bodge job & birthdays

I forgot how much I loved/loathed it when Tim posted a 12 tag and I didnt have all that was needed.  This months I had a big fat NOTHING that he used.. now I dont do halloween so I didnt really want to go out and buy stash I'd never use just for a tag so I had to think on my feet a bit (and a trip to Artistic Stamper got me the paints).  Quite coincidentally my mate Tracy had just bought a cricut halloween cart so I asked her to cut me a frame.  I didnt think of asking her to see if there was a cat/witch/pumpkin/owl that she could cut as well, d'oh lol.  One craft knife & a bit of free hand cutting I have a passable (laughable) imitation of Tims owl & moon die.  Next problem was no glitter... sorry Tim I've just given shed loads of glitters away no way Jose am I buying more even if it is in the distress range.. well I might on the weekend lol.  Well, there had to be a reason why I've bought more than a few glittery embossing powders over the years when I rarely like how they lose the detail of the stamp...

So here we have one bodge job of the 12 tags, distress paints as per Tims list, forest moss & black soot distress inks.  SU french script & sentiment stamp, versafine, gem stars I had lying around (phew before I dapped my hands on them I thought I'd be using peel off stars!!)

I'm not impressed with the tag now it's finished but I did love it before I stuck the cutouts & stars on lol.

Now my aforementioned mate Tracy doesnt see the point in making tags... and it's her birthday next month and she's already threatened me NOT to make her a tag bday card...  oops, too late Tracy this one might just end up on a card for you ;o)

Iced spruce, weathered wood & seedless preserve distress inks, Su french script & sentiment stamps, Jofy stamps watercoloured with DI on watercolour paper and hand cut.  All splattered with silver distress paint & inteference medium, edges gone around with imaginations silver sparkle medium.  When they say sparkle they really do mean sparkle!!

It's another friends birthday on Sunday and she likes bling & shiney so I went as far as I could handle before the silver holo mirri sparked off a migraine.

Nowt but white stardream card & paper and silver holographic mirri.

Spellbinders label & motif die, TH tattered pinecone die, memory box flourish die.  

I liked the lay out I did on last weeks tag so much I sort of replicated it here with different flowers and no leaves.  Add in some silver splatters on the flowers, some gem pins, ribbon, tiny SU sentiment and bobs your uncle & fanny is your aunt one done card.  I hope it's blingey enough for her lol.

challenge Angie and I failed

One of my bestest mates is having a bit of a tough year and her mojo has gone walkies so I challenged her and a couple of other friends to make a tag this week using a tutorial from Tammy Tutterow.

Well I couldnt be mean and make them do it but not join in so I had a go as well.

I learnt something from the tutorial, apart from the obvious lesson in woodgrain effects... dont be bone idle lazy and think that Dylussions white ink mist will do a similar thing but be a lot quicker, easier and with less mess than decanting picket fence distress stain.. 

it doesnt, well at least I dont think it does.  Not sure why but I struggle like dickens with adding dye ink over the top of gesso and white inks.. the colour always seems to sink below the white pigment and I either get really pale shades or as with this tag white hued patches.

I used Dyans white spray, frayed burlap & walnut distress stains on the Langton water colour paper and SU woodgrain stamp for the base.  Heartfelt creations stamped on langton & coloured with distress markers, brush over with wink of stella glitter before being cut and stuck down.  Words from Jofy stamp set then everything was versamarked and covered with clear ep.  Jofy butterfly then coloured with the same markers & wink of stella before being cut into, shaped and triple embossed and stuck on with glossy accents.  It's not as bad as the photo but it's not one I'd be happy to lay claim to.

halloween tag

It's my sister in laws 60th birthday on halloween so I made a tag for her.  She's not yet into the weird and wonderful world of tags yet so I've kept it pretty "normal" as I dont think she'd appreciate me adding lots of odd things to it lol.

The base tag is coloured with ripe persimmon & dusty concord distress ink   I then used an imagination spiders web stencil and sponged more dusty concord through.  I only wanted a subtle detail so I went with a very light touch, so light I dont think the camera caught it but it was softened even more when it got splattered and misted.  Next step was 2nd generation versafine purple in my new bestest mate.. my kaiser crackle stamp.  Lavinia witch, mushrooms, cauldron & upside down seaweed stamped in black versafine.  Top right corner is a small spiders web stamp to echo the odd glimpses from the stencil, I used versamark & some black glint wow embossing powder.  Finally a  squirt of biscotti perfect pearls mist and a quick whizz around the outside with black soot distress ink.

I'm going to submit this one to

Haunted Design House  (Tracy, you want to go look at this blog, right up your street!!)

Imagination Craft Challenges

Stamp & Create

and finally the Pink Elephant Challenge

first prima doll tag

I was really lucky a couple of weeks ago and won a prima doll stamp & paper pad from CraftMojo thanks to their facebook giveaway.  I finally got around to inking her up and decided it had to be a tag.

Lots of things I'd do differently on this one but I'm sort of happy with it.

I started off with white dl card and a piece of old dcwv papers.  I liked the pattern but not the colours so gave it a few thin coats of gesso.. and here was problem number 1.. all the distress ink I added afterwards didnt want to stay dark.  This is actually blended with barn door, persimmon, wild honey, tea dye, vintage photo & forest moss!!  No matter what I did I couldnt keep the colours dark, it's as tho the colour was sinking below the gesso.   Once I'd given up trying to get more colour in I used barn door, forest moss & tea dye to random stamp some old leaf stamps then 3rd gen purple & green versafine with a SU french script background stamp.   I cut a small panel from the Prima pad, coloured with wild honey DI and punched along the bottom with a MS punch.

The window is hand embossed & cut from an old Marianne Design stencil, coloured with the same DI as before then covered with antique linen crackle paint which has gone a mucky green which looks pretty much a heritage colour iykwim.  The spellbinders bauble border was coloured using the same inks but I added some cream cosmic shimmer glue "pearls"

The prima doll is paper pieced with First Edition papers which have been covered with barn door di and her skin/hair is colour with copics.  Along the bottom of the skirt I cut into some threaded trim and used glossy accents to mold it around where I couldnt be bothered to cut the ruffles from the stamped image ;o)

In the top corner I've used 2 marianne design leaf dies and some wild orchid crafts flowers.  The leaves were cut from ooops I mucked up tags that had been marbled with distress paints.  Glad I chucked them back in the pot instead of throwing them as they really worked well with the colour scheme.

Next came another oops moment, I'd stuck everything down then decided it needed a pearl flourish.  I'm too tight to pay £2/3 for a one use flourish so carefully pricked a pattern ready to stick down some flatback pearls only to realise I've either ran out of cream ones or there's hiding from view somewhere in amongst the chaos that is my playroom.  Cosmic glue to the rescue.. not!  The pearls had to stay small for the pattern but look pretty naff that small.  I'll have to go shopping tomorrow and stick them down over the top.. well that will be my excuse to go shopping ;o)

Thinks I'll enter this one into Mariannes Design Divas blog challenge.