Wednesday 11 April 2012

Spring Colours With 'Lace' & Ribbon & Late For Tag Tuesday!

I belong to a lovely little on-line craft group called UKPC. This month I'm joining in with my first swap and the remit was to make a tag featuring spring colours, lace, buttons and beads. I love most of the elements so this project ended being one that I really enjoyed making. Giving it away will be sooo hard!! Although I love lace, I never seem to include it on my projects. What I do like however, is lace die cut from card or paper a la TH so I've used some of that on this tag and I think I'm now hooked on it!

I've also seen that the challenge over at The Artistic Stamper is for 'Ribbons and Lace' so I want to show my work there too as it I think it fits the requirements. They do show some fab work on this blog too so it's well worth a visit if you haven't already been - I snoop around everywhere I'm afraid!

I do like to follow the challenge at Tag Tuesday just for fun. Unfortunately this one is rather late but I hope I'll be forgiven!

So, let's have a look at what I've made and how I put it together:


Here you can see the separate elements ready to be put together. The weird shaped gold embossed pieces on the left are the two halves of a jewellery die cut that I sliced in half to finish the top and bottom of my egg. I can see that I left on the backing strip of the double sided tape on the tag base - not very attractive!
The finished tag.
The 'egg' was cut out free hand. I laid down one colour of DI and then stamped it  using a resist technique and crystal embossing powder. I then inked over the embossed area with DI. Finally, I coated the egg with two layers of UTE as I wanted it to stand out against the matt finish of the flowers and leaves.


In this view you can see the TH lace die cut which has been inked with DI and then randomly embossed with gold powder. The 'button' is also a die cut which has been inked (DI), stamped, sprayed with shimmer spray and finished with glossy accents. Some gold embroidery thread finished off the lace and the button nicely.


The flowers were die cut, all were then inked with DI and some also had stamping added for extra interest. The centres of some flowers are made from die cuts which again have been inked and stamped. This photo seems to show the liberal amount of shimmer spray added to many of the elements. I sewed beads onto the flowers using clear nylon thread - I've tried using wire but I find this method not only quicker, but easier too.
Behind the flowers is a piece of ribbon to set them off nicely against the egg.

 Here you can see the tag background which was built up using DI's, shimmer spray and stamping with archival ink. The leaves are Th tattered leaves which I cut up to a more proportional size for the flowers. I added a stamped die cut to the top of the egg for extra interest. The ribbon aspect for the challenges is found under the flowers on the egg as previously stated and through the top of the tag. I embossed the ring round the tag hole to match in with the other embossed elements.

14 comments:

  1. Just lovely! Your color choices, gilding, and depth are fab!

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  2. Julia, this is just gorgeous. Love the colours and there's so much detail. Am really loving that TH lace die too (one for the wish list!) xx

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  3. Great tag - love all the elements and the colours go beautifully!

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  4. Well you've certainly got all the elements for our SWAP and the other challenges thrown in too. I don't have any UTE, maybe I should get some - do you heat from the underneath for it? Oh and I did a psychology degree and it WAS deathly boring - LOL - BJ

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  5. Wow! Beautiful tag. I'm a new follower,hope you'll visit me and do the same. Amy Jo

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  6. Hi Julia. I am your newest follower. I just love this piece. Good luck in the challenges. Hugs Annie :)

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  7. This is beautiful. Love the lace & wonderful colours. Sx

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  8. This is truly beautiful!!! Is green your favorite colour? im thinkins it is, it' mine.

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  9. Great textures & a beautiful design Julia! Thanks for sharing it with us at The Artistic Stamper Challenge!
    Alison xx

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  10. This is amazing love the amount of detail and the textures ! x

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  11. WOW!!! Fabulous Julia!! Fantastic work, you must come over and join in at dragons dream challenge... your work is fab.... love the detail and the textures, you clever girl.... Hugs May x x x x

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  12. Hi Julia - thank you for the lovely comments you left on my blog. I came over to have a peek at your work and I just love what you have done with your tag - it really is fabulous. You have a lovely way of inking and stamping your die cut flowers. I am very happy to join your followers and see more of your work. Best wishes. Jennie

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  13. Oh, Julia, this is so elegant! I like the colors, the textures, the text, the flowers, the lace, well, simply everything. :)

    Thank you SO much for coming by to visit my blog often. It's always a pleasure to see you, and you make my day every time!

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  14. great tag, love the flowers,
    you covered the ribbon & lace theme perfectly,
    Thank you for joining in with this months challenge over at The Artistic Stamper creative team blog,
    Kat X.

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Thank you so much for taking the time to comment. Juliax