Tag It

Over at Stampotique they want to see a tag on something, on anything actually. So I chose to use the Ellen Vargo technique used last week over on the PA blog, but this time I used Stampotique stamps.

Tag Alone - Children

Deb has chosen the theme of children this week over at the Tag Along challenge.

M is for Mail Art

Artful Times are looking for our mail art for their challenge and Simon Says Monday are looking for the letter 'm' in any way shape or form.

PA CAS Idea

Project #1 over on this weeks PA blog was a selection of CAS cards which you can see here. I chose the third card using white embossing powder and the stripes. Instead of a card, I did a postcard and

A tag. 

Lynne Perrella Panel

Over on the PA blog there is a new designer called Keren Baker. Love how she used her paper cutting techniques to create this altered frame which you can see here.

Using this for inspiration, I created the above panel, cutting away various pieces to reveal the bright backing colours. 

Water Coloured Layering

The Twitter ladies across the pond (US & Canada) kindly sent me a link to this blog, The Storyteller, for a technique used on one of the classes. As I was looking through it I found this layering technique and loved it, so had to give it a go.

I'm really, really pleased with the way it turned out considering I don't have any professional paints, just a kiddie set I picked up cheap along the way and it was my first effort too.

I'm also entering into the That's Crafty challenge which is spring is in the air and Country View Crafts for their theme of natures glories.

Water Colouring and Embossing - Day 3

So one of the day 3 techniques was, I think, to stamp an embossed image and then colour it in with distress inks and / or markers to create the water colour effect.

I stamped the dragonfly image in blue, black and red wow powder and coloured the image with distress ink markers using a water colour brush. For the tops and bottoms of each tag I coloured them with distress inks and stamped random images.

Tag Flip Book

Over on the PA blog Ellen Vargo is back with a tag flip book which you can see here. I pretty much followed what Ellen did.

And the other side of the size #10 background tags.

Cut the tissue paper into strips and adhered to the tags and added decoration with stamps and white and black pens.

And the other sides.

Then I cut 6 smaller tags, coloured them in distress inks and stamped them lightly to create a background.

Well you knew what was coming next didn't ya, yep, my LP oriental stamps.

I then mounted the smaller tags onto the larger background tags.

And the other sides.

I fixed the tags together with eyelets.

And this is the book put together and stood up.

Water Colour Stamping

One of the techniques on the second day (well 3rd really as you get given a day to play catch up) was water colour stamping. For this tag I used distress inks spritzed with water. 

And for this one I used distress markers and again spritzed with water.

Altered Tin

Over on the PA blog it's a new semester, which means a new set of designers and first up is Liesbeth Fidder who altered a tin which you can see here. First thing needed was a bonfire, so off Martin went and stoked up the chimnea.

He put the cigar tin the chimnea and the burning process began.

Charring nicely!!

These are the tins after they have cooled down.

For the inside pages I burnt them with lemon juice.

Then I decorated the tin, this is the front.

The inside using the burnt lemon juice pages, LP and PA stamped images and metal embellishments.

And I wanted to keep the back quite plain to expose most of the fab colouring on the tin.

Acrylic Block & Distress Ink Backgrounds

Okay so this is still day 1 of the USA Twitter challenge as you get a day to play catch up. So another of the techniques shown in class was to create a background using an acrylic block, distress inks and water.

This is the colour pallet I chose for an atc swap on the PaperPlay forum.

I used the same technique for the backgrounds with the acrylic block. I used salty ocean, ripe persimmon, broken china, wild honey and spiced marmalade distress ink. I stamped all the images in stazon, mustard, pumpkin, ultramarine and hydrangea blue. 

PaperPlay Tag Swap

Over on the PaperPlay forum the theme for the tag swap this month is to use at least 3 of the colours in the above colour pallet.

I used citrus, raspberry, water melon and sunset orange alcohol inks on glossy card to create the backgrounds, then stamped the various TH images with black archival.

The citrus looks yellow, but IRL it is more green.

PanPastelUk have a theme of choose your own colour pallet this week.

*** Edited ***

I made the top 3 over at PanPastelUk with these tags.

Watercolour Wash Background - Day 1

Over on Twitter I got caught up in a watercolour challenge to make something every day while the class runs. I'm not in the class but my American twitter friends said they would let me know the theme and were happy for me to join in.

So day 1 was create a background using colour wash in any medium. I used watered down teal and orange acrylic paint and whilst wet, scrunched up some kitchen roll and dabbed it in the orange, when I moved across to the teal, some of the orange transferred to give the above effect.

I cut a slither off to a #8 tag size and stamped the T!m Holtz images in black archival ink. The script at the top is a PA mini.

Simply Stamping

Over at PanPastelUK this week they are asking us to choose our own colour pallet to work with. I chose this one above from Design Seeds called ColorRoad1.

I painted my mdf heart with seaweed and green olives fresco paint and edged it with chocolate pudding. I just wanted to add some simple stamping, so stamped Mona in brown timber stazon and then used some background stamps from my new to me classics #7 plate in olive green stazon to fill in the gaps.

PA Inspired Huge Tag

Night 6 over at PA is the turn of the Ellen Vargo range of stamps. You can see the 3 lovely projects made with them here. I decided to base my huge tag on the 3rd project by Ruth.

I coloured the background with portfolio pastels and blended them in. Stamped the scratchy EV pod and circle shapes randomly in snowflake fresco paint. Added PA Mini script with a swipe of black stazon.

I mixed some pearl with the snowflake to give a bit of a metallic sheen and used the square dots (does that make sense??) EV stamp with this as above, you can just see the glimmer.

I chose one of the Artistcellar stencils from the pods collection that I won a while ago. I stencilled in white snowflake.

Close up of the snowflake stencilling and PA mini script stamp.

And finally I used the 12 x 12 Prima bubbles stencil to do the bumping with the snowflake and a colour.

As I can't do shading, I wanted to add white pencil, but when I tried it just scraped the coloured paint off.

So I took my black smudgy pencil instead which actually says 'soft' on it, and added a bit of what I call shading!!

This was great fun and incorporated loads of techniques - thanks Ruth