Monthly Tag - May

 

April was a busy month for me - not on the crafting front but life seems to be opening up again and we have had family from abroad to stay and friends for dinner (yay!). May is shaping up to be equally busy so I was relieved that inspiration for this month's tag came quickly.

I have been following a YouTube channel by Cori Dahmen called Creating with Scraps and at the start of the year she did a video on collages and clusters which you can see here . I collected some of the bits on my desk together and had a go at making some clusters. One of these is the focal piece for this month's tag, the theme of which is bits and bobs.

This is what I started with - it's a collection of bits that were remnants from other projects which I inked, embossed and stuck together onto some music manuscript. The flower is a TH wildflower die cut coloured with alcohol pens and with Glossy Accents on the flower head. I added some washi tape, gems and a scrap of stamped text.

The above is what I thought I might use for the tag (in the end I didn't use the leaf patterned paper). I think the sheet with the red splodges was protective wrapping in a parcel and I had used it to mop up some ink. The lacy trim was a leftover piece from a TH die cut that matched the green patterned paper on the cluster.

I stamped some flowers onto the sheet and a Crafty Individuals text stamp and glued it to my tag blank. My cluster went on top and I added the lacy trim at the bottom.

The completed tag:

Monthly Tag - April

I've managed to complete my tag in record time this month! The theme was Time and it had to be monochromatic so I decided to use various shades of grey.

I started with hickory smoke and weathered wood DIs on a plastic sheet which I spritzed with water and smooshed my tag blank through. I added a Dina Wakley stencil called little birdies with a blending brush and some hickory smoke DI and some text in the background with weathered wood. All the stamps are from an old Paper Artsy series called Ding & Dong. They are all mounted on foam so I went old-school and used my stamp positioner to get the best placement. I stamped the main image in Versafine smokey gray and stamped the clock face a second time on a scrap of card. The hands of the clock are separate stamps and I tried to stamp the time as 4.23.

I added a few extra swirls and squiggles and coloured some tiny pearls with a grey alcohol marker. 

Sunflower

 I'm not sure I've blogged this stamp before although I've had it for a while. The set has a very big sunflower image and some useful sentiments, one of which I used in my previous post below. I heat embossed the image in gold and then used mustard seed, wild honey and peeled paint DIs with foam blending pads. The sentiment is from a stamp and die set of sentiments which I raised on foam pads.

Monthly Tag Challenge - March

 

This month's theme for the tag challenge is 'Circles' and bright colours. I wanted to pay homage in a small way to the people of Ukraine and the terrible things that are happening in their country.

 I used the Crafter's Companion spots and dots rotation stamp with Impress lemon yellow and Versafine majestic blue. Although you normally use 4 colours with these stamps I used 2 but double-stamped the second blue and yellow for a slightly darker image. I know the blue is not quite the correct shade but it was as close as I could get.

Having cut out my tag shape (8x12cm) I wanted some sunflowers on the tag as they are the national flower of Ukraine. I don't have a sunflower die but I have a Sizzix Bigz daisy die that I cut 4 times and layered to create my sunflower. The die has 3 different sizes of daisy, this was the smallest but I used the centre of the largest die for the middle. I coloured these with a brown alcohol marker and then stamped a speckle stamp over that in black for the seeds.

The leaves are from a Lisa Horton variegated leaf die and I embossed the veins with an old Cuttlebug maple leaf embossing folder.

I didn't know what to put on as as wording for the tag - there really are no words to describe the plight of the Ukranians. I debated adding 'Slava Ukraini' which means glory to Ukraine but then remembered I had a stamp (coincidentally part of a sunflower stamp set) which I felt was appropriate. I stamped it in the same blue and yellow to give a shadow effect and mounted it on foam pads. Some yellow and blue ribbon finished the tag.

Another Shaker Card

 I decided to have another try at a shaker card using the Crafter's Companion cut-in numbers. The balloons are a Sizzix die and the stamped text is from a Winnie & Walter set. I was more successful with the sequins and beads but I think I have too many this time.

Meadow Wreath

 This is a card I made from the Crafter's Companion Meadow Wreath turnabout stamp. It was stamped with Versafine inks in crimson red, imperial purple, majestic blue & spanish moss. I mounted the 14cm square onto a 15cm square ochre card blank. I die cut a circle from white card and added a Crafter's Companion die cut sentiment in ochre.

Monthly Tag Challenge - February

 

I have struggled with this month's theme which is 'Romance'. I wasn't sure what to do - maybe I'm getting to old for romance or just being cynical about the hype that seems to engulf Valentine's Day nowadays. I finally decided to go for the supermarket version of romance which consists of hearts, flowers, chocolates and a bottle of fizz. 

The background is mustard seed, worn lipstick and peeled paint DIs blended over a web stencil by Pretty Quick. I added a stamp with random numbers and a dotted strip stamp which are both by Paula Pascual. The heart ballons are a die cut coloured with alcohol markers. I stuck the strings down but left the balloons to float freely for some dimension. The other die cut is from a set I purchased years ago for a wedding card which I raised on foam pads.

I added the sentiment and edged the tag with red ink to finish it off. I hope next month's theme is easier!.