Tim's Tags for 2013 : May - Friday 25th May

Hello Friends,

At the beginning of the year, I made the decision to take part in Tim Holz's Tag challenge this year and so far, so good, I've managed every one. I haven't had a lot of the 'ingredients' but I have learnt some new techniques and it is great fun! This is going to be a pretty long post, so feel free to skip to the end if you don't want to read about the making of my tag..I won't be offended!:)

This is Tim's tag for May: you can visit his blog here

..and this is mine..

Once again it was all about improvisation as I didn't  have many of the items  that Tim used, but never mind...the tags are all about technique really and learning new ones and once again I think Mr Holz came up trumps!

I started with the basic manilla tag and as per the tutorial, the items I did have were the remnant rub ons, which I have to confess had been sitting in my box of everything 'Tim Holz' and had never been used and wow was I in for a surprise..brilliant! I don't use rub ons often at all, but these were certainly the best I've ever used. Tim says to place the sheet over the tag and rub in small areas, which I did. I then sanded the edges of the tag to remove the excess rubs.

For the next step Tim used distress stains, but I have very few of these so far and not in blues or reds, so I used distress inks - a random selection of Worn Lipstick, Broken China, Wild Honey, which I spread on my mat and spritzed with water to give them fluidity. I then rubbed the tag through the inks and wow, great..the rubs resist the inks. I heat dried the ink whilst very wet and then blotted the excess with a paper towel. Finally for this stage I inked the edges of the tag with various colours of ink. 

I didn't have the Mona Lisa stamp that Tim actually used, but this is a little stamp from Tim Holz, by Stamper Anonymous that I picked up for literally a few $$'s including postage on Etsy!

In the tutorial, Tim says to wipe away the archival ink from the top of the rubs using a towel, in parts where I wanted the image to appear behind the rubs...another super technique. To make the image appear layered, I heat dried on top of the rubs.

In the next stage, enamelled tags are used with alcohol ink, I don't have any of these but they look pretty cool so are on my 'Tim Wish List'..so I skipped this stage and used an Ideology domed cash-key instead. I took some card and used my tiniest oval Spellbinder die to make the background, which I inked with a mix of colours again. I then used some of the smallest rubs to fill..and I really liked the effect.

Next, Tim used Ideology Film Strip Ribbon, which I did have a little tin of in my box (Yay!). I taped this to the tag and secured the cash-key on top with a brad. 

I completed the tag using a little metal word band from my stash and then realised I'd not included the number 5, for May anywhere! So I went to my  best buy at Ally Pally, a numbers stamp set in a tin, from Darkroom Door. I'd been looking for some number stamps that were a  good size and a bit grungey and these were there screaming 'buy me'. They were quite expensive (but then stamps are nowadays aren't they?) and I wondered if I was paying for the snazzy metal tin..but I love them and have used them so much already. I had never bought a Dark Room Door stamp before, but they stamp beautifully.

Finally I wetted the inks on my mat again and rubbed some crinkle ribbon in it to colour it. Mine isn't as bright as Tim's, I should have used Picked Raspberry instead of Worn Lipstick, but on the whole I was pretty pleased with it.

Sorry for the long post...I'm not sure how much crafting I will get done over the weekend, we've a spare room half cleared out that needs finishing and a few places we want to go..and I do need to spend some quality time in the craft room but giving some tlc to my Mac! Sorting my iPhoto files and doing that blog overhaul I've been promising myself...

Thanks for stopping by!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

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