A Glimmer in the Earth

Hello all!  I'm squeezing this in by the skin of my teeth.  Things are stupidly busy for me at the moment, with requests and deadlines flying in from seventeen different directions, but I simply can't bear to miss a Tag Friday at A Vintage Journey... I never have so far, and so here I am.

In fact, I have a pair of tags for you, with a shimmer of light gleaming amidst the earthy colour tones.  These were actually made a while back, while showing a friend how to apply gilding foil to a project.  So they weren't pre-planned in any way, and where they ended up was pretty much entirely a surprise to me.






It's as they move in the light that you suddenly catch the real gleam of the foil - it's a pretty magical effect.  I really must try to use the stuff more often!













It's just going to a be a quick post (for me), as I really haven't time for an epic... and also there really aren't any process photos, as the process was focussed on sharing ideas and techniques, not on recording what we were doing.













There's some Tim Holtz design paper in the background, stuck down onto a regular manila tag, leaving a slight border.













Which stash it's from is anybody's guess.  Someone out there will know...

















And then there's some roughly brayered gesso over that...















... along with some credit-card-applications of (probably) Hey Pesto Fresco paint from PaperArtsy.













We used a glue stick to apply the foil - delicately in some places, a little more heavy-handedly in others.














The flower silhouettes are stamped and embossed in Wow Primary Bark powder.















They're both from a set by Inkylicious which I picked up for a song the last time I managed to get myself to Ally Pally.















The quotes are done the same way.  They're both from my own EAB Eclectica stamp sets at PaperArtsy, as you probably know if you spend any time here.  This one is from EAB03 Music & Silence...















... and this one is from EAB01 Trees & Flowers.











I added some partial stampings of the same quotes in green, but that seems to have slightly vanished in the finished versions... clearly, it wasn't Archival ink!

In close up, you can see there's plenty of spatter, and some fairly unsuccessful faux stitching.













There's some more embossing powder around the edges to draw the eye inward, and some dark twine tops them both off.








So that's your lot for now.  Hop over and catch some more Tag Friday action from my brilliant fellow Creative Guides at A Vintage Journey.  I love seeing what everyone makes when they're simply let loose to play.

My apologies that I'm such a poor blog visitor at the moment - there will come a time when I do some proper catching up, I promise.  In the meantime, thank you so much for your continued company.  Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
From The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Art Adventure

Hello all... busier and busier here at Words and Pictures - it's been daily this week so far, and even then I've held this post over for two days!

When I saw Tim's cool November tag I felt a little stymied again as I have very few Blueprint stamps, and the pumpkin is not amongst them.

So I let my subconscious go to work and it woke me up in the middle of the night on Saturday with the answer.

Unfortunately I was away from home at the time.  Well, it wan't so unfortunate... I was having a lovely crafty time on the Mixology workshops in Coventry - more of that another time - but it meant I had to wait until Monday to put the plan into action.













And here you see it... No pumpkin, but a vertical equivalent - almost the same shape and it ended up (unintentionally) almost the same colours.

Well you never know where one of Tim's Art Adventures is going to take you.













So yes, the balloon was the solution my mind came up with - perfect to get the debossing effect which looks so great with the pumpkin.  I even have the same segments to play with.










And it was also a bright idea because there are parts of the image which had to be stamped direct to the tag - no way I could fussy cut all those ropes.











I started with the background though, and oh my word I love this look!  I don't have the simple crosshatch stamp Tim used, but I do love this fabulously grungy cracked alternative.

Over the Picket Fence stamping I added spritzes of Stormy Sky, Weathered Wood and Pumice Stone and then inked with Blueprint Sketch, Frayed Burlap and a little edging of Walnut Stain.










The gilding was enormous fun.  I've had some gilding sheets sitting around almost since I started crafting.  I picked up some cheap ones in The Range or somewhere, thinking they looked useful, and of course I haven't even opened them until now.  So thank you, Tim, for making me explore my stash!

And given my love of things catching the light, once I started gilding I couldn't stop.












So as well as the gilding around the edges...














... I also used it to create my word panel.  I applied quite a lot of foil to a tag and then inked over and in between the die-cut letters, which gave quite a leathery look to the background.










It's a bit like a worn, gilded book cover.

And I loved that effect so much that I couldn't resist using some of the leftover letters too... 











I started with True Adventure as my wording, but then decided that I should reflect the inspirational journeys Tim's tags always take me on, so I changed it to Art Adventure.

I even added some weathered gilding to the Game Spinner pointing the way forward.

I gave the balloon itself a gilded touch too.

(And although there's no Blueprint stamp, I did use the Blueprint Sketch Distress Marker to add deeper shadows and colour the webbing.)













The Rusty Hinge, Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey colouring was golden (a colour choice inspired by the gilding - I'd originally planned a green balloon... well, of course I had!), but not quite golden enough.












I cut the basket, sandbags and flag from the watercoloured image and glued those on.

And the banner needed some gilding - it's flashing gold in the sunlight (sunlight, what sunlight? - there's none around here at the moment).










I added a bit of background stamping using the Correspondence set, to take the place of the text surrounding the blueprints images.














And the piece of blue-dyed crinkle ribbon which had been floating around the craft table for a couple of weeks finally found a home, wrapped around with some rusty wire to echo the tarnished gilding on the rest of the tag.






I had a grand time on this little adventure.  Thanks go to Tim Holtz yet again for triggering another brainstorm and a great crafty journey.  Thanks to all of you too for your lovely comments and feedback.  It's a joy to be on the journey with you, and I hope my balloon will carry me around Craftyblogland for some visiting in the very near future.




Suddenly the wind ceased.  The air seemed motionless around us.  We were off, going at the speed of the air current in which we now lived and moved.  Indeed, for us there was no more wind; and this is the first great fact of spherical ballooning.  Infinitely gentle is this unfelt motion forward and upward.  The illusion is complete: it seems not to be the balloon that moves, but the earth that sinks down and away...
From My Air-Ships, 1904, by Alberto Santos-Dumont

I have known today a magnificent intoxication.  I have learnt how it feels to be a bird.  I have flown.  Yes, I have flown.  I am still astonished at it, still deeply moved.
From Le Figaro, 1908


I'd like to enter this as my November tag in Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2015





Answers to questions in the comments: both stamps are by Tim... the balloon is from the Remnants set, and the scratches are from the fabulously grungy set called Slight Alterations.