Technique Loaded Tag Project

Yesterday Sally Cendral (who keeps popping up unexpectedly at Stamp and trade shows in either France or England) sent me a series of photos she took while I was making a tag for her at Ally Pally recently.

As I have just mentioned the gold texture "happy accident" a couple of posts back, I thought it was timely to share with you a whole project using the idea, with a few other techniques thrown in too.

Step 1.
Apply ink with a Range mini brayer to a blank tag.

To get a soft effect like this, run the brayer over your craft sheet a few times first to soften and reduce the quantity of ink on the brayer, then lightly skip the brayer over the tag with hardly any pressure. You can pick up more ink from the craft sheet until you are happy with the effect on the tag. Try this technique with 2-3 colours



Step 2.
2/3 fill 2 mini misters with water. Add to one 4 drops of Peeled Paint, and to the other 4 drops of Broken China distress ink.

Spray the ink quite close to the tag and use loads to saturate the tag (more than this picture shows...this is only half sprayed!). For contrast, spray each colour in 2 or 3 different areas, then dry with a heat tool.
TIP: you can start with spraying ink straight onto a blank tag, but if you apply ink with a brayer or cut and dry foam BEFORE you spray you will get a much deeper and more interesting background colour.





Step 3.
Once dry, overstamp in the same colours. I used Squiggly Mini #8 in Broken China, and the tree branches (SISC5) in Peeled Paint. (I prefer to stamp blue over blue and green over green to add more depth to the background.)

In the Centre of the tag I have stamped the Heart from SIBM1.




Step 4.
Apply glossy accents to the centre of of the heart. Pour Gold embossing powder onto the wet glossy accents. Heat to melt the EP, and 'boil' the glossy accents until it all hardens (about 2-3 minutes) with awesome textural lumps and bumps.





Step 5.
Its also a good idea to heat the tag from the reverse side to help the glossy accents dry. You can control the texture by moving and holding the heat gun in different positions.







Step 6.
Apply Gold Acrylic Paint Dabber to textured grungeboard wings. I like to use my finger to rub the paint into the grunge, it makes the effect with metallic paints really shiny. Dry the paint.
TIP: Use sandpaper on painted grunge. You will create matte and shiny contrasts - the sandpaper roughens the raised poortions of the grunge.






Step 7.
Apply a contrasting Distress Ink (Aged Mahogany here) to the grunge with Cut 'n' Dry Foam. The ink will sink into the sanded areas where the sandpaper distressed the surface.









Step 8.
Wipe excess ink off the shiny Gold painted areas of the Grungeboard.








Step 9.
Make holes with a paper piercer through the grungeboard and the tag, and then sew the wings into place with soft wire.

This is much faster than using a needle and thread, and is a nice textural embellishment. Its also easy to add small beads as you go.





Step 10.
For final but striking effect, use the Ranger Inkssentials white pen to outline the details of the Squiggly Mini #8 swirl stamp.

Tip: Try adding German Scrap inked with Alcohol Inks (lettuce and stream would look great) at the bottom of the tag. SOme gold ribbon with prima flowers would look superb at the top too.