12 Tags of 2012 - May

Tim has posted his May tag and I couldn't resist making my version even though I am busy with class preparations and working on my website.  I shouldn't have but it was too too tempting to have a go at making porcelain flowers!  Fab techniques this month but as usual I had to adapt things to suit what I had and what I did not.  That is the beauty of Tim's challenge to create a tag inspired by his design and the techniques he uses to make them.

I didn't have the stamps that Tim used so I came up with an alternative that I was really pleased with.   I started out by using mat medium to adhere my pattern tissue to an A4 card wrinkling the tissue slightly as Tim did.  Once it was dry I printed my sewing images onto the A4 card.  It took me a while to work out where I needed things to be  but I was pleased with the end result.  I think I will use this technique again.  I cut out my tag from the A4 card and I distressed and inked my edges using Frayed Burlap.

 I coloured some of Tim's frilly lavish trimming with Sea Glass distress ink and cut it in two.  It was my last piece so I wanted to make it go further!  I also coloured my tape measure ribbon with the sea glass and then attached all my ribbons, tape and ric rac to the bottom of my tag.

I wanted to use lots of sewing bits an pieces on my tag so I printed off some old cotton reel labels and some needle packaging I found on the internet.  I inked the cotton reel labels and embossed around the edges of them to give them a button shape before sticking them on my tag.  I cut out distressed and inked the edges of the Needle packet before attaching it to the left side of my tag.  I had a dungaree fastening from one of my boys in my bits and pieces box and thought it would make a nice addition to the top of the tag.

Then I had a ton of fun making porcelain flowers.  I have never done this before and I do not have a melting pot so I adapted!!  I rubbed the flowers with my perfect medium pad to get my first layer of embossing powder to stick and then kept dipping the hot flowers into the embossing powder until I had the desired effect.  It worked very well and I love the result.  I will definitely be doing this again.  I didn't have a cotton reel to sand the back off but I did have an old thread card so I wrapped that with a bit of red thread to use as my flower vase.

I dyed some american seam binding with tumbled glass distress ink and a touch of barn door distress ink too.  I tied this and another bit of ric rac to my dungaree fastener.  I did some red kiss stitches and sewed on three large eyes (hook and eye fasteners).  It was at this point that I realised I had not done any stamping on my tag so I decided to stamp a quote.  It was a bit scary as I had almost finished at this point and the last thing I needed was a dodgy stamp image!  I confess to having to go over the image in places with a black pen :-)

I coloured my coat hanger and charms with a black pro marker as they looked a bit bright and I think that it worked quite well.  Here are a couple of close ups for the details.

Thanks to Tim for the fabulous inspiration once again.  Follow the link to see lots more lovely tags.  If you haven't already why not try it for yourself it is a fun creative challenge!  Thanks for popping by