Monday, October 24, 2016

My Cards and Tags: Autumn Tags Using Reverse Confetti Dies

Welcome to this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge theme of AUTUMN!  I do love this time of year when I whip out my boots and go crunching through the leaves.  In fact, trees and leaves changing colors were my inspiration for these tags:


http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/
These tags had quite the journey and I almost chucked them several times before their completion.  I started by cutting some Reverse Confetti tags out of Strathmore Mixed Media paper, which I have grown quite addicted to.  Then I took some sponges and smeared Distress Ink on them.


I stamped some circles on them with Ranger Jet Black Archival ink and Tim Holtz's Halftone and Rings stamp set.  I cut and inked up some Swirlies dies, also from Reverse Confetti, and glued them on top.  I added some Washi tape, but ended up removing it as the almost-doomed process continued.


Once I had them colored, I added in a bunch of black paint.  But whoa!  Went too heavy on the black, so I waited for it to dry, then painted over the black with thick coats of white paint (this is what gives the edges sort of a gray-blue tinge).


Next I added some paper embellishments to the center of the tags, but hated how that looked, so I ripped them off.  Another failure!  So all that great "texture" you're seeing in these close-up's is where I scraped off what I'd glued on.


What finally saved the day was another great little tree die from Reverse Confetti, which I paired with some sentiments from Tim Holtz's Small Talk Occasions stickers.
 

In the end, I thought these tags looked sort of like trees with the leaves swirling off in a big circle of colors, which is what this time of year reminds me of.  And the lesson, as we've all seen as we craft, is to stick with a project until you know it is really truly and fully dead.  These were on life support, but I managed to bring them back and like how they turned out in the end, scraped-off surfaces and all!

These are the supplies I used, which you can find at Simon Says Stamp:


I know you'll have lots of Autumn inspiration flowing, so do upload your creative creations to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog for your chance to win the $50 gift voucher!

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