Angel Tags

I was recently in an angel tag swap with the Altered Pages Yahoo group. We were to make three tags to send to three different people. I really love making tags. I did a lot of distressing on these. I love angel imagery.

I got that ribbon from Michaels. It was in the dollar ribbon bin. LOVE IT. I don't know what it is about it, but I went back and bought four more spools so I could use it again. It's fantastic stuff.

I hope everyone has a great holiday!

Tribal masks in gel and clay

I made some more of the tar gel embellishments. I used a flexible clay mold called "Tribal" something or others. I think it's for Sculpey clay. I turned the gel brown with SU! chocolate chip dye ink. I think they turned out pretty cool. They have a neat look to them, a textured look, almost like they were carved. I have to figure out what to do with them, but I have an idea for adding them to my Diva book. I could also make some dolls with them, but I think I'm going to stick with my book until it's finished before I move onto making things like dolls. I just don't want to forget about my book.


I finished up my last tag. I used my gel leaf embellishments on it and I added a couple of those tribal masks done with translucent clay with ink added to it, so they matched the tone of green in the tag. They're much darker than the tag, but the tone matches very well. Now all I have to do it gather the fibers to put my tag book together and figure out what order I will put the tags in. I'm not sure because there are a couple of tags I like very much and I'm fighting with myself about which one gets first place - the cover.

I have to go make some cards now. I miss stamping on paper.

Blogging like a mad woman!

I am on a roll again. This is another tag, using the orange piece of tar gel film that I created. If you make it big, you can see the orange wings between the angel and the cloth. There is some stamping on the tag, but it's kind of hidden. A Flourishes, llc Flourised Element and an SU! image that you really can't see at all unless you are reeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllyyyyy close. Before I added all that extra stuff on top, I stippled on a couple of different acrylic paints - burnt orange and yellow ochre. I also added Old Paper distress ink, and Brilliance gold ink on top to give it more zing. The cloth was a lot of fun to make. It's this gauzy material that I got in a bargain bin. It was a remnant and I got a yard of it for a dollar. Really good deal! To make it here, I painted it with Lumiere paint in a pink gold and a bronze, then I rinsed it to make it shimmer softly. And it really does. It sparkles. I don't know if that shows up in the picture.

I got some Fantasy Film and Fantasy Fiber over the weekend and I made a tag with that stuff too. The fiber anyway. WOW!! Cool stuff. Really, really cool stuff. Do you guys get the impression that I'm just going crazy with this stuff right now? It's the decompression. I'm no longer wringing my hands with worry about my job. Woo-hoo!!

Anyway, this tag uses Fantasy Fiber in Daffodil and I made that flower with a translucent polymer clay (Sculpey) that I painted. I have more that I added ink to in order to color it. I plan to make some different colors that I can just glaze.

I got a question about the tar gel from Laurie Unger, can you use alcohol inks. I've got a batch sitting on my desk. I'll let you know tomorrow evening if it actually works. So far, it looks like it should.

Note - don't reuse the wax paper to make a second batch of this film. The wax paper loses it's ability to repel the glue and it sticks.

Another note, I thought I found this tar gel thing somewhere online, but I didn't. I found this:

http://www.goldenpaints.com/artist/cltargel.php

And used it as inspiration to make something we could use for things other than paintings. She painted on a base (canvas or paper or something) and then poured clear tar gel, and made the swirly things in the gel. I colored the gel because I wanted to be able to cut things out. Now I've got some more leaves setting up and some tribal faces. I could really spend a lot of time doing just this. I need to make some cards!

Another tag

This tag is my favorite one yet. I stamped on it - in case you can't tell. I used a swirl from TAC and a flourish from Flourished Elements. Then I used an image from Altered Pages (they are great for these kinds of images - good service, run lots of sales so get on their email list if you can!!). I painted beeswax over her and then put a paper towel over the beeswax and ironed some off. I painted a piece of lace with twinkling h2os (gold dust, I think that's the color), then with a brown from my 4 year old's watercolor set, and then with a bronze color from the Pearl Ex paints to add this pretty shimmer. The brad says "hope" and that is for my mother in law. She's been living on hope and prayers for more than a year now. "Truth", I believe that all patients deserve to know the truth about their conditions and deserve to be treated with respect. My next tag is going to be respect.

