Irresistible Insects

Hello all!  After the July lull, it's a busy start to August here at Words and Pictures.  Do check out my Celebration of Friendship, if you missed it, particularly if you're in the mood for something pretty and summery.

But now things are taking a turn for the grungy here, with my pair of tags for this month's brand new challenge at A Vintage Journey.  Our host is the lovely Amanda, and she wants to know How Can You Resist?!  Obviously, we're looking for as many different resist techniques as you can come up with.  As ever, my fellow Creative Guides have been busily creating fabulous things to inspire you, but here's my offering before you hop off to check them out.

I used a gesso resist to create the background for these grungy tags, and simply had to ink up some of the fabulous insects from Tim's recent Entomology stamp set.  They've been waiting to see some action, and I couldn't resist any longer!





It's really all very simple... I used an old credit card to scrape some heavy gesso onto a couple of tags quite roughly - no particular design or plan at this stage... just get it on there.

(Sorry about the shadows - the recent sunny weather doesn't help at the craft table, mojo-wise or photo-wise!)











Then I used Distress Stains to add my first washes of colour - Pumice Stone and Vintage Photo, and maybe a darker brown too, Gathered Twigs or Ground Espresso, I suspect.














Next, it was out with the Broken China Distress Oxide to add another layer.















The gesso doesn't resist the Oxides, so you can break up those white areas with lovely splotches of colour.















I also used the Broken China Oxide to stamp a couple of postmarks here and there.














I still wasn't quite sure what my focal images might be, but you can't go wrong with a postmark or two.














Finally (after faffing around with a couple of die-cuts and some metal accents, and discarding several stamp choices), I worked out that it was the insects I wanted to use.














Not being in the craft room very much leads me to be very indecisive when I do get in there with a deadline to meet...














They're stamped in Jet Black Archival ink.  It's unusual for me to use black for stamping, but they're such good vintage illustrations that I felt the need for a conventional vintage look.














I prefer not to meet most of these in real life (butterflies excepted), but I love them in stamped form!














I stamped some of the tiny vintage script from the same set - this time reverting to my favoured brown ink.













I added some more gesso with the credit card, this time using the edge to make straight lines in various places around the edges of the tags.

I doodled some white pen frames around the edges too...











... and of course there's plenty of spatter, not only in white, but in a mixture of PaperArtsy Mermaid and Bora Bora paints, to tone in with the Broken China Oxide accents.














There had to be some words, naturally (look at the name of the blog!), so I selected some phrases from the Idea-ology Small Talk stickers for each tag.













They're all very apt for my world of creative planning/dreaming at the moment.  There are life changes afoot... and in the midst of a very busy work period, it's useful to remind myself of that.

Some simple twine finishes them off, and there you have it.  I hope you won't be able to resist coming along to join our How Can You Resist? challenge this month at A Vintage Journey.





Check out the inspiration from my wonderful fellow Creative Guides, and we hope to see you somewhere along the road.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  If all this grunginess doesn't appeal, then remember there's a lovely summer meadow to go and relax in (with fragrant lavender to calm the nerves, no less), and there are no insects in my Celebration of Friendship either, I promise!

I hope you all have a wonderful August.  I'm away from home for work for most of it, but I'm aiming to line up some Encore Posts amongst the occasional new offerings, so hopefully it won't be quite as silent as July was round here.  For now, happy crafting all.


In summer the empire of insects spreads.
Adam Zagajewski




With all these creepy crawly insects hovering around, I'd like to play along at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, where they are looking for Wild Things