It's Halloween - Let's Tag It On. . . . . . . . . .

Hi everyone. I'm back from the land of packing boxes for a short while to bring you the latest challenge at Our Creative Corner. 

The October challenge is to:

Make A Tag Which Must Feature Surface Texture

This could include modelling paste, texture pastes, wet or dry embossing, thick gesso with added texture - the list is endless really! The theme for your tag is:

Halloween

Just the excuse you needed to get messy with lots of different mediums, inks and anything else you fancy!

Over at Our Creative Corner, my teamies have created some fabulous tags for you so why not pop over and have a look? On the 15th October, the rest of this talented team will have some more inspiration for you so don't forget to take a look at their work too.

I love making tags and couldn't wait to get started on this one! The only things to keep in mind are that the tag must be the main project and that it should show some surface texture.

Here's my tag for the challenge - I hope you like it. I should warn you that this post is picture heavy so go and grab a drink before you start!

Finished tag made using DecoArt paints and mediums. Ink used is Archival as this works brilliantly on painted surfaces.

A large size tag (#10?) was cut from mount board and coated with Faux Finishing Medium. This seals the surface and grabs the paint. Not used this before? It's really fab and it can glue, seal, transfer images, add to paint to extend and more.

A stencil (by Andy Skinner) and some modelling paste start to add texture to the tag surface.

Further stencilling and bits and pieces are added to the background.

The whole tag was then coated with DecoArt Gesso. You can see the pastes I used in the background.

The skull on the left was stencilled using DecoArt Crackle paste. This gives wonderful hairline cracks on the surface. The diamonds on the right were die cut and added to various places on the tag.

DecoArt Traditions and Americana paints were then used to add colour using a brush and in some areas they were used for stamping. The skull is by Tando and was given a Timeworn rust finish to add age.

Some areas of the tag were stamped then finished with DecoArt Two Step crackle - just had to get some in somewhere didn't I?! The yellow spots were stamped with Americana and the black lines were applied using a credit card and some carbon black Traditions paint.

Die cut letters from grungeboard were painted and coated with DecoArt Triple Thick glaze - fab stuff for that top gloss finish!

I love that you can still see the crackles in the paste skull even after several coats of paint and crackle. The black shadows were all achieved by brushing on Pan Pastel to required depth of colour. If you look carefully here you will see lots of different stamping using both archival ink and DecoArt paints. Some with stamps and others with objects from desk!

Another stencilled skull with stamping around it and Pan Pastel shadow.

The little bat charms were applied with glue then gessoed and painted along with the rest of the background. Some carbon black Traditions paint was applied to cover the bats but the background colour was allowed to shine through. A twist of rusty metal wire was added here and there.

The top of the tag was finished with die cut, embossed and punch card strips which had the Timeworn rust finish applied. A little screw brad received the same treatment.

This diamond shape was stamped using archival ink.

The words were stamped onto acetate sheet using stazon ink then applied to the tag when dry.

Phew! I did tell you there were lots of photos. If you survived this far then well done and I hope you enjoyed seeing how I built up the layers on this tag. Now pop over to Our Creative Corner and see what the rest of the team have made. Then it's your turn - can't wait to see what you come up with!

For those who need to know: my cat has yet again weathered the storm but his meds have been increased. The move is still scheduled for the 21st but it's not set in stone yet! I've also been up to Yorkshire last week helping to clear a house - my packing skills are fab now and I'm available for a small fee for removals!!