AI Butterfly Blessings Tag

I just love this butterfly because it looks like a leaf. In our local zoo there was a butterfly house. It was hot and humid and full to the brim with butterflies. It was one of my absolutely favourite places to spend some quiet time when zoo admission used to be free. There was a massive butterfly in there that looked like a ratty, old, brown leaf and it was always a challenge to find it in the butterfly house because it was so well camouflaged.

Since so much of this tag was in neutral tones, I decided to make the butterfly 'pop' with colour. I used the emboss resist technique on watercolour paper by stamping the image with versamark and heat embossing it with clear embossing powder. The image was painted with a simple colour wash using distress ink and then I dribbled water on it and walked away to allow it to dry thoroughly. The distress ink reacts with the water. Tim Holtz does a much better job of explaining what happens, so if you want to see his explaination, go see this Tim video.

I then over stamped the butterfly image with the flourish vine image from the Butterfly Blessings set and cut it out using the deckle rectangles from nestabilities. I used both the large and small sets of deckle rectangles for the layered effect. I stamped the same flourish along the right side of the tag using walnut stain and sponged over it with the same ink for a more subtle effect. The sentiment was stamped on a Idea-ology Fragment that I sanded the wrong side for an etched appearance. I used the flourish again with versamark and stamped on the wrong side. I heat embossed the design and then stamped the sentiment on the front (smooth side) with jet black stazon.

So, this was my first foray into the world of tags... me likey!

stamps; butterfly blessings (Artful INKables)
paper; raven (bazzill), fleuriste (cosmo cricket), watercolour paper (unknown)
ink; versamark, staz on (tsukineko), peeled paint, tea dye, walnut stain (distress ink by ranger)
accessories; sm & lg oval punch, pewter jumbo eyelets (SU!), ornare piercing template (ornare - ODBD), black adhesive rhinestones (Heidi Swapp), clear detail embossing powder (ranger), deckle rectangle nesties (spellbinders - IHP), fragments, long fasteners (ideaology by tim holtz)