Tim's tag for December

I am so pleased I managed to find a bit of time today to get my last Tim tag of the year done, all the details and process steps for Tim's own tag are over on his blog. Although I have got the prancing deer that he used, I decided to go with a lantern which reminded me more of the new year and the candle signifying peace. In fact you will see candles from me again very soon.

I didn't have all the supplies Tim used but I did use all his techniques from the background to the lantern and greenery. The word vision comes from Tim's stacked artful words strip die

I love the way the lantern turned out with the distress paint background and the glitter over the top and of course I added one of my rusted bells, it just seemed to fit, I love the candle stuck behind the frosted tag

The little clip at the top of the tags is one I bought when I went back to my home town of St. Ives recently (near Cambridge). One of my old school friends was working in a vintage shop in town so I popped in to see her and found them, they have a hook on them so the tag can be hung up.

Well it's New Years Eve tomorrow, have a great day and evening I will be back Thursday with two posts to start the new yeatr. I can't go without giving my huge thanks to Tim for an amazing year of creative inspiration and these wonderful monthly doses of sheer brilliance. As I am so late (again!!!) getting this completed and linked to Tim's blog, I won't have so much time to wait till the next one. I shall now pop over to his blog and link my tag for the last time this year.

Take care everyone.

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.

Hal Borland

hugs {brenda} xxx

November Tim tag

The penultimate Tim tag for 2014, I can’t believe where the year has gone and to think it’s December tomorrow.

It was great fun looking for a different embossing folder and die for this make as I don’t have the layered leaf that Tim used and although I have the insects and the snowflake I wanted to experiment with other things in my supplies.

So I have gone for the French theme with the Eiffel Tower and a fleur de lys mover and shaper.

I have more or less followed Tim’s process steps but I added some foil sheet both to the embossed tower, fleur de lys and the corrugated card using a splatter stamp for the sticky embossing powder.

I also stamped on the corrugated card first which adds a little more interest.

I used some tarnished brass distress paint on the word band and arrow.

I am so pleased I have managed to fit this in before the deadline and am linking to Tim’s post.

Thanks Tim for another inspirational tag, looking forward to see what you share tomorrow.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tim’s tag for October – a Halloween journal pouch

OMG here I am just coming in under the wire with my October ‘tag’ and it’s the last Halloween make for this year. I decided to make a tag pouch using the giant size 12 tag from Ranger. I had a brand new set of Retro Halloween framelits sitting on my shelf  just waiting to be used and as they come with both stamps and dies I thought they would be perfect for Tim’s technique using a mask to cover the image.

I have followed Tim’s instructions for the outside but used a mixed-media layered technique for the inside.

I began with blending victorian velvet distress paint through the gothic stencil and went on to add some aged mahogany through halloween words.

I dipped the tag in distress stains and dried it, then used more stencils to blend distress inks over the top.

I love the colours and how they mixed together creating some fabulous blends.

I used the reverse side to create the outside of the pouch following Tim’s techniques – go take a look at his process steps, they are so easy to follow and he produces amazing results.

You can see I used texture paste in both white and black.

When all the layers had dried I stamped, painted and die-cut all the images from the framelits set and found some mini movers and shapers dies which I cut from black card.

I added phrases and quotes to both side to create more of a journalling effect. The lettering was made up of chit-chat stickers, label letters, the stenciled lettering and some were computer generated.

I got right to the end and suddenly realised that the front cover didn’t look quite right.

Can you see what I changed?

Distress inks – seedless preserves

Distress stains – victorian velvet ,dusty concord, stormy sky

Distress sprays – iced spruce, dusty concord, tattered rose, brushed pewter

Phew, so pleased I had time to play today and do this piece, I was feeling so disappointed that I hadn’t found time to take part and now I feel re-inspired and ready to move on and make some more DT and workshop samples.

I am linking to Tim's blog and wish to say thanks Tim for your continuing inspiration and ideas.

Just before I go it’s officially the hottest Halloween ever in the UK, today we have had highs of 23 degrees Celsius which is 73 degrees Fahrenheit. At home we have had all the windows and doors open as it’s just like a really warm summer day. The only difference is that the shadows are long and the cherry trees have completely lost their leaves. what is happening to our weather?

I have flowers still budding.

Summer bedding still full of colour.

Spring flowers blooming again.

Pots still a riot of colour.

And the cats enjoying the sunshine.

This is my bee box, I’ve seen bees going in, but need to do some research about how they use it.

And lastly I just love this photo of a single red rose peeking through the bare branches of the Cherry tree.
Update - it seemed silly having a bee box and not knowing how it was used so googled it and found out -
Red mason bees need a box filled with hollow pipes, such as cut lengths of bamboo. They lay their eggs one at a time with a supply of pollen or nectar and a plug of mud between them.
So now I know what will happen next year when the eggs hatch, we will have lots of Red Mason bees in the garden yay.

Have a great Halloween evening with plenty of treats and no tricks.

See you again in the morning.

hugs Brenda xx

Tim’s tag for September–a note book cover

This is my first effort and because it went totally wrong I guess I’ll be trying another one soon. To see Tim’s tag and all the details as to how he made it pop over to his blog to be amazed. Once you’ve seen the process for the background then you’ll understand what went wrong and what I’ve done to this to salvage it.

This is Tim’s tag.

I used Willow for the first layer and then blending solution and Lettuce through the stencils. Although it isn’t what I set out to achieve I do like the results  and carried on using it to make a cover for a sketch book.

The leaves were given the same treatment as Tim’s butterflies.

Stamps used – Bird Feather, Thankful Silhouettes, Classics #17.

Strip die – Autumn Gatherings

Another great tag from Tim and more techniques to add to our tool box to use.

