Spring tag swap

Some time ago on a Woyww post the eagle eyed amongst you may have spotted some tags I was in the process of making ... Well I can now post about them as they have been received in Texas.

The rules were the size and that the tags should be pastel and contain at least one layer of patterned paper or stamping etc.

So what did I do?

Well after cutting the cardstock to size I painted the tags with some golden Fish coloured spray ink which is less than pastel! In fact very bright. So then I mixed up some gesso and water and painted over it which toned it down a bit. I then used a stencil to create some marks along the bottom. Then I stamped using the tangerine ink and the flowers from one of my stamp sets from stampin up whose name I don't know as I lost the box!

Then on separate watercolour card I stamped the flowers and leaves as separate items and added some water to give them a watercolour type feel. I then "fussy cut" the flowers and leaves. (this is a new term I've learnt through this process as this is what the swap organiser called the cutting out of an image when describing my tag! I like it!) when they were dry I glued them in the bottom left of the tag with some Pinflar so they had some dimension.

The top left then needed some attention so I stamped one of the butterflies from Papermania Urban stamps onto the watercolour and again water coloured it. I added this to the tag again with pinflair so it was flying off the page.

Where's the bling I then thought ... So I added gold stickles in a swirl for the centre of the raised flower, and the centre line of the butterfly. I also added some clear stickles dots as the trail for the butterfly too. Then finally a layer of glossy accents on the butterfly as I couldn't resist the glassy finish.

Anything I would have done differently? Well probably wouldn't have done the stencilling as it didn't really work and just looks a little like a mark on the background, and maybe rounded the edges of the tags as they look a little severe. But I think for my first ever attempt at this sort of tag swap with rules I did ok. Having seen the video of the tags coming back I am excited to receive my swap as they look fantastic.

And where is the video ... Well you have to join Creating the Crafty Life to see it. My last ATC swap was for there and also doing a Fathers day card swap but more about that in May once the swap is completed.