Romance in the Ruins

Hello all!  It's Tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey, so the Creative Guides have been taking their tags out for a spin with no other destination in mind than a bit of creative fun and freedom.

As always, there are delights in store if you hop over to a Vintage Journey, and a link party for you to share any tags you've been making this January - we'd love to see what you've been up to.

You'll probably spot that my tag continues the nature/decay themes that have been running through the last couple of posts.  No rust this time, but some stone ruins being overtaken by nature's greenery...

I could also have called this tag "the mystery of the disappearing words"!















I started with some wrinkle-free distressing (Stormy Sky and Faded Jeans for the top part and Peeled Paint and Bundled Sage for lower down), and then stencilled some Gothic lettering on in the same colour tones.














I loved this Tim Holtz monastery stamp from the moment I saw it, and it's done good service so far... often with ivy involved.  But you can see that at the point of stamping it, the stencilled text was already starting to go.















It's stamped in Watering Can Archival and then embossed with my Wow Earthtone Pepper powder, which I thought would give a nice stony effect.
















I die-cut the ivy from some suitably dark green kraftcore.  With a little light sanding, you get a nice weathered look.















I made sure to apply the glue mainly to the stem, so that I could scrunch the leaves upwards for some extra dimension and a more lifelike look.















There's plenty of moss surrounding the ruins too.  I'm having a bit of a moss-thing at the moment... 













There's an upcoming Guest Design project where it plays a big part, so it's been around on the desk rather than tucked away in the stash.














And of course there are my much loved dried flower stems winding their way through the greenery...
















... adding a touch of 3D white spatter effect - I guess that's probably why I like them so much!















I added a couple of small glass pebbles to catch the light, glued on with Glossy Accents.













Actually there are three of them... the rule of odd numbers in composition is a good one.
















I love how they magnify the inky patterns behind them.









I'm really happy with the dimension on this tag, and the shabby edges, distressed with the blade of my scissors.

It's a very pleasing tag to hold and move around to see from different angles, letting those pebbles catch the light.







And the words... I almost forgot the words!  They're Nathaniel Hawthorne's (just the best name for a writer ever, don't you think?), and they're also embossed in Pepper.













You can find the quote on the very first of my PaperArtsy stamp sets, EAB01 Trees & Flowers.















Some fine twine finishes things off at the top of the tag, and it's mounted on some off-white card for a nice framing effect.

So we have some wonderful words at the heart of the tag, but as you can see, the Gothic stencilled words have pretty much entirely vanished from the background - yet the wrinkle-free distressing hasn't faded or changed at all.  I'm very puzzled!

Despite the mystery, this tag brings me a sense of calm and serenity, just like the last time I combined the monastery with ivy in Silent Strength.  I think that was a Tag Friday tag too - and it used the flower stems and one of my quotes...  I'm playing variations on a theme!

Speaking of quote stamps - keep your eyes peeled in the next few days for exciting news.








I hope you'll hop over to A Vintage Journey and see how much fun my fellow creative guides have been having with their tag playtime.  And do share any tags of any kind that you've been making this month in our Tag Friday link party.

We'll be picking a Pinworthy from those tags, as well as a trio of Pinworthies from our main challenge, We're All Getting Older.  You've got one more week to try out those ageing, distressing and weathering techniques to make something new look old.  Hope to see you there... and happy crafting all!

The stones here speak to me, and I know their mute language. Also, they seem deeply to feel what I think. So a broken column of the old Roman times, an old tower of Lombardy, a weather-beaten Gothic piece of a pillar understands me well. But I am a ruin myself, wandering among ruins.
Heinrich Heine

Even though the words are about romance flourishing amongst the ruins, it's still romance, so I'd like to join in at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where this week they are All Loved Up
And at the Bleeding Art Challenge it's Anything Mixed Media Goes