Back again...

I know, I know, MIA again... but I'm still here, crafting away, lots of lovely creations to show you! So take a deep breath and have a cuppa, I think you might need it...

June's tag swap was for the birthstone of alexandrite or pearl, I chose alexandrite as apparently its a purpley colour, and I like purple... also being Gemini we had to have two of something and have a crown somewhere on the tag, so I made 2 little punched tags and embossed a crown onto them and hung them with some ballchain from the top of the main tag.

The background music staves are embossed in purple embossing powder and between them (not showing very clearly) is a row of flowers done in pearlescent embossing powder. The ribbon was coloured using Dusty Concord distress stain, a technique I picked up from a fabby Distress Inks class I took in June with the lovely Jennie Boxall (The Artistic Stamper) - I get the feeling I'll be doing a lot of colouring ribbon seeing as I bought 10 yards of plain white seam-binding (as well as several other 'essential' crafting items...)

Julys Birthstone Ruby so lots of luscious red was called for in this months tag. July 4th is Independence Day - stars and/or stripes, and July 14th is Bastille Day so something French (a word, image... anything loosely French)

So... we have the tag coloured with Fired Brick Distress Stain, stripes embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and the stars are brads.

The Eiffel Tower was stamped using black Archival ink onto linen-look paper which I'd firstly coloured with Shabby Shutters and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks, then torn roughtly around the edge to leave a fluffy white border. A few well-chosen stamps which were French-themed and lastly the tag was adorned with thin red/white/blue ribbons (which didn't make it into the photo but trust me they are there...)

August tag was hard work 'cos as usual I tried to be clever and almost didn't get them done, however I persevered and here is my offering... our hostess said: "The birthstone for August is Peridot, so using that colour in bling or other materials is essential! And with the predominant starsign being fiery Leo and the summer being upon us, something shiny and metal is a must too ...

Finally, I'd love you to please draw your inspiration from the Wizard of Oz - whether this be literally, abstractly, or even just picking a quote or song line, as long as there's at least a tentative link back to it (for example, THOSE red shoes, lollipop guild, yellow brick road, straw, bluebirds, rainbow, monkey, poppies, Toto, hot air balloons...)"

Well, peridot is a mid-green colour, my tags have come out a little dark but have lots of gold embossing to help 'bling' them up. As for the shiny and metal, I used alcohol inks on two die-cut hearts to try and re-create the look of metal, before covering them with glossy accents which immediately changed how they looked... The quote is from The Wizard of Oz, I thought it went well with the 'metallic' hearts... the quote is reverse-printed in black onto acetate and immediately covered in gold embossing powder and heat-set, so you get a black image with a tinge of gold around its edges.

Last tag this time around is a separate swap I joined, with an Alice in Wonderland theme... and again I almost got caught out as I didn't read the instructions properly and only initially made 6 tags instead of the 8 I should have done... .oops...

Sooo - Alice in Wonderland... brain kicked well and truly in for this one, I wanted to portray Alice falling down the rabbit hole, namely because of the fab set of stamps I'd got fom The Artistic Stamper showing just that... trouble is I didn't think there was quite enough room on a 6" x 3.5" tag to really do it justice, so came up with a fiendish plan, which by the time I'd got it onto the cardstock was actually working quite well!

We start off with The White Rabbit at the bottom of the rabbit hole, checking his watch, he's clearly underground because the edge of the tag is shaded in shades of brown distress ink... and above his head are some branches (Tim Holtz 'On The Edge' branches die on a green speckled background.)

Cunningly tucked under the branches is the second half of the tag which folds down to reveal the length of the rabbit hole - clever eh...

The base cardstock is cream, I've used Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo and Black Soot Distress Inks in decreasing amounts along each side of the tag to create the rabbit hole, leaving a paler centre from which the images should 'pop out'... I don't think there's usually much light when you fall down a rabbit hole to really be able to see too much tho...

As well as the 'Alice' image, the set also has the 'cupboard' image which I stamped directly onto the background. I also created a picture and a map using stamps from my drawer (the map is part of Pink Paislee's 'Daily Junque' clear stamps set, the country scene is Personal Impressions, the frames are Stampourri) and these along with Alice herself were stamped onto white cardstock and coloured with ProMarkers (of which I now have a much larger collection of colours to choose from...)

So thats the last 3 months of tags caught up with - next stop are my Tip-In pages... but I need a cup of tea myself first...