12 tags of 2013 - July

July's tag with Tim Holtz is an American independence-themed one, so my interpretation is somewhat different of the original.

I don't have any size 8 manila tags, so last time I cut my tag from heavy watercolor paper. However, the brayer technique used this month required a smooth surface, as my first try ended up really blotchy because of the surface structure of the watercolor paper. I cut my final tag from Fabriano Tecnico 6 240 g/m2 technical drawing paper, which has a surface structure very similar to that of the manila tags, as far as I could determine.

I don't really own that many stains, actually just 2 - Vintage Photo and Antiqued Bronze. I made some tests with using my Distress reinkers, and I ended up doing the front side of my tag with Vintage Photo stain and Tattered Rose reinker (forgot to take a photo before I started distressing the edges):

Just like last time, what became the back of my tag was the first try. Antiqued Bronze with the Tattered Rose. This was too light combination in my opinion. I ended up blotting the leftovers of the Vintage Photo stain from my craft mat here:

As my diecuts I used the wings from the Heart Wings - Bigz die and the middle sized gear from the Gadget Gears -Bigz die, all cut from Tim's grunge board. First I gessoed all the diecuts white, since I used clear crackle paint and didn't want the grey of the grunge board to be my underlining color. After the clear crackle paint had dried, I stained the wings with the Antiqued Bronze and the cog with both, Vintage Photo and Antiqued Bronze. I shaded the edges with diverse brown DIs.

Then the fun part! Diverse stamping on the background with Archival Coffee and the Visible Image Grunge polka dot -pattern in Rusty Hinge Distress ink. The edges are distressed in Rusty Hinge, Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain.

I used black and white polka dot -washitape and then ripped a banner from French Industrial 12x12 leftovers that were laying on my table and distressed it with Rusty Hinge. The "flight" is a Chitchat-sticker distressed with Walnut Stain. I tried some charms to the top of the tag like Tim did in his original, but the background in itself is so busy it didn't really look good.