Distress Ink tags

I made some tags for a swap. I was really pleased with them, so I thought I'd put a short tutorial here on how they were done.

I used these 3 colours of Distress Ink, plus Walnut Stain.

Firstly, I used the ink application tool with sponge to apply a layer of the lighter blue, and some of the rusty hinge. I added the darker blue round the edges.  I ran two tags through my Wizard in a Cuttlebug folder, then used a stencil on the other two - one has moulding paste applied, the other was inked through the stencil  - I used all 3 colours of ink for this.

I added more ink to the raised areas of the two embossed tags,mainly rusty hinge but also some of the darker blue,  and stamped the stencilled tag to add more 'texture'.

I inked up the tag with moulding paste, again using all three colours of ink.

I didn't neglect the backs of the tags, the embossed tags were just inked with the rusty hinge, the other tags were inked with all 3 colours, and stamped with a distressed paisley stamp in the darker blue.

Finally, I added depth and texture by applying Walnut Stain ink around the edges, and sprinkling with Detail Clear embossing powder, and heating with my heat gun.  I wanted the effect to be subtle, so I rubbed some of the embossing powder off with my finger before heating - this made it thinner in some parts than others, and also blurred the line where the embossing powder finishes.

I created some backgrounds using the tag card and inks, and stamped them with the lighter blue ink and the same textured background stamp as the tags, before stamping Leonardo images onto them, and adding more of all 3 inks with the applicator tool.  I stamped some words onto offcuts. I layered the images onto very thin layer of wood, which I had coloured using the same ink, then added to the tags with the words.  I only have 3 Leonardo stamps with the right size images for the tags, so the last tag has a panel with some stick on letters spelling Da Vinci.

  

Close up of the front of the assembled tag book.

Altered box

I altered this sturdy cardboard box - which is about 5 inches by 5 inches - to turn it from a plain brown box into something slightly more attractive.

I used light moulding paste and a stencil which I bought from Crafty Notions to create the raised design.


Once dry, I sprayed the whole box with a variety of colourwash sprays - Radiant Rains, Crafty Notions sprays, Sticky Fingers Sprays and some from Outside the Margins in the US. Once that was all dry, I added colour to the raised areas using several colours of Treasure Gold.



To finish It off, I lined the box with velvet paper,
which I bought from Marco's in the US.

Friendly plastic art

I am taking part in a swap where I had to make something incorporating Friendly Plastic, and this is what my partner will be getting:


I used a Krafty Lady mould and lots of small pieces of Friendly Plastic left over from other projects. I put them all in the mould, heated with a heat gun, dipped my fingers in cold water and pushed the plastic into all the nooks and crannies in the mould. I didn't fill the mould - the piece is about 1/8th of an inch thick all over. Once it had cooled, I pushed it out of the mould and gave it a thorough rubbing with Treasure Gold, then set about making the background to set it off.

I took a 5 inch by 7 inch canvas, and covered it with scraps of paper form an old Welsh language book. I gave this a thin coat of Titan Buff fluid acrylic, then several very thin coats each of 3 or 4 colours of fluid acrylic - paynes grey, transparent orange and yellow and a crimson.

I took a fleur-de-lys stencil and a gold oil pastel crayon, and stencilled half motifs down each side before giving the canvas a final coat of the crimson paint. The canvas probably has about 20 coats of paint on it, and this gives a lovely rich polished sheen. I stuck the Friendly Plastic body on using extra heavy gel medium.