Butterfly Tag

Good morning, all!  It's a bright but very cold morning here in the south.  All this gorgeous sunshine and the super-talented Cheryl Grigsby have inspired me to make this butterfly tag. I've used the butterfly image from my new Tim Holtz Perspective stamp set that I won in a random draw on  Tim's blog.  It was love at first sight when I saw this butterfly image!  Thank you, Tim and Mario! Now I must put many of  the other great new releases on my wish list!

Challenge #21 at Linda Ledbetter's Studio L3 CC3C is chosen from Tim Holtz' book A Compendium of Curiosities Vol. 3--Rock Candy Distress Glitter technique found on page 55 in his invaluable, inspirational book.  You must work from your own copy, so be sure to pick up your autographed copy here. If you want to play along, be sure to pay Linda and the Curiosity Crew a visit, and leave a comment on each of their truly amazing blogs to be in running for a fantastic prize package of Tim's wonderful products, compliments of Tim and Mario. I can speak from experience, this is one packed prize package!

As if that is not enough reason to link your project, there are two other great reasons!  First, you will learn another AWESOME technique and second, there is another prize up for grabs.  Joy and her family at Inspiration Emporium are sponsoring this challenge and the lucky winner will win a whopping $50 shopping spree at their fully stocked online store. Wow!

Annie is hosting a fun Tic Tac Toe challenge over at A Vintage Journey this fortnight. If you want to see some awesome Tim Holtz inspired artwork be sure to visit there and each of the Creative Guide's blogs.  If you want to play along,  follow along with her chart and complete one line from it, either horizontally, diagonally or vertically and be sure to be inspired by the mega talented creative genius Tim Holtz in your work. I chose to go with one of the horizontal lines using an Idea-ology enameled tag, sprays (just one--Vintage Photo) in the coloring of my ribbon, and Crinkle ribbon. For the record, I also used stains, and a lot of them!  I drew my inspiration from Tim through use of his techniques in his book as mentioned above, and also from his 12 Tags challenges.

So, now for my tag...

I must apologize for the shadows and poor shots in general. I took most of my shots early this morning in natural light to try and catch the shimmer on my background and on a few of the tiny butterflies. I am super excited to now be able to upload my photos directly from my I-phone to my PC, but have another obstacle to overcome in the technology world. My edited photos become unedited when I upload them, so getting close up photos is much more difficult.  I've spent 2 hours trying to work around this- this morning, and have finally given up (for now). So we will have to look at bad photos. If anyone has any tips on getting my edited photos to my PC, please let me know.  I use an I-phone 5C.

I will also tell you, I went through many trials to get this to work the way it turned out...that never happens to me, but now I have a lot of bits to use on future projects!  Because I went through so many trials, I will have to try and do my best to recall what colors I've used.

For my background I used one of Tim's manila tags and dribbled out some Distress Stains on my craft mat, spritzed with water until beads of color formed, and dragged my tag through this, drying immediately.  I repeated this several times, using up the color on my mat. The colors I chose are Salty Ocean, Tumbled Glass, Scattered Straw, and a touch of Mustard Seed.

The first generation image of the flowers used the Rock Candy Distress Glitter technique.  Barely visible in this shot.

I inked the large butterfly stamp directly with  Chipped Sapphire (or maybe it was Faded Jeans) stamped it off on a scrap, and spritzed the remaining ink on the stamp with water.  I stamped this watery stamp on my background and dried immediately with a heat gun. I love this watercolor effect, and when I first laid eyes on this stamp, this is exactly what I had in mind for it. But I see so many possibilities!

Next, I used the RCDG technique found on page 55 in Tim's book.  Having tried the technique using several different background colors, inks, images and papers/card, I decided to follow Cheryl's inspiration, and I  used two of Tim's Nature's Elements flowers to add this wonderful shimmer to my background.

That one dot of Mustard Seed concentrated in that one spot!  I liked that little accident!

The RCDG shows up much better here. The sparkle in person is spectacular!

I decided to take it a step or two further, and use second generation stamped images of the flowers (sorry, they look like weeds to me) to give my scene a bit more depth.  To give it even more depth (at least I thought it would), I used Tim's Picket Fence Distress marker to highlight randomly around and over all the flowers/weeds.

I stamped the sentiment from the same set in Sepia Archival ink and edged the tag in Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs Distress ink.

I moved the bow and tag out of the way so you can see the second generation flowers at the top.

I used a scrap of watercolor paper and colored and dried it the same way I did my tag using Mustard Seed, Scattered Straw and Wild Honey Distress stains. (I colored both sides, because i knew I wanted to fold the wings up.)  I stamped the tiny butterfly image from the same set with Forest moss Distress stain, fussy cut them and edged with Forest Moss. I used Glossy Accents to adhere just their bodies after bending their tiny wings back a little to give a 3D look.

I made my bow Paula Cheney style after using Tumbled Glass and Scattered Straw Distress stains to color Tim's Crinkle ribbon.  I wadded up it up to crinkle and dried with my heat gun, nearly lighting it on fire.  Can you tell I was anxious to get this done(--I usually leave it to sit overnight)? Once nearly dry, I gave it the lightest spritz with my one and only Distress spray--Vintage Photo, and let that sit and gently fade in, then gave it a final blast with my heat gun.

I altered an Idea-ology Enameled tag using coordinating alcohol inks and a few of Tim's  rub-ons and attached that to the bow with a jump ring.

Once the bow was in place, I spritzed a few times with Tim's Marker Spritzer tool and Broken China and Walnut Distress markers, giving it that final touch.

A little bit of the shimmer shows on the wing of this tiny butterfly.

I hope this tag brings you that feeling of bright and warm sunshine.  I know that in many parts of the world, you need to feel that warmth right now!  That's it for today!  I appreciate you stopping by and leaving one of your wonderful encouraging comments! Warm hugs and blessings!

Sara Emily

I would like to enter this into the following inspirational Challenges:

Linda Ledbetter's Studio L3 Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge #21 Rock Candy Distress Glitter

A Vintage Journey "It's Time to Play Tic Tac Toe" See what I used in text above:  ribbon, sprays and Idea-ology.

Country View Challenges "Drips and Drops" A little bit of dripping going on with that stained background and lots of tiny droplets using the spritzer with markers.

Our Creative Corner "Tic Tac Toe--Let's Have Some Fun!" I think I might be getting the gist of this:  Ribbon, stamps, embossing powder.

The Artistic Stamper February's Creative Challenge "Love" It was love at first sight when I saw Tim's new Perspective stamp set from Stamper's Anonymous!

Inspiration Journal "Love is in the Air"  Project can either include Valentine's Day theme or love because the new products introduced at CHA are now hitting the stores--mine reflects love at first sight of  Tim's newly released stamps

The Mixed Media Card Challenge #8 "Love" Although Valentin'e's Day is near, I chose to interpret "love" as my love at first sight upon seeing this Tim Holtz' new release stamp set "Perspective" with it's lovely butterfly.