Les Fleurs

Hi all, Alison (butterfly) here, with a pair of tags for you today.  It will come as no surprise to regulars that they use Katy Fox's beautiful botanical stamps... I seem to be obsessed with them!  (Remember, you can click on the photos if you need a closer look.)

So I started with a couple of plain manila tags, and inked them up with Tim's wrinkle-free distress technique and some spritzing and flicking.  I layered in some stencilling, rays and letters with Broken China and Vintage Photo Distress Inks.

Then I added some background stamping with the Artistic Stamper Large Random Dots.  They're stamped in Picket Fence Distress Paint, and then I used a white pen to add a little dimensional shading.  I also stamped the Sequin Waste in Peacock Feathers - which you can see in a later photo.

The main stamp for the first tag is from Encyclopaedia Botanica, from Katy's first release.

And the second tag uses the large flower from Botanical 2.  On each of them, I've used a very light wash of Mermaid Fresco paint to just highlight the flower heads a little.

 

The adorable little Les Fleurs label is also from that second set.

It's simply stamped on card in Black Archival and then torn and inked, and positioned to complement the flower stamping.

Regulars at Words and Pictures will see that I've created some new glass pebbles for this project.  Rather than sticking my glass pebbles onto book pages, as I've done previously, this time I created some musical embellishments!

I spritzed some colour onto some card (Dylusions and Perfect Pearls Mists), and then stamped the Music Background over the top in Jet Black Archival.  

Then you just glue on the pebbles (the sort you use to fill vases and so on) using gel medium - I use gloss, but I think any would do - wait until dry and then cut around the pebbles.  I do love how they catch the light!

I've also been having another little play with the beeswax (loved my first go on some journalling pages also using Artistic Stamper stamps and stencils).  I painted melted beeswax onto some book pages, and tore and inked them.  

You get a lovely translucence from the beeswax, and I really like the look of ancient parchment that it gives the paper.

As you can see, I also added some Idea-ology cogs and gears - somehow the composition just needed them - and then I simply couldn't resist the urge to mount the tags onto corrugated cardboard (another obsession).

This time it's had a rough coat of a couple of paint colours that complemented the tags, and then a good bit of inking with Gathered Twigs around the roughened edges.  (And here's that Sequin Waste stamping - such a cool background texture stamp!)

A little bit of crinkle ribbon, dyed with Distress Stains and Paints - the paints give it that lovely opaque look - and tied with paper string to top the whole thing off.

You can probably tell from these tags that I'm longing for Spring.  

Again, I caught one of those odd pockets of sunshine to take some of these photos, but I hope you are all keeping safe and dry in these storms in the UK, and not too cold in the US, and generally happy, safe and sound wherever you are in the world.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and if you've been using Distress products then come and play along in this month's challenge here at The Artistic Stamper where that's all you need to do: Use Distress.  Hope to see you there!

Ingredients used:
Artistic Stamper stamps: Katy Fox - Encyclopaedia Botanica and Botanical #2; Backgrounds - Music Background, Large Random Dots, Sequin Waste
Tim Holtz Layering Stencils
Melt Art Natural Beeswax
Distress Inks - Broken China, Vintage Photo, Peacock Feathers
Distress Paints - Picket Fence
Distress Stains - Peeled Paint, Broken China
Archival Inks - Jet Black, Sepia
Fresco Paints - Mermaid
Dylusions - Dirty Martini, Cut Grass
Perfect Pearls Mists - Turquoise
Inkssentials White Pen
Idea-ology Findings - Sprocket Gears
From my stash: book pages, corrugated cardboard, Idea-ology paper string