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.