Retro Art Tag with Translucent Mixed-Media Layers

My darlings! I have another tag for you this week, featuring more stamps from my beloved going-out-of-business Stampsmith. Once the remaining stock on Etsy is gone, there will be no more of these fabulous quirky vintage/retro images!  ;-(  Git you some while the gittin's good! For cheaps, too!

Behold the tag:

Here's what was done. I made a mixed-media background for the tag that has a great layered, translucent quality. On top I collaged a print of two stamps:

Meet Maxine. She is one of The Stampsmith's famed photostamps, and her expressive face and hands mean that she can serve as a wonderful spokesmodel for anything you want her to say.  :)

For this tag, I stamped her with brown and black Stazon ink (mixed right on the stamp) onto some glossy photo paper. Then I masked Maxine and stamped this fab image ("Bed of Roses") around her:

I painted the roses with Distress Inks dabbed onto a craft sheet (Candied Apple, Barn Door, Aged Mahogany) and gave Maxine a halo of Abandoned Coral, then set the image aside to do the tag background.

Now on my craft sheet I swirled Distress Paint in the same hues of red, plus metallic gold and bronze, spritzed my tag and the paint with water, and dragged the tag into the paint. After drying with a heat tool, I rubbed some more Distress Ink over the whole surface with a mini ink tool and misted it with shimmer spray to let that layer of color bleed together and flow down the tag. I sprinkled on some Perfect Pearls powder in gold for good measure while it was wet, and let the tag dry. 

(Tim Holtz has a tutorial on essentially this technique here. He uses colors designed to mimic the patina of copper, whereas I kept mine in close tones for a subtle, glowing look, but it's a great technique that gives richness and depth no matter what colors you choose.)

Once the tag was dry, I stamped some rose images from another company (Deep Red Stamps) in maroon chalk ink in various intensities. This amplified the layered, dimensional effect, making some of the stamp prints look as though they were showing through layers of color.

Here is another photograph in different lighting, so you can see more of the translucence and metallic shimmer:

Now it was time to put it all together. I edged Maxine and the tag in chalk ink. And here are the two parts of the piece before assembly.  :)

Lastly, I printed out my quote in a vintage-inspired font with an insouciant personality to match Maxine's, and sketch-outlined the words in two shades of red Distress marker before cutting and collaging down onto the tag.

I topped the tag off with some whitish satiny ribbon, and saucy Maxine was good to go.

As always, I welcome your comments below. (Oh, wait--[tap tap]--was this thing even on???)

Step-By-Step: Vintage Mixed-Media Tag ("Sweet Mabel")

Hi guys! Today I have a step-by-step breakdown of how I made this vintage mixed-media tag.

I call it "Sweet Mabel." Mabel was the name of the mother of my childhood friend Maryellen, and it struck me as an old-fashioned name even back then. The Mabel I knew was pretty nice, although she looks nothing like the "Mabel" on this tag.  :)

I started with a journaling card that looked like this:

The text on the card didn't really bother me, as I knew I'd be covering most of it up during the making of the tag anyway. So I trimmed the card to tag size and shape and got to work...

I took out a mini ink tool and a couple of colors of Distress ink and went over the lettering to reduce the difference in value between it and the background:

Next, I chose some vintage sheet music and a page from a midcentury book and tore them up, then added a piece of scrapbook paper, and collaged it all down with Mod Podge. At this stage, things looked like this:

This was a good start, but the tag needed some texture and dimension. So I got out my trusty texture paste and a favorite stencil, and quickly slapped some scrolly leaves onto a few spots on the tag.

After letting the paste dry for a couple of minutes, I wanted to blend and distress the whole shebang so it would start to merge into a unified background. I got out some spray stains in Tea Dye and Antique Linen and spritzed a bit...

But the tag still needed MOAR. I dabbed some Distress Stain in Crushed Olive (one of the most awesome colors ever to exist, by the way; you can thank me later) and let the tag start to marinate in all the vintage-colored juices I was bathing it in.

And yet even the divine Crushed Olive was not really doing enough. I wanted the scrolly leaves and vines to stand out a bit more, and I also wished I hadn't slapped the texture paste on so roughly; I wanted it a little smoother. So I decided to blend a custom glaze of Mod Podge (you could use any gel medium) and Distress Stain. I mixed a little Vintage Photo into my medium and painted over the vines.

The glaze pooled a little bit around the texture paste and smoothed everything out a little, helping the vines pop just enough.

Now it was time to put the focal point together. I had a vintage photo of "Mabel" all ready to go; it didn't need anything done to it. But it needed a frame to set her off. I chose a die-cut frame made of scrapbook paper rather than an actual metal frame. But it needed more dimension...so I coated it with clear embossing powder dusted with Perfect Pearls in Heirloom Gold to add just a hint of aged patina, then melted the mixture to the frame.

I glued Mabel behind the frame and fastened it down with some brads, adding a special rhinestone brad at the top of the frame.

The frame was decorated with some peach-pink roses that I fussy-cut from a few odd pieces of paper I had lying around.

And suddenly, all that was left to finish the tag was to punch a hole at the top...edge the tag in copper metallic and brown chalk ink...add a piece of distressed trim to the bottom edge...and tie it with a ribbon.

Et voila! Sweet Mabel lives on in her own tag. As always, I welcome your comments and thoughts below, and am happy to answer any questions if I skipped over something you might have wanted to know more about.  :)

Happy art-making!

Project of the Day: Vintage Red, White, & Blue Tag

Today's project is a tag featuring a distressed map of the British Isles. The assignment was to make a vintage tag in red, white, and blue, presumably to celebrate American Independence Day, but I guess I had Brexit on my mind, so this is what we got!

I printed out  the map image and lightly distressed it using the technique I showed in this post here. (This is a fun one, and a great basic technique that should be in everyone's repertoire!)

With a mini ink tool and Distress Inks, I added reds at the top and blues at the bottom, leaving the middle white. I went around the edges of the tag with Vintage Photo, then spritzed the whole thing with Antique Linen, Old Paper, and Picket Fence Distress Spray Stains.

When it was dry, I embossed the top of the tag with a mixture of the following, sprinkling these on randomly and allowing them to melt together: white embossing powder to which I had added some pearlescent pigment powder; antique ivory embossing powder; and clear glitter embossing powder. While the powder was still hot and melty, I stamped into it with a not-very-clean rubber stamp--I liked the serendipitous "aged" darkness it gave, besides lending dimension and texture to the whole piece.

Here are some closeups, trying to capture the shimmer and glitter in the resins (you can click on them to get an even better look):

With the same combination of powders, I embossed some chipboard stars and affixed them to the bottom of the tag, then dirtied them up with a bit of Vintage Photo stain.

I edged the whole thing in black chalk ink, and tied it with a bit of ribbon that I aged with Old Paper, Vintage Photo, and Picket Fence stains, and--what ho!--a vintage red, white, and blue tag ready to send to my swap partner.  :D

Please leave comments or questions below! I'd love to chat and hear your thoughts.