Dylusions Under the Sea

I love these fishies faces..!

 

 

After spending months re-arranging my craft room, I thought it was about time that I made  something in there. 

I've been getting side effects after not being able to use my room for so long, but now I have no excuse.....and I cant wait to get started on the huge pile of ideas that I have going around in my head...!

 

So, I thought that I would start with something that always brings a smile to my face.  Out of all of the stamps I have (and I have a fair few..) these stamp sets are my favourite; at the moment.

I used two stamp sets on this tag.  They were the fabulous Dylusions stamps, 'Under the Sea' and 'Ocean Backgrounds'. 

 

To start this tag I chose a Ranger size 8 tag in Manila, and decided that I wanted to try out Tim Holtz' new Distress Paint.  I selected 'Broken China, Mowed Lawn, Salty Ocean and a little bit of Mustard Seed.

I squeezed some of each colour onto my craft mat and spritzed them with water.  I then held the tag by one end and pulled it through the paint.  The paint has a quality that makes it react with water, so when you pull it through the paint it creates a marbling effect, which looks fab.  If you have any areas left uncoloured on your tag, you can either leave it plain or pull it through the paint again, although make sure you dry the paint between layers.

 

Once the paint is dry, it will no longer react to water. To make the watery effect on the tag, I splashed the tag with water before the paint was dry and the dried it with my heat tool. it makes such a lovely effect.

 

To add some more texture to the tag, I applied gesso through some sequin waste to try and make it look like bubbles. 

Once everything was dry, I got my stamp sets out.  To add more interest to the background I got the 'Ocean Backgrounds' stamps and a Teal Archival ink pad and began stamping some seaweed along the bottom of the tag, and some shoals of fish swimming across the tag, and again heat set the ink to ensure it doesn't smudge.

On a separate piece of smooth card I stamped out which images I wanted to use from the Dylusions, 'Under the Sea' stamp set, with a black Archival ink pad.  I coloured in the images with a combination of things. I wanted the images to be bright and cheerful, so I used Dylusions spray inks which I've poured into the Ranger Fine Detail Waterbrushes, and coloured some with those, and I also used the new range of Tim Holtz' Distress Markers. I didn't use the markers directly onto the card. I scribbled a colour onto my craft mat and then picked the colour up with a paintbrush and used them as watercolours.  They work really well this way, and you have total control over how much colour and shade you want on your image.

Once coloured I cut them out and stuck them onto my tag.  The quote I used is from Tim Holtz  'Going Somewhere' stamp set.  I stamped it onto some manila card and used Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pads to colour the background so that it blended with the tag, then attached it with some glue.
The final two things I did to finish off my tag was to take a black fine liner and draw around my images, to make them pop off the page. The last thing was to find some ribbon and thread it through the hole in the top of the tag.

I really enjoyed making this tag.  The stamps are fabulous and really make me smile.  I hope they make you smile  too.

See you all soon....Happy crafting..!!
xx