Experimental Halloween Tags

Once a week I spend my lunch hour playing with the dies, inks, stains, paints, etc. in the art room at work. It is definitely one of the perks to working at a crafting company.

I have been experimenting with painting and inking a lot of tags and decided to use a couple of them to create some Halloween projects.

The Happy Halloween tag began with lots of Distress Paints and Stains in a variety of layers and techniques. Once I was happy with the look of the tag I used a thin sheet of scrap cardstock and die cut the word "Boo" using the Gothic Boo die by Sizzix. I sprayed the back lightly with adhesive to temporarily hold it in place on the tag. Next, I sprayed Perfect Pearls Heirloom Gold using the die cut shape as a stencil.

I wanted to experiment with Tim Holtz's new Framelits and Stamps so I used the Retro Halloween Set {the Owl} and Cobweb Blueprint Set {words "Happy Halloween"}. My only suggestion would be to use very dark ink if you are going to stamp on colored paper. Other than that these were super fun and easy.

Other shapes I used include the Bird Branch {I trimmed off the bird} and the Mini Owl and Crescent Moon {Moon only}. I adhered everything to the tag and love how the subtle shimmer of the Perfect Pearls makes it look like moon beams.

My next tag is a Pumpkin tag which began with a thick layer of Distress Paint so there would be brush strokes visible once it dried. I used Distress Stains and Distress Inks in a variety of Autumn colors and techniques on top of the paint. The darker colors made the texture stand out nicely.

I also splattered water to create droplets which is my favorite Tim Holtz technique.

After I was satisfied with the colors and textures of the tag I die cut the eyes using only the triangle eyes from the Sizzix Mini Scary Jack-o-Lantern Set and using the Base Tray.

The next part was an experiment that happily worked out as I had hoped. I cut the mouth by using the same Mini Scary Jack-o-Lantern die and Tray but instead of using a regular Cutting Pad, I used the Embossing Diffuser Set #2 so that I could control exactly where the die would cut.

I began with a regular Cutting Pad on the bottom, then the Base Tray with the Jack-o-Lantern mouth die only, next I placed my tag and finally an Embossing Diffuser insert piece placed over the upper part of the mouth die. I ran this through the Big Shot so that it only cut where the Embossing Diffuser insert piece was and this created a single jagged mouth cut across my tag.

To reassemble the two pieces, I tilted the bottom piece and stapled them together on one side.

As a final detail, I used Distress Inks to age a piece of green ribbon to use as a stem for my Pumpkin Tag.

This is linked to:
504 Main, Common Ground, Homework, Just Us Four, Kathe With an E, Ladybug Blessings, Mad in Crafts, Sew Much Ado, Simply Designing, Tatertots and Jello, The Crafty Blog Stalker, The DIY Dreamer and Whipperberry