Perching on a branch...

Hello everyone, and welcome.  I seem to have the bit between my teeth with springtime makes... and with a new Artistic Outpost set to play with, there'll be no stopping me now!


This tag uses the wonderful Birds of a Feather set (I blame the brilliant Tracy Evans and her beautiful makes with these stamps for me giving in to my "need" for them!) as well as some fir branch offcuts I picked up on a recent outing to some beautiful woodland gardens.


I was inspired by these amazing creations by Rachel Dein of the Tactile Studio, which some of you may have seen on my Pinterest boards... but while hers are created as plaster casts of natural elements (probably more long-lasting), I've got the real thing under mine!












I started by gluing the fir fronds onto the tag with lots of multi medium, adding a good coating over the top too, and then covering the whole thing with thick gesso.














I dabbed on the gesso, creating a textured look over the whole surface of the tag, and also making it easier to get right down into the textures of the fir. 










Next step was to add some shading with Pan Pastels and, before I knew it, I'd returned the fronds to green...  














Didn't really mean to, but there we go!

The bird is stamped in Potting Soil archival...















... and I added some of the Gothic font text in Olive around the edges (Gothic book print - another reason I was besotted with this stamp set!).










With the words "feathers" and "perches" involved, the Emily Dickinson quote from the Quote & Quotables set was an obvious addition, but I'm afraid I had to cut off her name in order for it to fit on the snippet of rusty mesh I had in my offcuts box.










The little wooden hearts are by Studio Calico, and I think the tiny buttons came from the UHK Gallery.  No rhyme or reason to them really, they just felt like the right thing.













Lots of crinkly seam binding to top it off, with a touch of Walnut Stain and Gathered Twigs Distress Ink... 









... as well as a little touch of inking around the edges, and another springtime tag takes its place in the world.

I fear it may be a rather ephemeral creation - I've no idea at what rate the fir branches will rot, or indeed whether they will or not.  So enjoy it while it's here... a pretty good motto for more than just this tag, wouldn't you say?!

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.
Somerset Maugham



I'd like to enter this into the Textured Backgrounds theme over at the Stampotique Designers Challenge, where I was thrilled to be honoured as a favourite pick for my monochromatic shreds and patches last week.

And at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge they're playing Tag It, so I'd like to drop it in there too.