night. I haven't yet figured out exactly how I want to work with them, but I do like the vibrant colour and was trying to decide how I could use the backgrounds I had created.

 This one kind of reminded me of a night sky.

 I used a Tim Holtz stamp for my sentiment and a little Imaginisce stamp for the moon and stars. I heat embossed with Ranger gold embossing powder, then ran the versamark ink around the edges and dredged the tag through the embossing powder to frame the tag iin gold. Love metallic!







A Tag for Mom #onelittletag

Tag 23 - Todays tag is for my Mom, who would've been 73 today. I think she would have liked the peaceful feel of it.  I am happy with how it turned out.

I blended some distress inks for the background and sprinkled with a little water. I love the fact that distress inks are water reactive and I like the different looks you can achieve.  I used 2 different Penny Black stamps, "Woodland Wonder" and "Spread Cheer".  All in all, pretty easy, but still dramatic.

Miss you Mom.

Tag 22 - It's All Perspective #onelittletag

Today's blog is for the ladies also participating in "The One Little Tag Craft Challenge" on FB, that were interested in the background of today's tag.  First of all, Thanks ladies! I am happy to share any technique I use, and many of you have also inspired me to try some new things and revisit some things I haven't done for a while.

I have some aluminum tape that I got a while back at Home Depot (I think). The first thing I did was use the tape to cover some card stock I had trimmed out.  I used the heavy Recollections card, but it doesn't have to be heavy card.

Once the tag was covered, I just folded any excess tape around to the back of the card.  Then I used my Tim Holtz embossing folders. I first embossed the top part of the tag with one folder and then the bottom part of the tag with the gear folder.

Once the embossing was done, I got out my paints -

Adirondack Paint Dabbers in Espresso and Pitch black, Distress paint in Broken China, Vintage Photo, Spiced Marmalade and Picket Fence. I did my splatters with my Picket Fence Distress stain.  You need very little paint. Less is more, it's best to build it up in layers. I used a makeup sponge to apply the paint. I didn't change the sponge or try and clean it of in between colours, I just let them all work together.  I started with the browns and sponged on a bit and kind of wiped it over some areas of the card to tone down the shine of the aluminum. Then I just started dabbing on the other colours. I used very little paint, dabbing some of it off before going to the tag, and a light hand. I just played around a bit until I liked it (don't labour over it too long or you will end up with too much paint. I t is actually a pretty quick process) I left the black until the end, again using a VERY light hand, I was trying to mostly just catch some the raised areas to define some of the shapes. You can wipe away some of the paint before it's too dry if you want while you are doing this. The final background touch was my splatters. When I do my splatters, I just take the nozzle right of and tap the splatters off the end of the tube.

I used the aluminum tape to cover some chipboard and die cut some gears with my Tim Holtz die. I sponged the gears the same way as the background.

I stamped my image of the men on some white card trimmed to the same width as my tag and then die cut with the coordinating die.  I only wanted to die cut the top of the image, so I positioned one of my cutting plates to be just shy of the bottom cutting edge and taped things into place

Once it was die cut, I just snipped the bits at the sides that were still connected to the waste. Then I wiped my inkpad across the bottom to colour it black but keep a distressed feel. Once this was done I sponged on some Vintage photo distress ink around the edges and in a few areas of the image.

I used a little Prima stamp that I had for the light bulb and I cut out my sentiment from my stash of sentiments I stamped on Monday night. I thought that was also a Prima stamp, but I couldn't find it to photograph. As I am typing this now, I think it must be one of my Stampers Anonymous ones. If anyone wants to know, I will let you know for sure.

Now all that was left to do was the assembly.  I used tape to attach everything as I wasn't sure if my glue would adhere to the aluminum. I popped the light bulb (which I fussy cut) up on some foam tape.

I almost forgot!  I dug something else out of my stash that I should have been using all this time, and I wanted to share. It's called "Artist-tac" by Graphix There are 25 - 8.5" x 11" sheets in the package and each sheet is coved in tiny adhesive dots and covered with a liner. You lift the liner, put whatever it is you want to adhere onto the adhesive dots and rub the back to transfer the adhesive to your item. It's awesome! That is what I used to adhere the gears at the bottom. Then I just trimmed the overhanging parts of the gears, mounted the tag to black card and punched a hole.

I hope this wasn't too long and that it's something you might want to try. And to any of you who like alcohol ink...I've done it and it looks great on the aluminum tape, especially with an embossed image. Just sayin.













Don't Fence Me In #onelittletag

Tag 21 - Last week I asked my 17 year old daughter to give me a word for a tag. I, of coarse, was looking for a good word, something positive, dramatic or inspirational. She, of coarse, being the teenager that she is, says "fence". It's been a bit of a joke, every day I ask and everyday I get "fence". They say when you get lemons, make lemonade, so when you get fence...



Open Every Door #onelittletag

Today's tag was quick and easy! I used one of my handy Gelli print backgrounds and I had already added some splatter to it last night with some Picket Fence Distress stain because this was the original tag I had chosen for my "Own Your Dreams" tag that I did yesterday.  My Monday night project was to stamp out a bunch of sentiments and print out a whack of words so that I could make my tag life easier.  I already had a tag like this in mind.