Just because someone is older doesn't mean they suddenly become stupid. Now, she is in a nursing home with a lot of screamers. Lots of alzheimers patients who wouldn't know if you treated them badly, but that still is no excuse. Some man was outside her door today barking and then he'd yell "You're going to die. Let me out of here. You're going to die." Then he'd growl and bark. But you know, he still deserves to be treated decently. My mother in law has a full grasp of her surroundings. She isn't out of her mind. She isn't in the throes of dementia, and it annoys me that nurses start out treating her as if she is. They certainly learn quickly that she isn't, and by golly, if one of them upsets her, she gets herself a new nurse.

Anyway, for this tag, I was waiting for the lace to dry and now it has and my tag is done and I can go to bed. My little guy got his own bed for Christmas and for the last three nights, my husband and I actually got to sleep next to each other. Very odd, but definitely not a bad thing. Married for so long, it's hard to imagine we've gone the last four years without sleeping next to one another. Sooooo..... I'm going to go cuddle up next to him and sleep (if he isn't snoring too loudly).

Thanks for keeping me company, Laurie and Jan.

Finished the tag

I finished my tag. I added a little cross pendant, a silver circle bead, and a few blue beads. Very shiny. There is also a little piece of blue napkin I made with distress ink - Broken China.

I am also going to do a step by step walk through of the distress inks on gesso, like I did for the front cover of my board book. I read today that distress inks aren't meant for gesso. Gesso resists distress inks. That's true, but with a heat gun, they dry and they are able to be layered and blended, and the resist of the gesso is what makes them blendable. If they soaked in, like they would with paper, rather than sitting on top, you couldn't exactly blend them. So I broke a rule (not unlike me at all), but I'm not sure it's really a "rule". Oh, and this tag, the blue flower and heart, they're stenciled onto gesso with distress ink, so I know it isn't a complete waste of time.

Tags with Pockets

The next step in the tag adventure is to add pockets. I'm not really a "pocket" type person, so unless some new inspiration strikes, this will probably be my only tag with one. I stamped one of my tags with a script background (can't remember from which stamp company). I used Walnut Stain distress ink. The pocket is made of vellum, covered with distress inks in Tattered Rose, Dried Marigold, Fired Brick, and Tea Dye. When it dried, I put it through my Big Shot with a Cuttlebug folder. I glued it onto my tag with Golden's Heavy Gel, and added the Love embellishment. Pretty simple.

My Christmas was pretty awesome. My husband pays attention to things when I think he's not looking. I got a 55 -200 mm lens for my Nikon, which I asked for. But I also got a craft table and a craft light to hook onto it. And then the real surprise - a portable lighting studio to take pictures of my cards and stuff! I was more than surprised. I'd never even mentioned anything like that to him. He said he's watched me walk around to find a good place to take pictures and thought this would help. He's such a sweetie!

Another Christmas card and another step in the tag book

This is the last step in the painting/coloring of the tags for the tag book. This step was to dry brush the tags to make them softer looking. You dip a dry paint brush in gesso and wipe it off onto a paper towel, or in my case, old newspaper, until there is almost no paint on the brush. Then you paint on the tags in all directions, even swirling. I used very heavy pressure on some spots, which resulted in a lighter look to the gesso, more misty looking. I wanted some heavier paint spots, make it look as accidental as the coffee stains did, and in those areas, I didn't press as hard with the paint brush when smearing the paints around. This is what came of it all. After the holidays, apparently we will be decorating the tags with embellishments and bits. I plan to do more of these. They were fun.

This is another Christmas card. I made 12 of them. They're all done! Much easier than the other set. I still used hand painted paper that was then dry embossed. I stamped on Cryogen White paper with Brilliant Blue. After the ink dried, I Versamarked the whole piece, sprinkled with Iridescent Ice and heat embossed. Very sparkly and pretty. I love those little snowflakes. They're just so cute with the snowflake embossing folder. The stamp set is Flourished Christmas from Flourishes. I can't wait to see their next release. Their images make me smile.

I have another dozen Christmas cards to make and then I'll be done with Christmas cards this year. Whew.