Friendship Tag

Hello all, a very warm welcome to you all, and an especially big welcome to the new followers - it's an absolute pleasure to have your company for the journey.

I've got a little something today using a Stampsmith stamp which delights me... she's called Serena, and the piece is inspired by this month's Stampsmith challenge Bags and Tags.  It's a tag in a bag!

I used a tissue bag which actually came as part of the packaging in a delivery from the Funkie Junkie Boutique - waste not, want not, you know!  It's quite shiny so I wasn't sure how well it would take the images, but I'm delighted to say it worked very nicely.

I think it's such a beautiful image that the only stamps I was prepared to use alongside it were from my favourite floral set, the Autumn Leaves silhouette branches.  I like that they're slightly thorny, not straightforwardly 'pretty'.

Serena is stamped in Color Box Archival in Khaki Green, and the stems are in Ranger Coffee Archival.

As well as being shiny, the bag is also translucent, so there's a lovely ghostliness to the image... according to the light she's either there or not quite there, a quality which I love!








On the tag inside, the Serena image is stamped in the same ink, but this time onto tissue paper.  I did some wrinkle-free distress on the tag surface using Bundled Sage and Frayed Burlap, so there's a textured inkiness already there... and then I glued the tissue-stamped image down, getting some actual wrinkles involved as I did so.






(I tried to keep Serena's face relatively wrinkle-free, however - a girl's got her pride after all.)  I love this technique which I discovered while playing recently.  It gives a great vintage look, almost like fabric.

On the reverse of the tag is another Stampsmith stamp, this time a quote very close to my heart.  I've always loved it and was so happy when I saw that it was available - it's pretty time-consuming to stamp such a long sentiment letter by letter!




Again, I've stamped it on tissue paper, and before sticking it I blended some Bundled Sage over the tag first.  I edged the tag with Frayed Burlap, and I also wiped it lightly over the creased surface of the tissue paper to highlight the wrinkles a little.


The tiny rusty heart here, and the one on the outside of the bag, are cut from some rusty experimenting I've been doing as part of the Andy Skinner Timeworn Techniques course online.  (You can see the results of another experiment here, and there'll be more to come I'm sure.)

In fact the tiny tags are also backed onto the rust, but I forgot to turn them over so that you could see.  And on the back of the large heart it says "LAUGH", since that's the most important thing for me within a friendship...  The words are stamped with another of my £1 alphabets - incredible bargain buys from The Range; I have three different fonts.





I attached them with very fine burlap twine, as the piece seemed too delicate for the bulkier regular one.


I loved making this, so I'm thinking it may not be my last entry in this month's Bags and Tags challenge!


I'm entering this in the following:
The Stampsmith's September challenge Bags and Tags with a Stampsmith stamp
The Fashionable Stamping Challenge at the moment is Anything Floral or Handmade Flowers
Simon Says Stamp would like us to Put a Stamp On It
Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stamper challenge is Stamped Flowers at Ink on my Fingers
It may not qualify, as I didn't actually buy the bag, but it did come from the Funkie Junkie Boutique, and so I would like just to share it at the Sunday Share at Frilly and Funkie
Another go in the Heck of a Challenge inaugural Anything Goes

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
Henry David Thoreau

Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer.
Anonymous

Friendship exists, clear and absolute from the beginning.  You don't make friends, you recognise them.
Isabel Paterson