My goodness, this year's flying past. we are almost at the end of March already - a quarter of the way to Christmas!
This month's tag technique was faux leather. The suggested methods were either to use torn up masking tape or to spray with glycerine and crumple. In all honesty, I don't care much for the masking tape idea and I'd never tried glycerine before, so that's the technique I chose.
Firstly, dilute the glycerine to a concentration of 2 parts glycerine to 5 of water in a spray bottle.
Spray both sides of some 300gsm paper, rubbing in well and crumpling the paper to help the glycerine absorb into the paper.
Leave to dry and repeat until the paper is soft and pliable.
Mine looked and felt like suede.
I then inked an embossing folder, put a piece of paper in and ran through the cuttlebug to emboss and ink at the same time. It still felt like suede but with a lovely retro design.
At this point you can spray with sparkle and shine and buff to resemble polished leather but I chose to leave mine unpolished.
I mounted a large piece on the tag and then made some in other colours, using the other side of the embossing folder to get a smaller motif which I cut out individually.
I pierced and stuck the shapes together with glue and a brad to get the retro flower which I stuck on with glue gel.
I had to submit 2 tags so did two different colour ways - I thin k the blue one is my favourite.
A great technique which I loved and will definitely do again.
Gina
I have to say I don't normally 'do' distressing to the extent I did on these tags, but I was pleasantly surprised - even though the PVA technique didn't work brilliantly for me. This first tag was done using vaseline to create a resist, painting over with acrylic, allowing to dry and then removing a layer of paint by rubbing off the paint and vaseline together.
I was trying for an effect of an old metal tray that had been painted over several times and got damaged over time. I gilded part of the tag and then painted a base coat of acrylic over part of the tag.
When it was dry, I smeared over lip balm - it was the nearest thing I had to vaseline - and painted over with a second colour.
I let that dry and repeated the process, finishing with an off white top coat.
Next, I overstamped with a morning glory stamp from Flora and Fauna by Chocolate Baroque and coloured in using promarkers.
My next attempt was using the PVA technique. Here you paint on a base coat of acrylic paint and allow it to dry, followed by a layer of diluted PVA. When dry, overpaint with the second colour of acrylic paint, allow to dry for a little while and then heat with a heat gun. The PVA blisters and cracks to look like old paint.
Mine blistered and cracked a little, but I liked the effect so carried on. This time I stamped with the pelargonium stamp from Flora and Fauna, again colouring with promarkers and a gel pan.
I think it turned out OK. This one looks like old paint is in the process of being scraped of a metal plate.
March's technique is faux leather - another technique I've not tried - think that one's going to get messy.
Gina
