Secret Garden

Hello all!  I'm making time again, out of a busy schedule, to create and share a tag with you (yes, it's just one tag)... I think I'd go mad if I focused only on the wedding stuff!!  And I really, really wanted to find time to enter the House of Bears' inaugural challenge based on the Secret Garden (they're all going to be literary-related themes, gorgeous idea).  And given I'm learning and experimenting all the time, I didn't want to miss Simon Says Stamp and Show this week trying out different ways to Paint it Up.  (Both deadlines coincide with the wedding day!!)  So here's my (two-faced) tag for today:


The front                               

The back

I guess that like much of my recent work it's coming from the thing that's taking most of my time and effort at present - my brother's wedding preparations. 

I'm at that scary stage: full of doubt that we'll pull off the wedding transformation, and full of hope that we'll end up with a magical garden of a wedding venue.

And those two feelings are on opposite sides of this tag.








On the wall side, the background started with a coat of gesso (rubbed in well to get the chipboard texture coming through) and then I built up layers of stamping using the Tattered Angels Architectural set in Coffee and Sepia Archival.  

I stamped a few times with acrylic paints on the stamp, quite thickly to get some texture (as I've done before), and also with some bronze pigment ink onto which I swept some copper Perfect Pearls powder.  

I brushed over some areas with a bit of gesso again, and then edged it with the dark brown acrylic, quite dry on the brush so as to get the brush strokes visible.

The gorgeous, fine metal mesh comes from the fabulous Linda Coughlin's Funkie Junkie Boutique, and came wrapped in the corrugated card (which got a rough coat of sand acrylic just on the raised edges) - genius packaging going straight into action, and giving a lovely grungy bit of texture to the tag.







I stamped the words on some scrap paper where I'd been wiping my brushes and blending tools, also adding some textural stamping, using another of the Tattered Angels stamps, to match the mesh.


As you 'leap over the wall' - or turn it over! - pretty much everything changes... I wanted a complete and surprising contrast.










The background started with a coat of muted green acrylic, mixed with white.  I then put in some almost dry brush strokes of gesso all the way down and, once dry, added a coat of Rock Candy (clear) crackle paint, thicker in some places, non-existent in others.  I left it to 'do its thing' while I went off to do some more wedding chores...


On my return I blended in some Peeled Paint and Forest Moss to bring out the crackles, and edged the whole thing with the Forest Moss too.  

The papers are from K&Co and from Prima's Botanical, each given a coat of watered-down gesso to whitewash the colours.  I cut them to tag size and then ripped, rolled and edged them with Bundled Sage and Forest Moss, to create the framing dimensionality.

The words are stamped onto the 'whitewashed' K&Co paper using Aged Mahogany.  Rather than full strength, I used the second stamping, so that I got a paler cherry to match the roses in the paper.

Also in my Funkie Junkie parcel were a couple of lovely freebies, these corrugated die-cut butterflies amongst them, so they were put straight to use as well.  




I gave them a coat of Shell Pink with a Paint Dabber, then softened it with some Vintage Lace Fresco Paint from PaperArtsy.  




Using a paintbrush I stippled on some Aged Mahogany Distress Ink from the pad, and finished with a spritz of Perfect Pearls Mist in Pearl for that lovely sheen.





I had to work out something to act as my tag string which wouldn't look out of place on either side, so in the end I decided to keep it pretty simple.  The ivory raffia picks up the creamy colours in the tag on both sides, and you can't go wrong with a bit of neutral twine!


Thanks so much for stopping by today... I'm so grateful for your feedback and support.  Your lovely comments make my day!  I love Craftyblogland!!

I'm entering this in the following:
The House of Bears challenge, The Secret Garden
Simon Says Stamp and Show who would like us to Paint It Up
The Sunday Share over at Frilly and Funkie, having used my lovely new mesh, freebie extras and the packaging bits from the Funkie Junkie boutique
The Inspired by Stamping challenge - though they'll only be interested in one side of the tag! - with their lovely inspiration photo, Garden theme, and a request to use Pink, Green and Creams
And I'm joining the Bloggers Challenge bloghop again - hosted by Lisa Somerville - adding some Texture this week

If you look the right way, you can see the whole world is a garden.
from The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett