Natural fibres tag

Welcome to my blog,

Today I want to share how I made a tag for a challenge where I had to use natural fibres.
I inked a shipping tag with distress stains using the wrinklefree distress technique by Tim Holtz. You put some stains on your work surface and swipe the tag through the stains until you have the colour effect you want.

I ripped a piece of linen fabric to size and stained that with frayed burlap distress ink and wrinkled and dried it. I glued it down with my glue gun. I cut pieces of various natural twine and made bows and glued them down using hot glue.

I cut the dried up flowers out of our hydrangeas yesterday and saved some. I dipped them in molten UTEE and then coloured them with alcohol ink and glued them down with hot glue.

To make it speak I stamped the sentiment on the linen with stazon ink.

As a finishing touch I sprinkled some frantage embossing powder on the tag and heated it.

I am quite pleased with the outcome. The hydrangea part was an experiment that I had been putting off for ages, because I thought it would not work. But yaay!!!

Until next time,

Take care and until next time.

Frédérique
Xxx

Gift tags for sale

Dear reader,

I finally opened my little Facebook shop to sell my gift tags.

I use little manila tags and stamp the sentiment with black stazon ink. I stamp a background image with embossing ink and heat emboss it with antiquities frosted crystal embossing powder.
I ink the tags in different colours and ink the edges with some dark brown distress ink, this gives it more depth. I finish the tags with a piece of ribbon so people can attach them to flowers or a gift. I have a few in the selection now, but I will add more once they are done. 

They are in a set of six and can be any colour and background texture you want. I have various texts to go on them. A set of six tags, with ribbon, cost € 4,- excl. postage.  International postage is € 2,-  per set and domestic is € 1,- per set. Payments go via PayPal only.

I am happy to say that the first sets of tags have been sold already.

Take care and thank you for your visit.

Until next time,
Frédérique
Xxx

A bling and grunge tag

Hello dear visitor,

In this post I would like to share with you how I made a grungy yet blingy tag.
I started out with a manila shipping tag, as I usually do ;-).

I stamped a certain "net" like stucture on the plain card with embossing ink and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.

The next step was to ink up the card with distress ink.

That way the embossed image magically appears  i stamped the sentiment in the middle and it just looked too plain.

I had a very good deal online for bling a little while ago so I thought to use some of that to sass up the tag. I put little rhinestones on all the "crossing" points of the embossed image.

It surprised me to be honest that I liked it as much as I do! And going on comments made on facebook, I am pleased to hear it is liked. I might make some more in different colours.

I finished the tag with a stained fluffy crinkle ribbon bow in similar shades as the tag.

Well that is it for now...keep your craft on!

Take care and until next time.

Frédérique
Xxx

step by step tutorial for staining crinkle ribbon

Dear blog visitor,

Thank you for stopping by and reading my post.

The other day I was asked how I make my ribbons match my projects. It is a technique I learned watching Tim Holtz and various other artists.

So here a step by step explanation of how I do it.

I start by cutting a piece of crinkle ribbon, my favourite ribbon of all time.

I choose the colours I want to use, most of the time two or three different ones. You can also use distress stain or even distress markers.

I swipe some on my craft sheet. You can also use distress stains or even the markers.

You then spritz water on the colours until you have bigger droplets.

 This is the effect you are going for. If you want stronger colours, you just use more ink and less water.

 And then you just drop in your crinkle ribbon!

You play with it until you have the desired effect.

If you want it really crinkly you can squeeze the ribbon in your hand. Be careful though because if you squeeze too much you end up with one muddy colour....

If you like the colour effects you can dry it with your heat tool. Don't be alarmed when you see steam coming from the ribbon, it is heat resistant and will turn shiny once it dries. If you think the colours are too bright, you can squeeze the ribbon in a paper towel to get rid of some of the colour befor heating it.

And this is the end result. I didn't use much ink, so this is coloured very lightly.

So now you can always match your ribbon and bows to your project.

Thank you for your visit and keep your craft on.

Until next time, take care.

Frederique

Perfect pearls birthday tag

Hello dear blogger,

This is a very simple yet flashy tag hahaha. I used a black shipping tag and stamped some images and a sentiment on it with perfect medium. I coloured them with various perfect pearls. I stamped the harley davidson name on the ribbon with stazon ink to finish it all off.

I put it all together and saw that it was just not right...it was lacking something.
So I stamped the tyre track and route 66 emblem in embossing ibk and clear embossed it. That looked much better!

