Tm's 12 Tags of 2013: June - Sunday 23rd June

Good Morning Friends,

Hope you have been enjoying a good weekend so far: I'm writing this late at night to schedule for tomorrow - one of those occasions when we've been out, come home and feeling wide awake! We've been to Bristol to see a Scottish National Opera/D"Oyly Cart production of 'The Pirates of Penzance' - it was superb and it was great to see so many children there with their parents, but light opera is a good intro to the more 'serious' works for later!

Thanks for visiting and your comments on Saturday's scrapbook layouts...such memories, especially of all those stables I mucked out and horses groomed in exchange for riding lessons!

Tim's Tags of 2013

It was when I started to make this tag that it hit me that we are half way through the year already, oh goodness! Yes it's time for my take on Tim's tag for June, the year long Tim Holz blog challenge..this is Tim's...

and this is mine...

As I've said before, however busy I am with projects in the craft room I have made sure I set aside a little time this year to make a monthly tag. Following Tim's tutorial as best I can with the materials available (some months more than others) has been a great way to learn and revisit techniques. I really enjoyed making this tag and managed to follow the tut quite faithfully.

 For full details of the techniques Tim used, visit here - but I will give a brief(!!!) break down of what I did...

1. Although I didn't have the dragonfly blueprint stamp that was used, I did have the butterfly so decided to use that instead. I stamped it on watercolour paper, along with the postmark stamp. 

2. Tim used distress makers for his water colour technique but as yet I don't have many colours and mine weren't bright enough, so I  dabbed a few distress ink colours on my craft mat, spritzed with a little water and used a water brush to paint in the inks. I then used watered down black soot ink to create the shadows around the edge. I dried everything with a heat tool between applications. Finally, I dabbed some Picket Fence distress stain on my mat and added this, with a brush to the image to create highlights.

3. I colour washed the postage stamp and word with Fired Brick and then I tore across the bottom of the paper and inked around the edges, first with Antique Linen and then Rusty Hinge, then I used the water brush to draw in the ink from the edges to create the background colour and put this part of the project aside.

4.Now for the tag - first I swiped a distress ink pad(Brushed Corduroy)  across my mat  and then either side applied broken china and wild honey distress paints, then I spritzed water over them to mix. 

5.I took a  large manilla tag and swiped it through the mixture, letting it all mix together when I lifted it up. I misted the tag to blend the colours and dried with a heat tool and then tapped the tag into the remaining mixture again and heat dried.

4. Next I stamped all over randomly with a script stamp and a quote stamp (both Tim Holz stamps) and I had to get the month in somewhere for my records (!) so I faintly stamped 'June' as well!

5. To finish I inked all around the edges with  Rusty Hinge and a little Vintage Photo and glued the image panel over the tag.

Hope I didn't bore you with all that..seriously Tim does it much better and with colour photos! So there it is, my tag for June!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

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

Tim's 12 Tags of 2013, April - Tuesday 23rd April

Good Evening Friends,

Wow what a lot of lovely comments yesterday, thank you all so much! I'm glad you liked the dress form - it was actually the first one I have made, it's just one of those pieces of altered art I had never attempted, but I was very pleased with the end result.

 There was a time this month when I thought I might not get my 'Tim's Tag' made for April! However, it was another of those projects I managed to finish Sunday.

First of all this is Tim's Tag.... I followed his tutorial as much as I could with the materials I had available. Full deets are here

To begin with I put a small selection of distress paints to my mat...I only have a small selection at the moment, spritzed water on them and smeared the tag through them mixing the colours. Next  I heat dried the paint and dabbed any excess with a cloth. Then I used an assortment of distress inks to ink all over the tag, flicked some water on them, let the wet inks run down and heat dried. My big problem was that I didn't have the broken china paint that Tim used - no blue at all,or anything else very colourful, so I had to use browns and greens mixed with inks (sssh!). I also had to use metallic distress stain, where he used paint. Mine isn't as distressed and smeary as Tim's because I was using a mixture of paints and inks and to be honest, I held back a bit too much - more time and I may have started over.

 I distressed the edges of the tag all round and inked with Vintage Photo. I didn't have the dragonfly stamp that Tim used and I was going to use one from another set, but then thought I'd be different and decided to use this Tim Holz 'Papillon' stamp, which I once again, thank Anne for sending to me. I stamped it with Black Archival. The postmark and tape measure are both stamps by Crafty Individuals.

In his tutorial Tim says to take a selection of metal embellishments, so I used the clock, clock hands and some brads. As instructed I 'painted' these with distress paint and heat dried.

Tim's tag uses 'Clearly for Art' for the transparent layer of the dragonfly, I didn't have any of that medium (note to get some), so I stamped my butterfly on to acetate and fixed it with a teeny brad.

For the number '4' Tim used a plastic 'alpha part'  - mine is from my box of chipboard letters and numbers that I have had for years. I coated it with blue acrylic and metallic distress stain, which I blended together.

This month's Tag was hard, but this was my 'take' on it!

Thanks for stopping by,

Love,

Carole X