Tag Challenge at Virginia's View

Making tags is a lot of fun. I started yesterday with a blank tag that I cut from a piece of cardboard that came in my daughter's calendar she got from Christmas. I used my Tim Holtz tag die and then let it sit on my crafting table for a few hours. I wasn't sure what I wanted to create on it. I did know that I could use recycled items for Virginia's View Challenge #4.

After coming back to my tag and staring at it for a few minutes, I decided I wanted to use my gelatos on it. So I painted a coat of gesso on the tag base and let it dry. I then took two shades of blue gelatos for the sky, and two shades of green for the grass. I added the colours to the base and blended them with a damp finger. I did this a couple times (using my heat gun to dry it before adding more colour)until I was satisfied with the results. I added a coat of gel medium over top. Then I let it sit there again until later today.

I started by using a leaf stamp from Avery Elle and stamped it a couple times in WPlus9's Appletini ink. I used a couple other stamps (can't remember where they are from) to make the leaves at the bottom in the same colour ink, and then a lace stamp with TH Peacock Feathers ink, along the edges of the sky. You really can't see it very well - it blended in a bit too much. I painted a thin coat of gel medium overtop of the Appletini ink and then dried it with my heat gun.

I had a hard time trying to decide what image I wanted to use. So I started going through my stamp sets and found this cute one from Penny Black (Touch of Whimsy). I love the images, but have rarely used it. I chose my stamp, inked it up with some Versafine Onyx Black ink and stamped it on the tag. I then stamped it a couple more times on some scrap patterned paper (my box of scraps is very full!) After fussy-cutting the images, I distressed them a bit and then adhered them with gel medium. I added some liquid pearls for the little flower spots.



The clouds are die cut from Lawn Fawn's Spring Showers  using some really old fleece scraps that my mom gave me years ago (I used to make doll clothes with this stuff when I was a kid..) The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Life is Beautiful stamp set.

So I learned a few things while making this...do not use a heat gun for too long or the surface starts to bubble - I swear it wasn't on that long! And I learned to make sure I keep the heat away from the liquid pearls - it made some dull spots on them.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day!