I used my stamp positioner to stamp directly onto the tag with my "Doors of the World" stamp.  I masked off part of the stamp when inking as it was wider than my tag. I knew I would probably need two or three impressions to get a good image.  I fist used my Versafine Black Onyx ink, but finished with the black Archival ink for the final impression. I edged my sentiment with the versafine, glued it in place, punched the corners and mounted to black card.  I added some outlines with my white gel pen, punched a hole and added some black ribbon. Took no time! It helped to have everything ready to go.  Doesn't always work out this way, but like a charm tonight!





Own Your Dreams #onelittletag

Tag 19 - I used one of my Gelli print backgrounds that wasn't toooo busy. I used my Prima edgers today for everything, teal, coal and dark bark. I pulled out this Spellbinders die that I have been wanting to use for the first time. At first I die cut it out of kraft card for a more natural look (and originally I chose a different background as well) but it wasn't cutting it for me., so I used white card, inked it up, die cut a black one which I offset just a little and added my Tin Holtz sentiment which I had stamped on white card, trimmed and edged it with coal. I like this die, I am going to use it again and I have several sentiments that will work with it. I some ideas how to try the kraft again. Oops, almost forgot, splatter with picket fence distress stain (loce my splatter!)



Tags 17 & 18 Shine and Crazy Birds #onelittletag

I used one of the backgrounds I had created on Sunday for this card.  The rays from the Tim Holtz stencil put this sentiment in mind. I die cut a Tim Holtz scribbly heart and the letters from an old quickutz die. I underlined the shine with my black Stabilo All water soluble pencil, but didn't get the effect I was looking for. 1added some white gel pen and some splatter, mounted to some black card and added black ribbon and gold cord.  This tag didn't turn out exactly as I had envisioned it, but that's okay, I can try it again.

Those crazy birds!  I have seen a lot of those crazy birds on the One Little Tag Craft Challenge on FB, but I had this in mind, so I did it anyway.  I used one of my Gelli Print backgrounds, Tim Holtz stamps and dies for the Crazy Birds.  I coloured them with Portfolio Water soluble oil pastels. They may not be top orf the line, but I actually quite like them.  They are pretty pigmented and blend well. Nice and creamy. I actually had those  in my stash as well. I cut out the letters with a QuicKutz die and replaced the word "stupid" in the quote with "crazy" (get it? CRAZY birds...). In retrospect, I think I should have used purple letters, and may still change it.  I used a WRMK sewing stamp and some splatters , a marker and a white gel pen.

Hope you enjoyed, see you soon with Tag 19!





Distress paint and more tag backgrounds #onelittletag

Haven't completed Tag# 17 yet, it will follow shortly.  But did have some creative fun yesterday afternoon. Got out my distress paint, some stencils and my distress ink. Tried the paint resist technique (thanks Laurelle ) and got a dozen tag backgrounds ready to go! So still an artful day



A Little Birdhouse #onelittletag

Hi there, thanks for stopping by.  I'm going to keep it pretty short and sweet today. I ran across this quote, or something like a while back and it resonated with me somehow.  I don't remember where I saw it, and I may not even have gotten it quite right, but that's okay. This is how I remember it, and that was my inspiration for this tag.

I used a sheet from my Moenta textured cardstock pad.  I love this card.  I got it at Walmart ages ago and I'm thinking I may have to see if they still have it.  It will be a sad day when my favuurite colours are all gone. I did some stamping and used my gel pen and ran around the edges with a WRMK stitch roller stamp (I don't know what it's actually called) and sponged some distress ink around the edges to give the background some more interest

I die cut my heart and stamped and die cut the birdhouse on card from the same pad.  I did a little colouring on the birdhouse with my Prima watercolour pencils.  I printed out my quote on some white card, trimmed it out with scissors, edged the words with distress ink  and assembled the tag. I added some spatter with some Picket Fence distress stain.  The flourish was from my stash.  I used a piece of thread to tie the birdhouse to the flourish.

So keep a little birdhouse in your heart and perhaps a little bird will stop by and sing you a song









Sassy Britches #onelittletag

I had been thinking of using this Dylusions quote and the Tim Holtz "Runway" stamp set to make a tag for a while. From this, three tags were born. 

I also did some stamping and preparation for some future tags while I had everything out. Once again, I used some of my Gelli print backgrounds (I am getting a lot of milage out of those!).  I used my stamp positioner and first stamped in a lighter colour to show where the image would be on the tag

 I then painted a light coat of gesso to mute the background behind the image

I then stamped over the gesso with black archival ink.  I also stamped the image with some white Colorbox pigment ink just slightly off register.

                                                        
As you can see from the photos, I did several that I didn't use for this project. Once I narrowed down which ones I was going to use, I decided how to finish them off.  I used my Prima watercolour pencils to color in the dresses on 2 tags.  There seems to be a lot of pigment in the pencils, I coloured quite lightly and went over it with an aquapen and the colour came alive and moved nicely over the gesso.

I masked off my image with some low tac painters tape and used some Prima and Tim Holtz stamps with archival ink in the background.  I used some Distress paint with some lids and caps dipped in the paint and splattered some Picket Fence white Distress Spray Stain to  make my background markings.  Then I stamped my sentiments (Dylusions and Prima) onto white card, trimmed then out, edged them  with Prima edgers or distress ink, glued them into place and went around them with a black Stabillo All water soluable pencil, finishing it off with a light touch with the aquabrush.