August Tim Tag Tutorial

***This tag won on Tim's blog!  So excited to win again, I just had to share!***

So, I'm sittting here on a Thursday night ...  August 27th ... preparing to do all my family's laundry because tomorrow morning, we're all packing, and driving up to Lake Placid,  NY for the wedding of a dear friend of the family.  We'll be up there until Monday, August 31st.  Hmmmmmm ... Tim's tag needs to be done by August 31st.  Hmmmmmmm.

Are you familiar with Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of the Year?  Every month, he creates a tag on the 1st of each month, using lots of his products, while teaching you techniques with lots of step out pictures and wonderful instructions.  You can find them here on his blog, and the August tag is here.

Well, lots of laundry to get done, and what better way to stay on top of it is to hang out down here, where my studio happens to be.  What luck!  I can do both! ... it's been done before!

First, a load of laundry in the machine.  Time to get working on my tag ...

Using Tim's dies, I taped each word die to the manilla tag and cut it out.  I used the Precision Base Plate on the bottom (in place of the bottom cutting pad), and ran it through my Big Shot.  Just to be safe, I reversed and rolled it through a 2nd time.  Out it came, perfect!  Time to lay this baby out!

On a 2nd manilla tag, I needed to collage some papers using Ranger's Studio Matte Multi Medium.

I used some Bazzill's Newsprint paper I picked up while I was in England.  This paper is very cool ... almost like real newsprint!

 

When the Matte Medium was dry, I cut off the excess paper down to my original tag size.

Then, I used Multi Matte Medium to glue the manilla piece with the cut-out words on to the top of the collaged tag.

The two tags were adhered together with Multi Matte Medium, and then, a coat was also spread on top to seal everything together.

White Gesso was then spread across the entire tag.  Quickly, while the gesso was still wet, I used a towel to remove alot of the gesso from the letters so as not to lose the decorative paper pattern.

After I removed most of the gesso from the letters, I realized that the cloth rag also removed alot of the gesso from the tag.  I decided to go with the flow and leave it like this so I get a more variation of colors.

I added Fossilized Amber, Cracked Pistaschio, Spiced Marmalade & Mermaid Lagoon pads directly to paper. (missed that picture!).  I then added Matte Multi Medium over it all to blend the colors and seal everything.

I removed some of the color/matte medium with a towel, and ended up with this paler version.  I chose this beach couple for my collage.

I fussy-cut the couple out and laid them on my tag.  I decided my colors were too dark, so I sanded some of the color off where I was going to place my couple.  Since I ended up with mostly blues/greens, and my found relatives choice was a couple at the beach, I went for that theme.

I live in New Jersey, 20 min. outside New York City.  I consider New York my home as much as New Jersey is!

I used New York themed ephemera, and went from there.  I found a gear that was color like the sun, so I added a little more Distress Paint, and added a New York star.

I chose some words from Tim's Small Talk to fit my theme.  I sanded the edges first, and then glued them on with more Multi Matte Medium.

I found some beachy/boardwalky ephemera and loaded it on.

Yes!  What a better place to anchor all this than New York's own Coney Island!  I used some Tahiti Beach Mudd Puddles and added some sand.

Nice touch, if I don't say so myself!

After adding some splatters from my Zig Painty pen and some smudged shadows around my images with a black stabilio pencil, I believe I'm done and ready to post to Tim's site.  I feel lucky this month!

August Make ART Challenge

I was banished to the basement to type up some invoices for my husband's business tonight.  My studio and the laundry room are down here also, so I decided to wash some clothes and work on a challenge.

This month's challenge over at Make ART Challenge is Monochromatic.  Anyone can enter the challenge, you just have to use at least one item from Wendy Vecchi's Studio 490.

I happened to be playing with Wendy's alcohol background technique this weekend, so I chose the most monochromatic one I had.

I used some Adirondack Ink and stenciled the bricks.  I added some rust colored washi tape for my trees (Wendy's Trademark Art set) to stand on.

I love this little car (Wendy's Destination Art set), and I rarely get to use it.  I stamped it on manilla cardstock and fussy cut it out.  I sponged some Espresso Archival ink on the edges and tires and added some Glossy Accents on the wheels.  I popped it up with foam tape.

I stamped my sentiment (also from Wendy's Destination Art set) with Espresso Archival ink onto some Stampin' Up! More Mustard cardstock, cut the words apart, and edged them with more Espresso ink.  Popped those up too.  The card base is Stampin' Up! Cajun Craze cardstock.

June 2015 Tim Tag

I finally cleaned my table off to find some time to play this past weekend.  Tanya was over, and we love to make Tim Tags together.  I've been backed up on my challenges (and blogging!) because of a couple European vacations (more on that later), so we decided to work on the June challenge.

I wasn't going to purchase this die, but it was on sale, and it's so stinkin' cute, I couldn't resist.  We decided to go with another color scheme than Tim's green, and we chose Fossilized Amber, Wild Honey and Spiced Marmalade ... 3 of my favs.  You can see Tim's tag here, with complete instructions and photos if you'd like to check it out.

Tim is very detail oriented, and also a Starbucks lover.  How could he not include the whipped cream on his favorite beverage?  I used a real plastic straw, but it was white with yellow stripes.  I decided to swipe an orange StazOn pad over it to change the color.

I usually like to change up my version of Tim's tags, but this saying was the most fitting.  Life is good, isn't it?  Just ask my husband ... he says when he dies, he wants to come back as me!  haha  He wants to sit around in his pajamas all day playing in the studio!

I'm not a Starbucks fan, so I made mine Steampunk.  A new beanery coming to your local neighborhood soon!  haha

I'm going to enter this tag in this week's Simon Says Stamp Blog Challenge "Food or Drink".  Click here to see the details and enter your own creation.