Wordless Wednesday..Almost

I shot this picture Sunday afternoon as the boys were playing on the trampoline. Sometimes the trampoline sitting under a thirty year old oak tree is a blessing, sometimes all the leaves make them mad. Today it added to the fun as they made a huge leaf pile and took turns hiding a football in the pile. 

Take Two Tuesday

Yesterday you saw a tag I created using the Cocoa Daisy Mod Leaves set to create a poinsettia tag. Today I am going to use the same set to create a more vintage tag. For me vintage requires some distressing and you can't distress without using some of Tim Holtz's amazing products. It is rare that I complete a project without using something that Tim has created. I am especially fond of his Distress Inks.

Here is a look at today's finished tag:

The steps for today's tag are very similar to yesterday's tag, so I won't be going as in depth with my explanations here. 

I stamped the veined leaf in Fired Brick, which is one of my favorite colors of Distress Ink and also happens to be available in the Cocoa Daisy Boutique. I then embossed the petals with Fired Brick Embossing Powder. Distress Embossing Powder is different from regular embossing powders because it does not heat to a shine. You know the embossing powder has bonded when it turns a darker color. After letting the embossed petals completely cool,  you then rub off the release crystals and throw them away. The resulting petals have an interesting rough texture to them, that adds to the vintage feel.

I inked over each petal, after cutting them out, using Antique Linen Distress Ink. You can see a difference in the petal on the bottom left that has not been inked compared to the other petals that have already been inked. 

Here are all the pieces before assembly. In the upper right corner is an assortment of buttons and brads from my stash that I was considering for the center of the poinsettia. I also chose to use the same veined leaf for the green leaves of this poinsettia. I felt that it added to the vintage look. They are stamped in Peeled Paint Distress Ink and then embossed with Distress Embossing Powder in Peeled Paint. 

Here is the completed flower. I chose the metal flower brad as my center. 

This particular tag is a little smaller than yesterday's. I chose it from my stash because it had already been distressed with what I believe is Walnut Stain. I picked up a handful of these pre-distressed tags years ago at a scrapbook convention. I think I bought them at the Rusty Pickle booth. With the flower laying on the tag I was trying to plan the remaining background and how the tag would look when I finished. 

Even though the tag was already distressed it just didn't seem inky enough for me, so I added another Cocoa Daisy stamp, Distress Inks, and some mist splatters. You can vaguely see the Grungy Grid stamp that I stamped in Peeled Paint Distress Ink. It is my go to stamp when I want to add a little more texture without overwhelming my whole project. I then inked the tag with some additional Fired Brick and Peeled Paint. Then splattered on some Maya Mist in Avocado Metallic, Forever Red Perfect Pearls Mist, and then sprayed the whole tag with Perfect Pearls Mist in Perfect Pearl. 

Here is a close-up of the bottom of the finished tag. I added a harlequin ribbon from my stash and added star brads through each side to hold it in place. The label in the middle was stamped using an older Cocoa Daisy stamp set Mason Jar with labels, that is no longer available. I then stamped "December 2012" from the Day in the Life: Months, Years, and Bits set  in Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I covered the edges of the label with Antique Linen Distress Stickles. 

Once again here is the completed tag.Created similar to yesterday's but different in the finished look. 

Here is a look at both tags together. I can't wait to use them with our home decor or in my December Daily this year. 

Hope this inspires you to use your stamps in different ways!

Olivia

Make it Monday- Using Cocoa Daisy Stamps

For this post I used the following Cocoa Daisy Stamps:

 

The first set is called Mod Leaves and the second set is called A Day in the Life: Months, Years, and Bits. Both are still available in the Cocoa Daisy Boutique. I also used another Cocoa Daisy stamp that is no longer available. I will point it out as we go through the steps of making the following tag:

Here is what the completed tag looks like. 

I love, love, love the versatility of stamps and the fact that I can reuse stamps over and over again. For this tag I used two of the Mod Leaves stamps to create this poinsettia. 

I began by stamping the veined leaf 10-12 separate times with the ColorBox pigment ink in Cranberry. Then I heat embossed the "petals" twice with Hero Arts clear embossing powder. The embossing powder is very fine, so I embossed twice to make the "petals" shine a bit more. I then cut the petals out. 

For the leaves, I wasn't sure if I wanted to ink in color and emboss with clear powder or if I wanted to ink in clear and emboss with colored powder. I also wasn't sure what color the Moss Green pigment ink was, so I tested it on the back of my green cardstock and also smudged it on a piece of white scrap cardstock. I do this often to decide if I like the color of an ink before I commit to using it on a project. If you were to pull out most of my layouts you would find ink test spots on the back of them. 

I still was unsure which technique to use, so I stamped a second leaf from the set and embossed it using both techniques onto a piece of green cardstock from my scrap bin. I finally decided I liked the color of the ColorBox Moss Green ink embossed with clear powder the best. So I cut those out to use with my tag.

I then punched a 2 1/2 inch scallop circle to use as the base for my poinsettia. 

I attached my petals using glue dots and overlapping each new petal slightly over the previous petal. This is the center part of the poinsettia. You can still see a small portion of the scalloped circle, that is where I added the second layer of petals and leaves.

Here is the completed poinsettia. It was rather flat once I attached everything, so I just used my fingers to crumple up each of the petals to give the whole thing a little more interest. I also added a very old Heidi Swapp bling piece as the center. I have the poinsettia laying on the tag so I could try to decide on the arrangement for the rest of the tag. 

I chose to cover the whole white tag with a scrap piece of Christmas paper from an older Making Memories line. This is the b side of one of those papers. I love b sides! On top I used a  I stamped an older Cocoa Daisy quaterfoil stamp on the tag with clear embossing ink, then I used clear embossing ink around the edges as well. I used gold glitter embossing powder from Stampendous that I picked up at my local scrapbook store last year. 

I cut up some more scraps from my stash and then placed the date stamps and a chipboard button from an older Making Memories Christmas line on the green cardstock. Here again I was trying to figure out placement for the finished tag. 

This is a close up of the bottom section of the tag. I stamped "December 2012" in the ColorBox Evergreen color and then attached the chipboard button with gold ribbon with glue dots. The "December 2012" seemed a little flat so I went back and used clear embossing powder on it. Then I added Gold Perfect Pearl splatters. The heat caused the gold ribbon to curl a little, but I'm okay with that. 

Here again is the finished tag. You can also see I added red splatters to the whole tag as well. For that I used  Maya Road's Cherry Metallic Mist. It is available in the Cocoa Daisy Boutique.

The Mod Leaves set is not one I would usually gravitate towards because it is more modern in design. But as you can see stamps can be used in many different ways to create projects that speak to whatever design style you prefer. I love how this tag turned out and I am sure it will either be displayed somewhere in our home during the holidays or possibly even be added to my December Daily album this year.

Come back tomorrow and see a vintage approach using the same techniques and stamps to create another tag. 

Until tomorrow...Happy Creating!

Olivia