Tim Holtz Tags of 2014 - June

Another month nearly over, and another tag in just under the wire; I seem to be developing a pattern... Anyhoo, here is Tim's awesome June tag:

This month is all about watercolouring... with Distress! I was able to create June's tag without purchasing any new supplies - I gathered what I would need...

... and began. As usual, I was making two tags, one for me and one for The Scrapbook Cottage.

I used Tim's full sized Distress Ink pads instead of his new Minis (they are so cute!). I hope to add those to my supplies one day, but for now the regular will have to do. This made colouring the back of the Harlequin stencil a bit more difficult - I can see how the tiny pads would make this so much better - more colours in smaller patches. I used Broken China (blue), Evergreen Bough (green), Worn Lipstick (pink), Spun Sugar (light pink) and Dusty Concord (purple), tapping the pads onto the back and spritzing with my Mini Mister to activate the inks.

Tim mentioned that the amount of water spritzed to create this effect was a matter of choice to get the result you wanted. I know what he meant. The first (left side) monoprint had too little water. The second try was a lot better (on the right):

After cutting, tearing, inking the edges and adhering the backgrounds to my tags (made with Tim's Tag & Bookplates Bigz Die in my Cuttlebug), I inked the tags in Vintage Photo too. I love Tim's round Mini Ink Blending Tool... once I use a foam pad for a certain colour, I keep it with that pad to use over and over again. That way, all I need is the two handles and can whip the pads on and off the velcro base for each colour change.

Here's something else I do. When I want a clear, dark stamped image, I pull out a piece of fairly dense foam and place it under the paper I am stamping on. The extra cushion really helps achieve a great result! As Tim instructed, I stamped the images using Ranger's black Archival Ink.

I stamped the butterfly images again on another piece of cardstock and with my water brush, painted them in using the same Distress Inks colouring the background. Since I don't have his butterfly die set, I hand-cut the images and edged the fussy cuts with my Copic black Multi-liner. I used black foam dimensionals (cut in half) to pop up each butterfly atop it's counterpart on the tag for a 3D effect. Very cool!

I also used the same inks to colour my seam binding. Swiping the pads on the craft sheet, I spritzed with water and scrunched the ribbon up into it, using my embossing heat tool to dry it.

The addition of three gears and a game spinner and Viola! Done!

I LOVE the way the butterfly wings come off the tag.

The watercolour effect is lovely too...

Yep. I really like this month's tag. Easy and simply beautiful!