Spring or Easter gift tag

Isn't it great having the evenings draw out again and soon and this next weekend is Easter, so Spring is hopefully well on its way.

Easter eggs and gifts will be shared in a few days so I thought I would make a quick gift tag for you to make and attach to the present that goes to someone special.

Begin with distress oxides in spiced marmalade, broken china and cracked pistachio and create a dip and dry background.

 Stamp some flying bugs, I used the Entomology set of stamps by Tim Holtz and used his stamping platform to get a strong outline ( I stamped it twice using coffee and black archival inks)

Take forest moss, pine needles, tea dye and rusty hinge ordinary distress inks and with a paintbrush paint in the wings. I also used some white linen ink spray by dylusions to highlight the bodies.

Next take some scraps of paper and tear pieces to cover the butterflies and stamp the text stamp, also from the etymology set, with broken china doxide.. 

Before removing the paper lightly spritz over with water and heat dry.

Stamp the small butterflies from the classics 17 stamps and remove the little Fig. numbers, cut, distress ink the edges and adhere. Also stamp the special delivery from the correspondence set directly onto the tag.

I always 'frame' my tags, cards etc and didn't want to rely just on the normal distress inked edges so I searched my boxes of old unknown stamps and found a fabulous forgotten distressed border stamp which I used with cornflower blue archival ink.

Finally I covered the winged bugs again and splattered some white gesso and then finished with the distress inked edges.

A lovely gift tag with springlike images and colours don't you think?

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

www.bumblebeesandbutterflies.com

Be Original

Well Trace here today , with another distress oxide and paperdoll creation...full of inky yumminess! So here is the card and all the details follow below:

If you are not able to get the paperdolls , you could still create something similar using a found relatives image cut out or a stamped image in its place...but they are gorgeous things to play with!

I have used many collage items, some dyed seam binding, idea-ology and some of the new Tim Holtz tape...

To create the background I applied broken china, cracked pistachio and vintage photo distress oxide inks onto the craft sheet, I spritzed plenty of water and swiped the card through the inky droplets... heat dry and then re dip and continue to dip and dry until you are happy.

I then applied some distress oxide ink ( vintage photo ) through one of my favourite stencils lattice stencil 019 - in the corners of the card front.

I edged the card in vintage photo distress ink using a mini blending tool.

To create the layered collage piece I placed some of the new snippets together and glued them into place ...having scuffed and inked the edges.

to complete the overall look, I applied some broken china distress oxide ink onto a craft sheet, spritzed with water and then dabbed in the collage pieces to pick up some of the gorgeous blue ink.

below shows the details of the finished card and shows where the collaged pieces have picked up the blue ink..

doing this with the oxide inks helps to tie all those pieces together.. and the oxides have such a gorgeous finish ..

To complete the piece I added some flowers cut using the new thinlits dies - small tattered florals from Tim Holtz, and I cut these from a piece of card coloured using distress oxides ink..

I added some of the gorgeous film strip from idea-ology , adhering using mini attacher staples..I added a paper doll, sanded lightly and inked around the edges with vintage photo distress ink..I also added some rub ons to add more layers of detail

I added more of these tiny flowers and a quote chip- these are fab as they create such great dimension

To the side of the card I added some dyed seam binding, dyed using broken china distress ink..

To give the paper doll dimension I added some foam tape behind the girl and added here on using this 

So there you have my inky and idea-ology filled card...

hope you like it!

trace x

Mixing the old with the new

Hello it's Jane from Jane's Journal here today sharing some of my newest Tim Holtz buys. I am super excited that in September I will be attending his workshop and will be  playing more with his Distress oxides but for my post today I wanted to share a vintage tag I made using his Distress Oxides and the fab paper dolls , mixing them with some of my older products in my stash, particularly Tim's layering stencils .

If you would like to see the inspiration for my tag today I have linked my own blog post up here sharing a day in London seeing the "old" and the "new" in my favourite city in the world. You will see lots of photos of a sunny day out. I make "Moments" for my physical Jane's Journal to remember special occasions in my life. Sometimes I make art journal moments, sometimes I make tags. It was our wedding anniversary and we celebrated over lunch in the Fenchurch restaurant of the Walkie Talkie building. For this "Moment" I decided to make a tag.

I have provided links to the shop in my post and if any of the products I am sharing are out of stock do fill in the email request and Susan will email you as soon as they are back in stock.

I took a size 8 tag (I cut my own with the Framelits set here ) and made a background using the wrinkle free technique and 3 oxides; fired brick spiced marmalade and broken china and as these were the predominant colours I saw on our sunny day out. I kept the blue at the top to represent the blue sky we looked out to from our table.

I stencilled in some sunny rays using the rays stencil and fossalized amber oxide to represent the sunshine streaming in that day.

I used some of Tim's older stamps to stamp a random love letter background using sepia archival ink.  This is to celebrate our anniversary and 36 years of love and fun...yes I married my soul mate and I know I am very lucky.

 I also wanted to use one of the great paper dolls. As I looked through the pack I found a vintage bride and groom and I thought it was perfect for my old and new tag

I  die cut an old Sizzix house, bought from the year round CVC sale page (you can find lots of bargains here all year, there are lots of Tim products there too)  a while back and snipped off the bits I didn't need and used some snippets of paper from my stash and a piece of tissue tape to anchor everything together as a mini collage.

I also used the mini heart stencil from set 6 and added some more fired brick oxide to leave "lots of love" on the brides dress and at points on the tag.

 I also added some remnant rubs from the life quotes  set. I thought this saying was perfect.

I finished off with some words from the Ideaology small talk pad and a little red heart from my stash.

Here is my finished tag.

and a few close ups. I love using the Oxides through stencils, they layer up perfectly. 

I really am enjoying playing with the oxides and mixing the old with the new.

A little heads up...Susan is expecting the new colours of Distress Oxides in very soon...I have some on pre-order and cannot wait to play with those too.  Remember that for the UK your orders are also  posted free. These inks really are a game changer in my books, I love crafting with them.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bye for now,

Jane x

haunting melodies

Well it has been a while but Trace here with a Tim Holtz filled tag ... my make for today is a Halloween inspired tag using lots of the new Tim holtz goodies.

So here is my make :

I started by embossing the tag using one of the new folders damask skulls

I then added some colour using distress oxides in wilted violet and spiced marmalade, I flicked water over, re-applied colour and then added more water.

the colour highlights the texture brilliantly and shows how wonderful the texture is ..

To highlight the texture some more I applied some distress crayon in black soot and also

 edged the tag with distress soot crayon

I then die cut the tag using three of the claw marks from the new Tim Holtz Halloween dies and then layered the tag over a black inked tag, I added lots of mini attacher staples and I also splattered some distress paint in black soot.

here are the details of the staples..

and sanded away some of the texture

whilst waiting for the new paper dolls I cut out these figures from a found relatives card and sanded so that they took on a more ghostly appearance

I added some film strip pieces

I also added a token at the bottom part - I also added the new die cut cobweb

I completed the top of the tag with dyed seam binding

here is the complete tag :

and here it is with a few twinkly lights :

so that's all for today..

hope to see you soon 

Trace x