February 2015 tag

Here is my version of Tim Holtz tag for February.  I actually did two tags one to more closely match the one Tim did and one that I envisioned in my mind when I saw the patchwork of Tim's tag.  I gathered together some scraps I had of Valentines paper from BoBunny and a heart cut on my cricut with the CTMH Artiste cartridge.

I glued the papers on the tag and then trimmed it down to the tag size.

I trimmed up a few "crooked" lines.  and added some embellishments.

I cut apart a sticker boarder to frame the small floral square and then took one of the mini tags and stamped a cameo onto it.  I started out with a compass point on the heart and some candy hearts in the upper corner.  Then I decided to use an arrow and put it through the heart.  After that I just needed to add some shading with my trusty brown marker.

I added some ribbon and thought I need a sentiment!  Must have sentiments on a valentine.  So I stamped a small one and called it good. I may yet go back and do a little more shading.  It is a rather simple tag but I really like it.  

Here is the second tag.  More crazy quiltesh and very simple.  My camera battery died so I only have a picture of the final tag.

first art journal page of 2015

So I decided that this year I was going to overcome my fear of Acrylics.  I started watching this series on You tube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZkgOCdxiJs) and it decided to try and do a page of my own.

First I used an old key card and spread some gesso and then added yellow acrylic paint also using the key card to spread it.  I was not as careful with the yellow to cover every bit of the page.

I don't have any decorative napkins so I stamped with dark purple onto some thin blue tissue paper and then tore it apart and thought "hey I need some other Blue on this page" and did some more acrylics.  This time watering the blue down and dry brushing it. Now that's two new techniques!

I used Deco Arts Decopauge Matte paste to adhere all the paper down and then did a thin coat over the whole page.  I felt like it still needed something more so I pulled out an old book I have for scrapbooking and tore out a page and adhered it.  I used a stamp of a doily I got for Christmas and stamped randomly in the dark purple.  

I stamped my sentiment in the same dark purple and added the large sticker "FLY" to finish it out.  I added the key in the corner and trimmed the overhanging paper.  Then using a dark brown watercolor marker I added shadowing along the edge of the torn paper and the doiley stamp.  I noticed that the stamped sentiment was fading into the paint and so I restamped it onto a piece of scratch paper and using the purple ink and some blue ink I distressed the paper to match the other stamped images. I also stamped the bird onto a scratch piece and fussy cut it out to place on top of the original stamped image. 

 I was happier with this but I still felt like something was missing.  I let it set for a while and then had a thought.  I dug through my stamps and found one of a flying bird and decided that is what I needed.
I will have to say it is not my favorite page but for a first go at acrylics I am happy with it.