12 Tags of 2012... and Gesso!

Happy Thursday!

Today I have my February Tag to share. Earlier this week Tim Holtz announced that he will no longer be doing the 12 Tags of Christmas… (yes... it was me you probably heard crying…)

but instead The 12 Tags of 2012.

(yes… that was me you heard squealing with delight!)

Here you can read more about it and see Tim Holtz’s tag…

...and without further ado this is my tag:

I had so much fun creating this tag…

To start I pulled out a blank canvas... (my tag!) and some black Gesso from Claudine Hellmuth Studio line… and my Basic Grey rub-on tool. (I use the wide end to smear on the gesso… works great!)

I then smeared black gesso on my tag.

Once the gesso dried I ran the tag through the texture Boutique Using the Valentine Background & Borders texture fade.

Now, here is where it gets interesting… I couldn’t use distress ink because the gesso would resist it… so I took my Silver Adirondack Acrylic Paint dabber and dabbed the paint on my craft mat… I then used an ink blending tool and picked the paint up and rubbed it onto my tag… this allowed me to get paint primarily on the raised surfaces. I repeated the same steps again, but this time using some Scotch Quick Dry liquid glue. I sparingly dabbed at my tag and then sprinkled glitter!

To finish the background I inked up the edges with Distress Ink…

The heart was created using the Heart Wings Die by Sizzex, designed by Tim Holtz. I wanted to really give my tag texture, so I used burlap, glitter, glassine, tissue paper, and grunge board to create the heart.

I encourage you to play along… it’s a fantastic way to learn new techniques. He has step by step directions and great pictures of the steps on his blog... 

Until next time… Happy Creating!

Christine