12 Tags-February

t!m Holtz, never one to rest on his laurels has decided to change up the 12 Tags of Christmas that he started 5 years ago. The 12 Tags of Christmas are officially retired and in their place is the 12 Tags of 2012. He will do one new tag each month (two in March to make up for no January because of CHA) and participants will have the whole month to create a tag based on that month's technique and post it. Then at the end of the month, winners will be chosen and prizes given.

And since Feb is all about love, t!m went with a heart theme. Somewhere on your tag, you had to use a heart. Well, Valentine's Day is over! So I didn't want to do a Valentine's tag. Sew...I went in another direction! And yes, sew is a play on words and a sneak into what I did!

I used one of the pages out of my art journal for this month. I started with Distress Stains in spun sugar, wild honey and broken china and splotched them on my Kraft Mat and sprayed with a bit of water. Sprayed my faux tag as well and swiped it thru my puddles. Let it run a bit then dried it well with my heat gun. Used my Mixed Media  t!m stamps with tumbled glass, iced spruce and vintage photo distress inks and stamped in a random fashion on the tag. Then stamped the dress form from haberdashery on cs and cut it out. Used some tissue tape on the bottom half of the form and it's hard to pick up in the pictures, but I pleated the tissue tape as well. Used one of my yen tokens on the top of the form and a hanger as well. I used black embroidery floss to sew the ribbon on. I was not concerned about stitches being straight or even. I wanted it to have a rustic feel. I dug thru my stash of letter tiles and brads and what-have-you and used the "sew" play on words as part of my sentiment. The ASL "a" in "path" is from my friend Evan and that is the only one that I remember where it came from! And there's my heart, wayyyyyyyy down at the bottom. I used some butterscotch paint dabber on it then sanded off the high spots.

You can see t!m's challenge and his tag here: http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/12-tags-of-2012-a-new-direction.html