Thanks for stopping by today, have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tim’s tag for August

Well it's lovely to be home and this is my first non-scheduled post for three weeks, what can I say? I wanted to keep my blog ticking over but I haven't been able to comment in all that time as the resort wifi would grind to a halt very quickly and my Ipad decided to be temperamental leaving me unable to access the internet for most of the time. But I will make up for it next week. I just have to get some projects finished for almost immediate deadlines and I will be out enjoying crafty days on Saturday and Sunday, so hopefully I will catch up with all of you who have been so kind to stay with me asap.

On to my Tim tag, amongst these DT and workshop deadlines I have managed to get my Tim tag completed this week. It follows his guidelines fairly closely but I have also followed my muse, as he said to do, and made changes as I was going along.

I love Tim’s film strip and using the mini portraits in it, to me it creates such a great embellishment and focal point, adding more interest and detail. I collect and cut all the portraits from his paper pads to use this way.

You can see it’s a very busy and textured background and the elements sit beautifully over the top.

Can you live simply and seek adventures? I think so, I think we should seek new adventures every day and for me many of those are by experimenting with ideas, styles and techniques so that I can grow and be excited by the projects I produce.

What adventures have you had lately?

I’ll be out both days this weekend, a day with Andy Skinner tomorrow and a PaperArtsy day on Sunday. Lots of wonderful ‘play’.

Stamp sets I used are – Merchantile, Classics #2, Classics #3

Thanks Tim for another inspiring tag, I look forward to seeing your creative make every month and of course September is not that far away now is it?? I’m off to link this up to Tim’s blog.

Take care , my love and hugs to you all and have a great weekend..

Brenda xxx

Tim Tag for July

I love seahorses and the summer so this tag was a delight to make and I followed Tim’s guidelines almost to a T.
You can find Tim's instructions on his blog with a list of supplies he used and a photo step by step - I am linking this up to his July post.

So we have the beautiful crackled seahorse and the fabulous watery and bubbly background ........

...... the distressed jute ribbon, the spring greenery with a completely new lease of life …….

…. and the textured sand to hold the sand dollar and starfish.

Another of my favourites – well I think they all are actually, not sure how you would choose a bestie, just depends on the moment in time doesn’t it?

It’s going to be a great week this week in the Brown household, Thursday will be the special day, with things happening Friday and Saturday …… ooh tease I know, oh and I’m guesting as well on Thursday at PaperArtsy, so keep an eye out for another post from me then.

In the meantime have a great week yourself and hopefully some creative fun too.

hugs brenda xxxx

Tim’s tag for June #2 with frameworks die

When I made my June tag (#1 as it turned out to be), I had experimented with different types of paper and card with the gorgeous stencil technique that Tim showed us on his blog. I showed the different ones I had made on my post and I though they all looked fabulous, so today I decided to have another play with one of them and came up with this.

I wanted to to use completely different elements than the last one and I gathered a few things that I thought would go together including the background made on canvas textured acrylic paper and decided not to waste any of it and have used it on a long card, which I think will be perfect for a wedding anniversary (I have a special one in mind for later in the summer).

I’ve used one of Tim’s ‘Found Relatives’ cards and trimmed it to fit

The flower is also made from bits left over on my desk and are coloured with Dylusions sprays which gives this wonderful bright luminosity to the card and blends beautifully with the distress inks on the background.....

..... and the remnant rubs work beautifully on both the film strip and the textured paper -  I used the ‘Botanical’ sheet for the words I wanted to use.

The 1 and 0 are plastic clock numbers and given the altered surface treatment taught by Tim in Creative Chemistry 102 last year, plus I added a spray of  dirty martini dylusions ink spray to the mix …..

…. and the trellis framework was cut from left over watercolour paper coloured with Dylusions sprays and painted and sprayed card which gives the different effects with the frame itself and the inserts.

As the background was made specifically for Tim’s June tag I shall enter it to the collection of fabulous makes appearing at the end of his post. If you haven’t seen Tim’s tag yet you really should pop over and see the fabulous step by step tutorial he provides to show exactly how to do the technique.

Sorry I am still not around much, with the sun shining more often the garden beckons plus I have been prepping and preparing for workshops and I also had the grandchildren this weekend for a sleepover (as they love to call it), so all in all life is rather busy.  I hope this finds you all well and enjoying some crafty activities.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xx

Tim tag for June

Tim has a fabulous tag this month (as always) but here in the UK we don’t have the sizzlits stamps and dies he used (hopefully next month) but that hasn’t stopped me playing with the stencil monoprint technique that he has used. In fact I played with various stencils and different types of paper to see what effects I could achieve before making my tag.

This is the background I used for my tag and the print is on smooth cartridge paper.

Canvas textured acrylic paper.

Card bought from Ally Pally in my last visit.

Oil sketching pad ……

… and the second generation stamp of the previous one on the same paper.

Bockingford watercolour paper 140 lb.

Direct to a tag.

I used the Merchantile stamp set ….. stamping several of the stamps twice, painting the image with distress inks and adhering over the stamped image on the tag.

I used the alphabet stamp for some background interest ….

covering the inked and painted bottle in glossy accents and adding a vintage pen nib,

Tim shows how to tie this lovely bow on the tag.

Tim shows all the details of how to do the techniques on his blog and I will be entering this into his monthly collection..

It's a busy week for me this week now, visiting my sister today, doing the Dylusions and journalling workshop for Country View Crafts tomorrow and then Friday morning off to the Isle of Wight Festival for the weekend, Biffy Clyro, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and The Kings of Leon here I come. Weather looks promising too, mind you the forecast changes every day.

Have a great week yourself and see you Friday with the new challenge starting at A Vintage Journey.

hugs Brenda xx