August Tag Simple Pleasures

Hi Everyone,

Firstly I must apologise for being a little quiet over the last couple of weeks.  Like most people August is holiday time and we have been away camping without any Internet connection - shock! horror! - not at all it was bliss! being at one with nature and having the time to actually appreciate the simple beautiful things that surround us this time of year, blooming flowers, birdsong, butterflies, dragonflies all of which go virtually unnoticed in the modern world when we so easily get wrapped up in social media, work, deadlines etc.  Now back home, and dangerously close to end of month deadline, I have based my August tag around my thoughts from the holiday, finding joy in the ordinary simple things in life, boring to some maybe, but oh so relaxing. I have used the same techniques that Tim has with his original which can be viewed Here together with all the step by step instructions.

Here we have my sweet little bird surrounded by butterflies and flowers.  I did a few photos along the way and of course a few close ups, so here we go.

 

Firstly I applied tissue tape onto the tag

 

 

Stamped the bird with black archival

 

 

I added some more tissue tape and a butterfly stamp

then used texture paste through 2 different stencils 

 

Swooshed the tag through the distress stains on a craft mat then added a little more stain to fill in the gaps.  I used any left over stain on the mat to colour the ribbon.

 



 

I used the speckles stencil to add blue and brown speckles

 

 

I made a label for my sentiment using the simple sayings frame stamp as I didn't have any vial labels.  I cut this out added the remnant rubs and colour with stains.

 

 

I cut out a few flowers from some of Tim's Wallflower papers

 

 I inked up the edges, went over them with multi-matt medium and when they were dry, shaped them layered them up, and added some metal embellishments and stitching. (see later photo)

 

 

I sewed on the sentiment and the photo tape with my sewing machine

 

I also sewed through one of the flowers to add some texture and added a couple of metal foliage which has been altered with distress paints

 

 I added my 'rust' as Tim did with Vintage Photo distress EP and an industrial metal strip on the bottom.

 

To make some of the stencilled textured numbers pop out I went around them with a stabilo all pencil to create a shadow (a great technique I learnt from Hels Sheridan). I also used the pencil to outline the bird and his eye as it was getting lost amongst the notes on the tissue tape.  The ribbon was tied in a Paula Cheney bow (love these) and the butterfly in the centre of it is one of loads cut from the butterfly frenzy die.  The extra butterfly and the birds twig are remnant rubs.

 

 

 



 

another look at the finished tag

 

Of course I was also making my little matching atc  for my collection made in exactly the same way, just with different stamps and stencils.

 

 

Thank you as always for popping in today, I do hope you like them.

Mo x 



Gothic Butterfly AVJ Just stain it

Hi Everyone,

Firstly hello to my new followers, welcome aboard.   I am so excited I can hardly keep my feet on the ground following my July Tim's tag win with Bees Knees  and my pin worthy badge for Dies and Distress at A Vintage Journey, it has been a wonderful weekend.  

 

With new challenges come more new projects and today I am showcasing a piece of wall art that I have had great fun putting together for the new challenge at the fabulous Tim Holtz inspired challenge blog A Vintage Journey. This time the challenge has been set by Jenny who wants us to Just Stain it, basically use the distress stains in different ways on our entries.  The challenge is sponsored by, Country View Crafts who are offering a £10 gift voucher to one winner who will be chosen by the incredibly talented team of Vintage Journey Guides. 

 

I received Happy Mail this week from my adopted big sis Anne and it was the new Gothic stencil whoop! whoop! I just love this and you can see straight away that I have used it on the background of this project.

 

 At first glance my stains are not that obvious as there is lots of texture in my project.

 The background started with water being spritzed onto an 8" x 8" piece of thick card and then a mix of Stormy sky, shabby shutters and broken china and brushed pewter distress stains swooshed over it then dried.   I used texture paste through the stencil, right around the edges to make a border (this had to be done over a few drying sessions so I could match the pattern up without it spoiling).    When it was dry I put some stains into spritzers and spritzed the same colours as before over the texture and dried.  Finally I dabbed it over lightly with Blue Hydrangea and cactus green stayzon to give more colour over the silver near the edges.    

 

 



 

 The Butterfly was cut and embossed from cream card with the layered butterfly set and I used stormy sky distress stain all over it and dried it thoroughly.  I used Versafine to dab lightly over the raised areas and then sprinkled frosted crystal antiquities over it and embossed with a heat tool.  I dabbed broken china, shabby shutters and stormy sky over the butterfly, which gave it a lovely mix of colours and the ink caught over the raised embossed areas and made them darker.  This looked nice, but the detail was being a bit lost, so again I decided to use the brushed pewter stain to pick out the raised areas.  I spread some distress stain on a craft mat and rolled my brayer  through it a few times until it just started to get tacky, I then rolled it over the raised areas and this caught the detail.

 

 

The centre plate that the butterfly is mounted on is a piece of sticky backed natural canvas over mount board and I used the brayered stains technique (Tim shows the technique Here on his July 2013 tag).  The edges were darkened using Pumice Stone stain.  I used two smaller pieces of canvas to use for the sentiment which is stamped with Hydrangea archival Ink.  A piece of Tim's linen ribbon was stapled to the canvas using my tiny attacher and the sentiment hid the staples.  I frayed out the edges of the linen ribbon to soften the effect.  I originally wanted 'Butterfly' somewhere on the project but then decided to use just the first and last letter using the alpha chips edged with pumice stone stain and glued into place in such a way that it looks as though the rest of the word is under the butterfly.   The body is decorated with one of Tim's metal arrows.

 

 

I found this frame at a car boot sale ages ago and it has been hanging around (as things do) waiting for the right project to fit into it.  It was just bare wood and I ran over it with antique linen stain to bring it more in line with the colour of the canvas and then rubbed a little Picket Fence stain over some areas with my fingers and then did the same with  pumice stone stain over different areas and to blend in with the darker wood grain.

 



 

Distress stains are so versatile and can be used in many different ways on your projects. Check out my friend Anne's inspirational post Here to give you a few more ideas.

 

Thank you as always for your visit an lovely comments

Mo x