It's been such a mixed bag here, weather-wise, this month. What started as a lovely warm day this morning turned rainy this afternoon, and I was only too happy to spend it in my studio finishing my April tag.
Materials used:
- Ranger Inkssentials Manila Craft Tags
- Ranger Distress Ink: Evergreen Bough, Peeled Paint, Rusty Hinge, Salty Ocean, Vintage Photo
- Ranger Distress Stain: Tarnished Brass
- Ranger Distress Paints: Bundled Sage, Mowed Lawn, Peeled Paint, Weathered Wood, Broken China, Salty Ocean, Antiqued Bronze, Tarnished Brass
- Ranger Archival Ink: Cobalt, Jet Black, Olive
- Ranger Glossy Accents
- Studio 490 Clearly for Art
- idea-ology Word Sticks
- idea-ology Pen Nibs
- idea-ology Alpha Parts: Ransom
- idea-ology Tissue Tape: Nostalgic
- idea-ology Crinkle Ribbon
- Large Butterfly stamp: Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous - U1-2067
- Small Butterfly and Gears stamps: 7gypsies Steampunk clear set
- metal gear from my stash
This month was all about patina, and using Distress paints to get the "perfect" finish. A couple of notes:
- Metallic Distress paints go a long way. You want to be sure you're using enough to get a metallic effect when marbling with colours, but not so much that you lose the colours entirely.
- Be very careful when using a Heat Tool to dry Distress Paint on small Alpha Parts; they will start to curl. Look closely at the 'l' and 'y', and you'll see what I mean.
- Once your paint layer is completely dry, you can layer inks on top, react them with water, and it will not harm the layer of paint below. Seriously. This is wicked fun; go play.
- Seriously the coolest new discovery this month though was the Clearly for Art modelling film. This was what I used to give the butterfly wings their dimension, and it's awesome stuff! To mold it, just heat it with your heat tool and watch it soften. Shape it before it cools completely, and it'll hold whatever shape you give it. Don't like how it turned out? Heat it again, resoften, reshape. Once I have a little time to play with it some more, I'll be devoting an entire post to it. I'm not so sure how much it'll get used on ATCs and LTCs, since they have to fit into sleeves, but I already have some ideas for rolos.
A few more views:
Hmm... Looking at last month's tag, this month's tag, and the tag I did for Ranger's April Colour Challenge, I'm beginning to think I'm on a butterfly kick! Well, it is spring, after all. (At least according to the calendar!)
'Til next time!
BAC
