12 Tags of 2015: June!

What?! So early?!?! Yep, I'm going on vacation for a sizable chunk of June and I wanted to a) make sure to do my tag and b) use the techniques to make a card for my Dad for his birthday/Fathers Day (see later post). So as always, let's start with showing my new tag and Tim's tag that it is based on:

My Tag:

Tim's Tag: 

And now for some of the fun close up stuff in case you care to see :)

First, part of the technique included making a background that used a stencil as a stamp. I went with a black tag (because I have a ton and never use them) and a mix of paints on a stencil mixed with water to create the background. I think it has a cool celestial look. There is another background in the picture that is part of my dad's card post (go look at that one too!).

So after making the background, I went and used my new coffee die cut thing (which I obviously had to have as a Starbucks lover). But let's look even closer!

So working top down here, some of the interesting components include the use of a zipper pull, one of those metal things that keep dress shirts folded when you buy them, and a monogram-wax-seal thing that I found on a walk recently. I love finding cool stuff and using it. Moving down a little, Tim used some paint to make the "whipped cream" on the coffee, but I like to shake the cinnamon on top too, so I used (wait for it...) a chopstick dipped in alcohol ink in my spritzer tool to spray the back of some plastic before I added the white paint behind it. At first I used a distress ink pen, but I forgot that it wasn't actually made for that and had to redo it.

Moving on down, I decided to spice up the "cup label" thing with a... a uh... plastic thing (I can't remember what they are called. le sigh) that I stamped using a reflective script on the back so that it was correct on the front. I let it dry and added a little paint to make it stand out. I also put a little bit of alcohol ink on the front to age it a bit. Below that I used burlap, some green paper, a strip of film, and some chit chat stickers to make a phrase that is sort of a punny nod to Starbucks.

And here is the whole tag again!

AND as a bonus for reading until the end, I'm hosting a CONTEST to win some cool Tim Holtz Distress stuff! I'm a fool and ordered two of a few things, and I only need one sooooo good for all of you! You get to try and win it! I have a distress ink pen, stain, and paint in Fossilized Amber up for grabs (one of the new colors for 2015) -- all you have to do is comment below with a suggestion of what you do with tags after you make them haha. That's it! I have a bunch of them and I'm not really sure what to do with them. Do you sell them? Use them for cards? Really big book marks? Anyway, comment below by 11:59pm EST on July 3rd and I will randomly choose a winner on July 4th and reach out to the winner.

-Steve