Tim's tags of 2012 - Feb

Well you probably all already know this news but T!m has sadly decided to retire his Twelve Tags of Christmas with very good reason after listening to retailer feedback at CHA last month.
The good news is he has decided to make a monthly tag sharing techniques and tips :D

He launched the first of his tags at the beginning February HERE with the gorgeous Love themed tag below.

Unfortunately I didn't have any of the products T!m used, not even close LOL, so had to make some major improvisations with my tag as you will see LOL.

To start with I didn't have an embossing folder with a matching stamp so had to think of a way I could add colour to my raised image - I could have just swiped over the embossed image with an inkpad but I wanted to try something different.

I decided to try out my new distress markers, so coloured in the debossed images on the folder, placed my tag in, huffed on it to refresh the ink (that seems to be the technical term LOL) and ran it through my big shot.

Voila - once nicely inked raised image :D

In hindsight I wish I had inked my tag first as when I went in with my blending tool the embossed areas picked up a lot of the colour - lesson learned ;-)

As I was going for a sewing theme I diecut a piece of chipboard with the mannequin die and coloured the base and top with my frayed burlap ink pad, then added the same colour distress stickles.

I cut the body section from some of Claudine Hellmuths sticky backed canvas and this time coloured it with my Victorian velvet ink pad (see, I did learn my lesson LOL).

I then followed the same embossing folder technique using the Victorian velvet pen, the attached it to the chipboard base. I added some little stitch details with the fine end of my frayed burlap pen., then stuck it to my tag with glossy accents.

I decided for the lace die cutting to use a piece of glassine paper which I inked once crumpled with broken china distress stain, then attached with staples.

I didn't have any appropriate stickers for the tag so I cut the words from the Kraft 12x12 resist paper, inked it with my distress stain, then added faux stitching with my picket fence pen.

I was going to colour my ribbon with distress stain but didn't really want such a strong colour, so I scribbled on my craft mat with my marker pen, spritzed with water and ran it through the ink, giving it a much softer colour.

I didn't have any charms that worked quite right with my tag so I used my old faithful buttons but it didn't seem enough.

I improvised again and die cut the little cotton reels from clear shrink plastic which I coloured with Snow cap mixative and ginger alcohol ink before shrinking, then wrapped them with thread.

I think they look really sweet :D

Are you all joining in??

I will be trying every month and will be linking it via Mr.linky on T!ms blog for the competition :D

And for those of you wanting to try the distress markers Moira has them on order and I will let you know when they are in stock :D

Have fun,

Hugs'n'snogs,

Julie xx