2019 #19 Cute Critters: Snowman Tag with EKC {by Jenny Marples}

2019 Topic 19: Cute Critters

Ohh, the GP texture Jenny manages below is astonishing! I thought she was working on textured paper, but no! She made it! how clever! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Jenny Marples (Pushing The Right Buttons) with you today, and I'd like to share with you a Christmas Tag featuring the cutest little snowman designed by Kay Carley.

I love using stamps, paints and scraps to create collages. Spurred on by the recent completion of a notebook using another of Kay Carley's stamp sets (see it here) I decided to give the techniques a go on a Tim Holtz Etcetera tag so it could be used for home decor purposes. Here's the finished tag;

I took photos of the steps taken to create the tag base ready to share with you today. Apologies for the lighting quality - the weather has been miserable here for what feels like a month! To start the tag was covered with white gesso before having Grunge Paste applied with a spatula in an uneven fashion. You'll see from the picture below that a smaller panel was altered in the same way before being stuck to the centre of the tag. You'll all know the quality of Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Paints - it only took one coat of Cloud 9 Fresco Finish Paint to cover the tag perfectly!

 

Bearing in mind the uneven surface and the addition of the central panel the only way to successfully add a couple of Kay Carley's beautiful willowy trees to the background was to stamp them in permanent black ink onto a single ply layer of tissue and stick them to the surface with Matte Distress Collage Medium. This technique also gives you the option of reversing one of the trees to face in the opposite direction. Then to 'grunge it up' a little and help define the surface texture I applied a wash of extremely dilute French Roast Fresco Finish Paint over the tag, dabbing away any excess with a paper towel.

When creating the notebook cover mentioned at the start of this post I discovered a wonderful way to make translucent coloured tissue for layering over stamped designs (so they can remain visible). Mix the tiniest amount of PaperArtsy Infusions with water and paint over tissue. You only need a single ply layer of tissue so you can imagine there will be plenty left over for future projects. Below you can see the four colours I played with - there are many more to try!

Having torn away the edges of a piece of the Rusty Car coloured tissue I applied it over the trees with more Matte Distress Collage Medium. I love that you can still see some of the wrinkles in the tissue when doing this.

Time to tackle the star of the show, the snowman - to replicate the feel of the main tag I added the Grunge Paste and Cloud 9 Fresco Finish Paint to a spare piece of thick white card. After applying a light wash of the dilute French Roast Fresco Finish Paint I stamped the snowman onto a single ply layer of tissue and stuck it onto the card. You'll see that baubles from set EKC31 were stamped onto his arms.

Having cut him out I added colour by painting over some of the snowman with dilute layers of Scottish Salmon, Peachy Keen, Waterfall and Toffee Fresco Finish Paints.

 

You'll see on the finished tag that the baubles have more of an orange tone to them - this is because I added a little of the Toffee over the Scottish Salmon before applying Glossy Accents to make them shine. Hint; if you are a little heavy handed with the paint in places (as I was) use a fine permanent black pen to draw in the missing lines.

At this stage I got lost in the process of adding the different textures and layers to the tag so here's a quick rundown of what was used. Apply torn pieces of the tissue coloured with In The Navy Infusions to a strip of white card (altered the same way as the snowman) and the edges of the tag. 

After sticking toile lace over the trees, add the card strip and a piece of cotton lace tinted with Seaglass Fresco Finish Paint. The snowflake remnant is a scrap of paper, painted with more of the Seaglass Paint and embossed in white with the snowflake from Kay Carley's stamp set. There's also a torn piece of teabag paper coloured with Golden Sands Infusions on top of a plain piece of calico fabric. To finish I added vintage sequins to the tree branches and the sentiment from the set, stamped on a strip of white card (altered the same way as the snowman).

Here are some close ups of the finished tag so you can see the detail more clearly. You'll see I added crushed silk effect ribbon to the top;

So as you'll see cute doesn't need to be 'girly' - you can go grungy too. I hope you've enjoyed seeing how effective those pieces of tissue coloured with Infusions can be when you need translucent layers - give it a try!

Thanks for joining me here today.
Jenny

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