The Harley lover loved his birthday tag :-)

Until next time, take care.

Frédérique
Xxx

A few projects of January

Dear visitor,

I made a few simple tags this month that I like to share with you.

I am in a stamping phase at the moment. I plan to use my stamps more as I am a stamper at heart, but strayed a bit and used a lot of embellishments and ephemera the last couple of months.

So I am going back to basics hahaha.

Until next time,
Take care and keep your craft on ;-)

Frédérique
Xxx

A simple stamped tag

Welcome dear reader,

I decided to sit at my desk and see what happens...this tag happened....
I took a manilla shipping tag and inked it with pink shades of distress ink using the wrinkle free distress technique. I then stamped various textures on the tag with archival ink. I inked up the edge with walnut stain distress ink and my trusted blending tool.
The small tag is even simpler. I stamped the image on it with stazon ink and wrinkled it a bit and then inked over it with walnut stain distress ink and my blending tool. I distressed the edges and inked it again.
I punched some holes and added some eyelets with my big bite and the tag was done.
I stained some crinkle ribbon with peacock featers distress stain and dried it to make the bow.

Sometimes I get so caught up in embellishments and die cuts that I almost forget to stamp. In my heart I am a stamper....ever the stampaholic ;-)

I hope you enjoyed this written tutorial.

Have a wonderful day and take care,

Frédérique
Xxx

The twelve tags of 2015 January

Hello there,

Tim Holtz always does the 12 tags of a year...in this case 2015. I used to make them every now and again and so I made the January one today.

I had to improvise a bit as I didn't have all the bits and bobs for it. I used adirondack paint dabbers instead of the distress paints and I used the regular stain instead of the spray. I also used a pen nib instead of the arrow and I don't have any mirrored stars (yet) so I made one with hot glue and a mold and painted it silver. I also made my own small label on which the star is glued. He splattered the whole thing with white paint.. I used frantage to get my white specks... But it turned out quite nice I think.

I hope you like it too...

Thank you for stopping by and I hope to blog a bit more regularly this year.....

Take care and please cone again ;-)

Freddie
Xxx

A non paper craft project

Welcome dear reader,

Today I would like to share a project I made that doesn't involve paper crafting.

I wanted something flowery for my kitchen window and I had this idea in my head for months. It took a while for me to find the right piece of wood though. And for me to gather all the flowers as they are not cheap!

But today was the day I finally was able to realise my idea.

Jeroen was kind enough to put two hooks in the wall so I can hang up my creation.

I started with a piece of beautiful piece of hazelnut wood. The marking of the bark is beautiful. I attached two ribbon bows to hang it up with. I secured them on the wood with thumb tacks. And I secured the bows with hot glue to prevent them from coming undone.

I put the wood on a table and started putting the flowers and greenery in place and secured them with duct tape to be able to pick it up and see how it looks.

Once I was happy with it all I cut off the ends and glued it all to the wood with my glue gun.

After it all cooled down I hung it up and started to add more ribbon bows for some colour.

I quite like how it turned out.

Well until next time,
Take care

Frédérique
Xxx

Card for 1st wedding anniversary

Hello dear reader,

Today I want to share a card I made that was ordered by my mum. It is for a first wedding anniversary. I went for the shabby chic-ish look.

I started out with a card blank and stamped some script on it in brown ink. Archival coffee to be exact. I then added some shabby blue Frantage embossing enamel and heated it to give it the desired look. I am totally in love with those embossing enamels at the moment.

I cut a piece of thinner card stock and stamped the same script on it as the card blank has, only this time in iced spruce distress ink. I distressed the edges nd also added some frantage powder but this time I went for the shabby white.
I glued the card stock on the card blank and started on my embellishments. I painted a few 1s ith shabby shutters distress crackle paint and once they dried I aged them with gathered twigs distress ink.

I glued a scrap of hand bobbed lace (courtesy of my mum) on it and one of the 1s, and I added two white clay roses that I stained with diluted tattered rose distress reinker. The little bird is also white clay and I coloured it with some clear wink of Stella to give it some shimmer. I painted a piece of harlequin embossed grunge board with pewyer liquid pearl and covered it with glue and sprinkled mica flakes on it and glued the roman number 1 on it.

And last but not least the rest of the ones form a little flock together. It has the seal of my mum's approval so I hope the newlyweds like it too.

Until next time,
take care.

Frédérique
xxx