Tag It Tuesday Link Party for February

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

I have a confession to make.  As of 9am my time this morning, I did not have a tag made for today's link party.  For some reason, I had the 20th in my mind as the due date.  Heck -- that's not even a Tuesday!  What was I thinking?!?!?

Needless to say, I have dashed around frantically the past couple of hours coming up with an idea and rapidly making my tag.  Our theme this month was Valentine's Day/love/romance/hearts/pink and red, and I challenged you to think outside the box for this one.  Since I issued that challenge, I thought it only fair that I accept the challenge myself!  This was tough, because I am a pink girl all the way and wanted so badly to pull out hearts and flowers and purdy stuff!  Instead, I started flipping through stamp sets, and believe it or not, a monkey caught my eye.

I quickly gessoed one of my tags and dried it with my heat gun.  Obviously, I didn't do a good job heating both sides...hence the mangled appearance of my tag!  It gets better -- I promise!

I then grabbed my trusty Prang watercolors and set to work dabbing a background of blue, blue green, blue violet and yellow.  As I added each color, I then dabbed it with a baby wipe.  That's how I got the mottled look.  I like it!

Introducing, Mr. Monkey!  I took my Versa Magic Chalk Ink in the color gingerbread and stamped the branch and Mr. Monkey onto my tag.  For some strange reason, I decided to do a bit of paper piecing with this tag, even though I despise paper piecing!  I grabbed some scraps of patterned card stock that were on my work table and stamped and then cut out the leaves, his "muzzle," tummy and big feet.  I added a bit of inking to the edges for some shading.

I got his body parts glued down, including popping his feet up for a bit of dimension.  It's at this point that I realize I cannot find the leaves I had already cut out and inked.  I look and look and look, to no avail.  I know as soon as I stamp and cut another one, the original one will appear.  Isn't that a Murphy's law or something???

Here's the finished tag.  I did some very quick and simple coloring of his body and the branch with colored pencils.  I rough cut some jungle-ish hearts from the same paper I cut the leaves from, inked the edges and added them.  I had to get some hearts in there somehow!

As you can see, I popped up his feet and the leaves for some dimension.  The sentiment banner is also popped up so it cleared the twine I wrapped around the bottom of the tag.  I inked the edges of that, as well as the tag itself.  I also took the original string that was on the tag, held it down with my distress ink applicator, and pulled it through several times to age it a bit and just reattached it to the tag.

While this is not Valentiney per se, it is a sentiment of love or affection.  Who would YOU go out on a limb for???

Okay....it's time for you to link up your February tag.  I'm excited to see what you came up with.  Be sure to visit each other, make a new friend, and leave a comment!  Have fun!




Thanks for looking at my blog. I appreciate all the wonderful comments everyone leaves. Happy Crafting!