A New Leaf

Hello all!

We're sharing a Tag Monday over at A Vintage Journey this week.  I love Tag Monday... an excuse to play with a tag, Tim-style, no pressure, no theme - just me, some inks and some stamping!

And given I'm in full-scale sample-creating mode at the moment it was lovely to take ten minutes out and just play.

Hop over to see what my lovely team-mates have shared, but before you go, here's my contribution.

This is not quite "a new leaf", though it sort of is.  Although I've used most of the stamps in the Daydream plate from last year's releases, I'd never inked up this lovely skeleton leaf before, so it needed to happen.












I started by blending ink directly onto a manila tag, then started layering in some detail with stencils.... first the Bubble and then my favourite Latticework.

I was using Broken China, Peeled Paint and Mowed Lawn... though in the end the greens rather took over from the turquoise (which is as it should be for leaves, I suppose).











I used DecoArt Chalk Paint to do my white stamping (a tip from Andy Skinner - if you haven't seen the things I made at his fabulous workshops, I'd love you to check them out).

You can't go wrong with the Papillon script...











I have lots of book page pieces left from carving out my Bell, Book and Candle niche.













They're handy to grab, so that's what I ran through the Trellis Frameworks and added as an extra layer.












Both the quote and the leaf are stamped in Potting Soil Archival.

I needed them to hold their own against the busy layered background, so I did my usual trick of clear embossing them.  It gives that lovely touch of gloss and dimension, as well as intensifying the colour because of the refraction of the light as it hits.












I used a blending tool to add some Rusty Hinge and Vintage Photo colour to the leaf very roughly.  I love that you can still see the layers even through the browns.











I added some golden pen nibs, arranging them in strong vertical lines to echo the quote and the leaf.

Well, what else are you going to use to write that gorgeous Papillon script?!










And the ribbons were actually dyed with Fresco paints for one of my samples (hmm... any guesses who the samples are being made for?!  Watch this space), but I ended up not using them for that.











But with a touch of Vintage Photo the ribbons were perfect here, tied with a bit of rustic twine.

I glued the whole tag onto some kraft card and trimmed it to size before attacking it with the distressing tool.








And we're all done.  I love how it warms up as the rays of winter sunshine (between snow showers) hit it.

Do hop over to A Vintage Journey to see the taggy delights created by my wonderful team-mates.  And you've still got time to play along with our current challenge to Use A Portrait on your Tim-style project.  Check out all the details and our Travelling Instructions - we'd love you to join us on the journey.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I'll see you again soon.  Now the samples are all done and ready for posting I might even get to come visiting...  Oops, no, tax return first!

I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copy-books; and I make so many beginnings there will never be an end.
Jo March in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women