/* */ Beulah Bee

September 10, 2015

Escape


A bonus from mucking-out the craft room last month was discovering long-forgotten goodies like the wooden birdcage die-cut (from Kaisercraft) that I used on this tag.

And since this week's theme at Simon's Monday blog challenge is stamp and punch/die-cut what better time to use it?

A background was made with old book paper, paint and stamping then I tinted and stamped the birdcage and used an image transfer for the text. Yes, that's a bit of washi tape for the shadow and I used a black Fudi-ball pen to ink the edges.

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I have yet to invest in die-cutting equipment and only have a few, very small paper punches so I was happy to find this birdcage in my stash--otherwise, I'd have to sit this one out!

Stamp credit: Kaisercraft Dictionary Meanings

September 05, 2015

Note to Self

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This week's theme at Simon's Monday blog challenge is to create using only three colors and, while this tag may look like I left them out, my trio is off-white, green and sepia.

According to Google, black is not a color; a black object absorbs all the colors of the visible spectrum and reflects none of them to the eyes (in case you were wondering).☺


I used a Found Relative photo which I cut-out and pasted to the edge of a postcard and then attached to a manila tag tinted to match the postage stamp.

The backside of these photos have pretty patterned paper which I peel off (to make cutting easier) and I decided to use it to make the postcard background more interesting.

I just cut away some of the pattern, flipped it over, pasted it down then peeled away parts of it (like on the lady's face).

I added some Remnant Rubs and emphasized the shadow near the lady's feet.

(Note to self--dream big AND dream in color!)

(Another note to self--the postmark on this card is 1915 which means I used a 100-year old post card to make this tag.)

September 04, 2015

Remnants

rem·nant
/ˈremnənt/

noun

a small remaining quantity of something.

a piece of cloth or carpeting left when the greater part has been used or sold.

a surviving trace.



I only have remnants of brain matter left this month after working on my entry for Tim's September tag--it was a challenge!


To begin with, I'm alcohol-ink impaired so piles of glossy stamping paper later, I finally arrived at a background that might work.

I don't have transparent gloss texture paste so I used gloss gel medium with Tim's Scribbles stencil instead. I thought it would dry clear but I believe the thicker application prevented this. It's still somewhat transparent though and the pop of alcohol ink colors shine through but it's obviously not the same effect as Tim's.

Rather than highlight the texture with archival ink I used Vintage Photo Distress stain to darken the cracks and provide some contrast.

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There's no frosted paper in my studio so I took a laser printer transparency and sanded both sides to mimic this product. I guess it's close-enough but didn't curl as easy as his did.

Finishing touches included a Foliage charm, Remant Rubs (Words), ribbon scraps and Scribbles (3D fabric paint) dotted along the tag edges.

Tim's monthly tags always challenge me and this time, after allowing myself to fail (and learn), I thankfully pushed myself through.

I am grateful for the process and the end result!