Tim(e) to play...

Hello all, so glad you've found time to drop in, and an especially big welcome to the new followers.  Today, I'm sharing my take on Tim's first tag of 2013.  I was so thrilled to see he was continuing the 12 Tags this year, as I had no way of playing the full set in 2012...

It seems incredible, but this time last year, I hadn't even heard of him...  I know!!

It was at the end of January 2012 that I bought my first Tim Holtz product - the Crowded Attic paper stash, since you ask, and no I'm not telling you how much TH stash I now have!

I only discovered and joined Craftyblogland in June, but even then my tag participation was off-and-on... I've decided that this year I'm really going to try to play along with all 12.  And I'm starting out with a pretty "straight" version - mainly because I absolutely loved Tim's inspiration tag for January.  So here's mine.

I had many of the things required, though not all of them (still some stuff for the wishlist), so there are a few substitutions.

No film strip ribbon, no apothecary labels, no calendar stamp for the ribbon and, probably most significantly, no TH Gadget Gears die.  Also, there seems to be some size variation on the stamps - one bigger, one smaller - but overall I'm very happy with the result.

Because of my current obsession with turquoise, I couldn't resist using my new Peacock Feathers DI as one of my layered colours when I was inking the tag embossed with the Clock Texture Fade.

I also used Antique Linen and Vintage Photo, and then blended some Pumice Stone over the whole thing for a deeper, grungier shade.

I used some Gathered Twigs to darken the edges of both the main tag and the quote.  This was stamped on one of my coffee-stained tags and trimmed to size, before attaching the adorable Idea-ology hinge clip and sticking it to the tag with padded tape.








Since I didn't have the film strip ribbon, I stamped the TH film strip stamp onto some acetate and cut it out, giving it some nice distressed edges as I went.  

The pointing finger, like all the stamping, was done in Black Archival so that it would keep its lovely crispness as I inked over the top to get the paper to blend with the rest of the tag.  I wiped the edges across the Archival pad to get the black shading too.







You can see the finger got caught in the crossfire as I was flicking water at the tag background... but I decided to make a virtue of the imperfection and gave the droplet shapes a tiny sweep of Peacock Feathers to highlight them.






As far as the gears go, I'm both very happy and very cross about them.  I love the finish on them... taking Tim's technique of using the Metallic Distress Stains on the Grungepaper, I mixed Pewter and Tarnished Brass onto them.

Then I sanded them a bit to roughen the texture in places and blended Gathered Twigs and some more Peacock Feathers on to distress them further.  I love the greenish hint of decaying copper the Peacock Feathers gives them.









But getting that far was a bit trickier.  Rather than the Gadget Gears, I got myself a bargain set of Spellbinders Sprightly Sprockets last year - thinking they had a few more sizes and shapes which could be useful... but can I get them to cut cleanly?  Can I heck?!











I've tried shims and all sorts, but in the end I had to sort of tear them out of the Grungepaper (and no, they don't seem to want to cut ordinary paper/card either) and then trim the edges - which got a bit boring, so I'm afraid there are some rough edges.  Alterations all the way for me next time.

Having said all that, I do love the finished look, with the Idea-ology gears piled high on top...

And because I quite like things sticking out over the edges of my tags, I decided not to trim them to fit, but leave them exploding out of the frame of the tag - as with the film strip and the finger too.






My final adaptation was for the ribbon at the top.  Since I didn't have a calendar image to stamp directly onto the ribbon (though I do love stamping onto ribbon), I decided to think laterally.  

I used some of the calendar tissue tape from the Traveler set and stuck it to some ribbon.  I brought the Peacock Feathers back into play to give it a hint of colour, and threaded it through to finish off the tag.










So that's my January tag.  I'm so looking forward to tackling a full year's worth of the amazing TH's inspirational work.  Thanks so much for spending some time here at Words and Pictures today.  Hope to see you again soon, either here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland.

I'm entering this in the following:
As my January tag for Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2013

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
Neil Gaiman