How is your April going? We've had a lot of rain lately, and that goes right along with our monthly tag theme. This month, our theme was showers/rain/rainbows to go along with that popular saying "April showers bring May flowers."
I actually ended up making two tags for this challenge, but I'm going to showcase the blue one. Although the "Rejoice" tag does fit the theme, at least in my mind, I thought maybe it wasn't literal enough for others to get it. So I made my Singing In The Rain tag and I'm really pleased with how it came out.
I started with a basic manila shipping tag that I gave a quick coat of gesso to. I then scribbled on my freezer paper surface with gelatos and activated them with water. I squished the tag down into that lovely pool of color and when I pulled it up, I had some really great texture/pattern that mimicked water running down a window. Once the tag was dry, I put a light coat of matte gel medium over the entire thing.
I couldn't let that extra yummy color go to waste, so I soaked up most of it with a piece of watercolor paper.
Next I went digging in my garage for my giant container of piano music. I've been playing since I was a wee little girl, so I have a LOT. I found a book I used to teach out of that I didn't mind sacrificing for art. I tore a few small pieces and then "aged" them with antique linen and vintage photo distress ink. I also stamped a few umbrellas on the tag for good measure. As I went on, I had trouble maintaining the stampings as I added other layers of things.
My next step was to add some texture. Originally, I tried to add soft gloss gel through a piece of plastic canvas. I ended up with a giant blob of gel that I frantically had to scrape off. It would have worked with 3d gel, but not soft gloss. So I abandoned the idea of clear glossy drop that would give a hint of raindrops and just went for straight texture with my light modeling paste. At this point I'm also not liking the sheet music too much and am trying to think of a way to "move" it into the background more.
Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays to the rescue! I now have fun and funky blue texture dots and I've succeeded in pushing the pieces of sheet music into the background. The fact that I've also added shimmer is just a big ole bonus!
My next step was to once again stamp the little umbrellas, this time in blue. Then I stamped my sentiment with Staz On ink on white card stock and cut them out. They were adhered with matte gel medium and given a bit of shadow with the Stabilo black pencil and a hint of blue as well. I then decided to cover the sentiment pieces with Glossy Accents to give them some shine. Perfect!
After making a beaded dangle and adding some fun ribbons, here's the finished project.
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Thanks for looking at my blog. I appreciate all the wonderful comments everyone leaves. Happy Crafting!
