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!