Long Rusted Love

Hello all!  I'm away for a week or so at the moment - hot springs in Budapest, (a flying stopover tonight at home) and then some music-making this weekend, so apologies if I don't make it round to see you for a few days.

But I made my Tim tag last weekend and it seemed appropriate to post it in time for Valentine's Day, even though I'm barely here (and usually do my best to ignore V-Day).

The whole hearts and flowers business of Valentines doesn't get much of a look in here at Words and Pictures, so this a very rusty take on love.

My tag has a couple from long in the past - the shiny smiles in the photo may have worn a little thin over the years...

Or perhaps they've weathered well together, sharing years of experience and adventures and trials, and growing ever closer.  Maybe they're wearing those smiles to this very day.




For all my inertia around V-Day, I had a lovely time playing with Tim's February Tag inspiration - it was one of those occasions where I just woke up knowing where I wanted to go with it, and had to sit straight down and act upon it.  If you want the how-to details, you can't do better than go and see how Tim himself does the job.  I'm just going to share some of my adaptations here...


The idea I woke up with was my variation on the portrait frame.  I don't have the stickers, but regulars will know I love my rusty wire.  I guess my wire-doodle-frame might have been subconsciously influenced by those new doodly Thinlits released at CHA... wherever it came from, I love the result!

(Oh, pish tush - as I was writing this, I've just caught up with the fabulous France Papillon's Journal on Monday from a couple of weeks back - I promise I hadn't seen it when I was making this - I'd like to claim the thinking alike of great minds!)






And I don't have red felt, so I decided to use some of Tim's Eclectic Elements fabric instead.

I stuck it onto some card and then onto some thick cardboard before running it through the BigShot and fraying the edges a little.

Sewing machines and I have a long and troubled history, so my stitching is completely fake sadly.






My bright young things were a happy accident.  I gathered up a handful of ephemera bits and pieces and, as I was sorting through them, it suddenly became clear to me that they were obvious candidates for inclusion.

If you're making a Love tag, then you need a loving couple in the story, don't you?

Looking at them in close-up here, I find myself really hoping that they have a "happy ever after" ahead of them... that these are long treasured memorabilia, merely a little timeworn rather than unloved and forgotten.










I stuck to neutrals with my ephemera, but because I knew I was heading towards a rusty look, I added some Quin Gold to my ephemera patchwork to warm up the images and papers.












I used various alcohol inks to create a rusted look on my WordBand, and then added the paint as in Tim's tutorial.  Of course the ink soaked into the pale paint, but I rather like the resulting weathered look.












I thought it would be quite nice to have a tiny echo of the photo of the couple in my heart charm... glancing across the tag you get to see both.











The heart charm also got a touch of the alcohol inks to tone in with the rest of the tag, and I even used Distress Markers to alter the colour of the 14 badge. Why have red when you can have rust?!












And it's all attached with some more rusty wire.













Improvising again... no arrows, so my other main embellishment is this key, DREAMS, echoing the phrase on the WordBand, and likewise altered with the alcohol inks and Antique Linen Distress Paint.












I used some of the leftover fabric as my topping, cut into strips and frayed for added texture.  I added twine to the frayed fabric and bound it together with a final touch of rusty wire.











I made sure the tiny attachers got a hit of rusty alcohol ink while I was at it, and the whole thing is mounted on some rustic corrugated cardboard.












I had such a lovely time with this one so thank you, Tim, for another brilliant piece of inspiration, and my thanks to all of you for your amazing comments and feedback on my recent PaperArtsy work.  I hope you like this one too.  Happy Crafting, and I'll be round to visit soon.

A sword, a spade, and a thought should never be allowed to rust.
James Stephens

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu

I'd like to enter this as my February Tag in Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2015
And at the Inspiration Journal where Love Is In The Air