Monday, October 29, 2018

My Cards and Tags: Flying Books Tag

"Take Flight" is this week's intriguing theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog.  You know I'm a literature nerd of the highest order, so I made a little fleet of flying books to represent how reading can take us anywhere.


I started with Strathmore Mixed Media paper cut into a tag shape.  I glued on some text paper then stenciled white paint through a polka dot stencil.

I colored the tag with some white and lavender acrylic paint.  Next I went to town with Infusions!  This is colored powder stuff that you spray with water for all sorts of cool speckly-effects.  I also added Distress Stain around the edges so the whole tag surface was colored with the Infusions and the Distress Stain.

While that was drying, I cut and folded some "books."  I sewed down the middle of them with my trusty sewing machine.

I wanted to add some black into my tag, so I did some scribbling with a black Prima Oil Pastel crayon, then smudged it with my finger and a bit of water.

I found a "by the book" sentiment and glued it to a piece of diagonally-stripped paper, then added a plus sign (also cut from patterned paper).  I glued it onto my tag and surrounded it with my flying books.  I used Dina Wakley's Ultra Thick Gel, which does a great job of adhering things to a paper surface.

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

I'm excited to see what your interpretation of our theme is!  Upload your masterpiece to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog for your chance to a win a $50 voucher to the Simon Says Stamp store.

Monday, October 22, 2018

My Cards and Tags: Halloween Tags using Tim Holtz's Halloween Hangouts

Time is flying and I can't believe that Halloween is right around the corner!  That means that this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge theme is Spooky/Halloween.  I went with a couple of tags that utilize some of my favorite dies.


Interestingly enough, I was inspired by some Christmas patterned paper when I was making these tags.  I decided to go with that and glued some scraps of it to my two tags cut out of Strathmore Mixed Media paper.

I added acrylic paint in white, pink, blue, teal and green.

To spook-i-fy it, I added gray paint and lots of black smudges and lines made with Prima Oil pastel crayons.  Then I stamped on some images from Dina Wakley using Ranger Jet Black archival ink.

What to add next?  I cut some circular shapes out of black paper using Seth Apter dies.  I filled in the circles with some scrap collage pieces I had.

I glued these onto my tags and embellished each.  For the bigger tag, I added bats (folded in and out for a dimensional effect) made from Tim Holtz's Halloween Hangouts die.

I looped a piece of black embroidery thread through the tag hole at the top.

On the smaller tag, I added an "October 31" sentiment.

I really love the "smudge-a-bility" factor of the Prima Oil Pastels!

Here are the supplies I used that you can find at Simon Says Stamp:

I'm excited to see all of your spooky Halloween creations!  Upload your projects to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge blog for your chance to win a $50 voucher to Simon Says Stamp!