Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2016 - February

Hi Everyone! It's another month for the 12 Tags of 2016 and I was very excited about this one. The moment I saw Tim's tag I knew just the photo I wanted to use for my project. It's a picture that is very near and dear to my heart as it is the wedding photo of my grandparents. They both migrated here from Italy in the early 1900's. Though they both went through many hardships in their life, they managed their daily lives with gratitude and happiness and they were such an inspiration to me. I sat on a stool in my grandmother's kitchen and learned to cook just by watching her. Of course, with each recipe came a story. My grandfather was a master gardener and I remember him bringing in fresh vegetables from his garden that she would prepare to go along with the main course. It was such a happy time, filled with the best memories and I will forever be grateful for both of them and the richness they added to my life.

This month's technique remix was stencil monoprint and embossed paste. I love the depth of the background these techniques provide when used together and I felt it gave the photo I used just the right antique background it needed. Click on the 12 Tags of 2016 February icon below to play along with Tim and join in the fun!

Here is my tag for February:

I followed the steps for the stencil monoprint technique by staining the tag with Antique Linen Distress Stain and spritzed it with water.

When that was dry, I went with the same colors Tim used with the same stencil (Frayed Burlap Distress Ink with the Lace stencil) because these would provide the perfect antique look I wanted to go with the picture. I didn't have the mini stencil so I used the regular size Lace stencil. I inked the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and added the Hearts stencil with Worn Lipstick Distress Ink. After that was complete, I added the next technique: embossed paste using the Valentine stencil with Ranger Texture Paste. I only wanted to use certain words of the stencil and I found it easier to tape off the words around the ones I wanted to use. I then added Ranger Gold Embossing Powder to the words and heated them with my heat tool.

I wanted to add a vial label with the words "love eternal" and found those words on Tim's remnant rubs from the Botanical collection. I cut out the words and rubbed them on the vial label with Tim's remnant rub tool. The words are off to one side because I wanted to wrap the label around one side of the tag.

Next, I gathered most of the embellishments I wanted to add to the tag and played around with how I wanted them to lay on the tag.

I distressed the edges of the photo and a beautiful floral ephemera piece from the Thrift Shop collection using Tim's paper distresser tool. After they were distressed, I inked the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

Next, I wrapped May Arts pink burlap string around a medium size arrow from Tim's Idea-ology Arrows Adornments and attached the "love" typed token to the string.

I wanted to color the roses in the bouquet pink so I swiped the Worn Lipstick Distress Marker on my craft mat and spritzed it with water. I then used a very fine tip paintbrush to paint in the roses of the bouquet.

I wanted to a beautiful bow to the top of my tag so I took some seam binding and used Tammy Tutterow's coloring technique for bows. You can find her free tutorial here.

I decided I wanted to color the word "love" on the typed token so I used Worn Lipstick Distress Paint and rubbed it onto the token until the engraved word was filled with paint. I let it sit for 15 seconds and then rubbed off the rest of the paint from the top of the token with a paper towel.

When I was going through Tim's blog post for the monoprint technique, I noticed the beautiful bow on his tag and wanted to add one to my tag. He refers to it as the "Paula Bow" after Paula Cheney. You can read about it and see how to create this beautiful bow starting on Step 26 in his post here.

I adhered all the embellishments to my tag, added some premade flowers to one corner and one of the sayings from Tim's Small Talk sticker collection and my tag was done!

Here again is my completed tag for February:

I hope you enjoyed seeing the process of how I put together my tag for February 2016 but my wish is that you join in the fun and create your own tag for February. Have a great week!