Autumn ~ 'The Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness' ~ Stamps and Stencils ~ New Challenge

Hi everybody! It's my turn to host the challenge over on the Stamps and Stencils blog. I've chosen the theme of Autumn as I don't think we can let this beautiful season, pass us by without a celebration. There is a little catch, in that I'm asking you to play along by using a tag or tags as a substrate. If you hop over to the blog you'll find all the details of the challenge and have the opportunity to see the fabulous projects, created by our talented design team. I made my tag from a piece of corrugated cardboard. It measures around 25 x 12 cm which gave me plenty of room to play with. Here's how I started.......

I cut the tag shape with my guillotine, and  punched a hole in the top. I then glued a reinforcing circle, over the punched hole, this turned the humble piece of card into a bonafide tag. I tore off pieces of the top layer to reveal some areas of the corrugations and then, like many of my mixed media projects, I adhered torn pieces of book page, to the surface.

I then gave the tag a light coat of gesso and once dry, stenciled a flourish pattern on the smooth areas using modelling paste to add extra dimension.

Once this was dry, I had some fun applying paints and sprays to the surface. I used Paper Artsy Fresco Finish paints as they have a nice matte finish. After drying the paint with a heat tool, I sprayed on some Distress Spray colours  and then used my splatter brush to apply some gold acrylic paint.

The splatter brush is something of a revelation to me. I've had the brush for sometime and it wasn't till attending Tim Holtz's workshop the other week ( quick name drop there), that I learned how to use it properly. I'd been doing it all wrong! Here's a closeup.......

The next step was to cut out and colour some leaves and flowers. I used Tattered Florals and Tattered Leaves dies and also hand cut the fringed flowers. I coloured the leaves with a mixture of Distress Oxides and Distress Sprays, after they'd been cut. In order to make the fringed flowers, I coloured some strips of lightweight card, with Distress Sprays, dried with a heat tool, then made very close together 'snips' all the way along leaving  a border of about 1cm along the edge. I then used a quilling tool to  rolled the strip up tightly, with a touch of glue on the last couple of centimetres. I also die cut a clock face and gave it a rusty paint finish.

I attached all of the flower and leaf elements with a hot glue gun. This works for me as I find it holds dimensional embellishments in place instantly. I hope you've enjoyed this little walk through the making of my Autumn tag. If you'd like to join in with our challenge and have a little autumnal fun, hop over to the Stamps and Stencils blog with this link, and feast your eyes on the inspiration you'll find there. Happy Crafting ! x