Happy Spring, Y’all!!

I have so been feeling that “Spring Fever” lately. I love this time of year when the trees and bushes are budding out. When we moved into our new house, I was soooo pleased that we had most of those Southern “ya’s”: Azaleas, Camelias, Gardenias, you get the picture. Now is when those Azaleas are supposed to start budding out. I hate to say it, but I think the “Snowpocalypse” may have taken them out. Anyway, I decided that I wanted to make this weeks project a little bit Springy. I have never done an “Etcetera Tag” before and I have been dying to do one, so I figured something to display for Easter would be perfect. Plus, in sticking with that whole “taking the wrapper off” thing, I removed a few wrappers too. Let’s start with the background.

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Last weeks YouTube Live demo from Tim Holtz was about Distress Inks so if you missed it, you may want to check it out. He demoed using the regular Distress Inks with the Distress Oxides. So, as you can see, that’s what i did. I used two pieces of Distress Mixed Media Heavystock cut to the width of the Etcetera tag. Then, by pressing the ink pad into my nonstick side of my media mat and spritzed it with some water droplets. I then dabbed the paper into the ink and water mix until I was happy with the coverage. As you can see, I used several shades of the blue and several shades of the green until I was happy. My aim was for the color of sky and grass. Once I was happy with my colors. I distressed the edges with a little Vintage Photo. I used the Stampers Anonymous Craze & Planks (CMS344) and stamped the craze image with Distress Ink “Broken China” for the blue and Distress Oxide “Mowed Lawn” for the green.

I wanted to add another layer, so I used my Distress Ink “Picket Fence” as my embossing ink and “White” embossing powder from Ranger. The stamp set that I used for this was also Stampers Anonymous Papillon (CMS106). I always like to add some sort of script to my backgrounds. The stamp set that I used for this was Stampers Anonymous Faded Type (CMS397). The colors that I used to stamp the images were same as before, Distress Ink “Broken China” and Distress Oxide “Mowed Lawn”. And last on the background, I wanted to add a little bit of texture. For this, I used Grit Paste and a stencil from Stampers Anonymous called Blossom (THS031) because I wanted to stick with that Spring theme. Once both pieces were good and dry, I cut them down and glued them to my tag with Distress Collage Medium. I then added an “Etcetera” trim piece that I painted with “Tumbled Glass” Distress Paint. And that was the background.

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Now we come to that whole “taking the wrappers off things” part of the make. LOL. The new Sizzix release from Tim Holtz was amazing. I have to say that I probably bought way too much. But, today, we took some wrappers off of them and used them, so that makes up for it, right?? Instead of using colored cardstock, I decided to get inky and make the colored papers that I needed. I needed brown and green for the trees, gray for the rabbit, and orange for the carrots. Same technique as before, just press a little ink onto the nonstick mat and dab the paper into it until I was happy with the coverage. For the orange, I got a little industrious and added some stamping. LOL

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The Sizzix die sets that I “unwrapped” for this project were Funky Trees (665217) and Oliver (665219). I had already used the Carrot Bunny (665213) so that was already unwrapped. LOL. I just love how cute Oliver is. Those trees and carrots just add the perfect touch.

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Once I got everything cut out and glued together, I just played with it for a bit until I was happy with the placement. I glued it all down with some Distress Collage Medium. I added a few pop dots to Oliver and it was done. He’s soo cute! I think this is going to be a great little display piece for Spring. I love it!!

Until next time,

Jennifer