October Tag - Tim’s 2015 Tag Challenge

Tim’s tag this month was right up my street. Although it’s not something we’re really into here in the UK, I  like halloween… I’m definitely into vampires, zombies, bats, witches and monsters et al…. and have been known to carve the odd pumpkin or two in my time!  

Tim’s zombie tag made me smile and although the new halloween dies look great fun, I knew I was going to have to improvise this month as they’re not available in the UK yet. 

So here’s my tag…..slightly less colourful than Tim’s  and a tad more ghoulish but still true to the halloween theme and his techniques.

I used a combination of Vintage Photo, Wild Honey, Brushed Corduroy and Pumice Stone Distress Inks to colour a Ranger manilla tag.  

Here's a close up.......

                                                 

Then I resized and downloaded an image of a skull from the net which I printed onto the tag.  I cut out the skull, removing  the eyes and nose sockets which I coated with Glossy Accents and set to one side to dry.

The remaining skull received two good thick coats of Crackle Paint but before setting it aside to dry, I gently rounded and moulded the skull so that it would looked a little more realistic. Because of the thickness of the Crackle Paint it took ages to dry so  I gave it a quick blast with my heat gun to help it along. I tend to do this quite a lot as it fascinates me to see the crazing and cracks develop as it dries. 

Once dried I used a combination of Brushed Corduroy, Vintage Photo and Hickory Smoke Distress Ink to define the texture and cracks on the skull, gently buffing the colour off the Crackle Paint to leave the ink that had worked into the crazing.  I paid a little more attention to the teeth as I wanted these to stand out slightly. Oh, and  to give my skull a pearly white smile too!  It’s hardly noticeable but hey ho…..

But have you noticed the crack that formed on the forehead? It looks just like the classic stitched scar that Frankenstein has.  Happy accident or spooooooky!

For the base tag I used another Ranger manilla tag which I covered with a paper called Pumpkin Power. 

Again, using the same Distress Ink combo as before, I inked and distressed the edge of the tag and then covered the lot with (trusty ol’) Picket Fence Distress Stain to tone down the orange of the paper. 

I went back and re-edged the tag again with the same combination of Distress Inks, finally using Black Soot Distress Ink on the outside edge of the tag to frame it. 

Tim’s Splatters and Shattered stencils are two of my all time favourite stencils (they get used a lot on my art journal pages) and were perfect for this tag…so out they came again.   I wanted to try and create a shadow effect to my splatters so I inked with Hickory Smoke Distress Ink first, then slightly moved the stencil to one side before  re-inking with Black Soot Distress Ink.  Finally I mixed a little black gesso with water and splattered randomly across the tag to my hearts content.

By this time the Glossy Accents on the eye and nose sockets was dry but I had a hard time deliberating whether to leave them out of the skull or glue them back in place.  In the end I decided to glue them back in to add a little more dimension. 

Before gluing the skull onto the tag with Glossy Accents I added a few Remnant Rubs from the Curiosities set together with a Ranger Word Band, which I distressed with white, metallic bronze and black paint before fixing in place with a couple of similarly painted brads.  

Finally I decided a generous spritz of Solar Gold Luminate Radiant Rain Simmer Mist was needed to take the colour of the skull through onto the base tag. I loved the effect of the spritz especially around the Remnant Rubs….it made them pop from the background.

To finish off I attached a small spider charm from the Ranger Oddities Adornments set after first colouring it with black and metallic bronze paint to match the word band. The  black grosgrain and G45 pumpkin ribbon were from my stash.

As usual I backed my tag with black card and added a picture of Tim’s inspirational tag to the back and a small charm made up from the tag challenge logo.

I have to say I’m delighted how my tag turned out this month. It was such great fun to make and it fascinated me how the flat, pencil skull image transformed before my eyes with help of a little Crackle Paint and Distress Ink into something that looked almost like it had been dug up and brushed off.  

Certainly my tag is more dark and ghoulish than Tim’s but then I did say I liked ghouls, vampires and all things that go bump in the night…lol.

I’ve jotted a list of the supplies below. Thanks so much for reading my post…Hope you liked my efforts. Happy crafting.

Carol. xx

Supplies

Surfaces: #8 manila tag, manila cardstock, Graphic 45 Pumpkin Power 

                        paper from the Steampunk Spells Collection

Layering stencil: splatters, shattered
Embellishments: oddities adornments,observation word bands, jump ring,               

                                   long fasteners, curiosities remnant rubs

Distress ink: pumice stone, vintage photo, brushed corduroy, hickory 

                              smoke, wild honey, black soot, old paper.

Distress paint: picket fence, metallic bronze

Acrylic paint: black, white  

Markers: Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen “Big Brush” black  

Tools: distress sprayer, heat gun, ink blending tool, scissors,
Adhesives: glossy accents, rock candy crackle paint, red double sided tape.

Ribbon: orange satin and black grosgrain ribbon from my stash.