Collaged Scrappy Tags

Hi everyone. I'm sure many of you have seen Nik the Booksmith's Franken-page video on YouTube. Gayle Agostinelli also has some great tutorials demoing how she uses the idea on pages and tags. The thing I really like about the technique (besides it being super fun) is that it allows me to use up paper scraps and come up with something cool at the same time. I had some sturdy kraft paper tags from who-knows-where. I liked both the size (2.25 x 3.5 inches) and the ticket shape so I cut a template for future use and decided to quit hoarding them :)

Because I liked the combination of designer papers and vintage book/music paper with the kraft background, I wanted to be sure to let some of the kraft show on the finished tag.

I kept a lot of the designer paper scraps rectangular or at least with straight edges in shape because I wanted to play with that geometric look. The exception was the music and book paper which were shaped with circular punches.

The embellishments ranged from small stamped tags with rub-ons added to cork heart stickers, coffee dyed paper flowers with button centers, and small tags with tiny lace flower accents.

On three tags, Idea-ology Big Chat stickers were used to add a little wording and a little more black to the design.

As part of making the design my own, black faux stitching and outlining were added around the various layers of paper as well as the outside edges of each tag. I love black details and how the outlining emphasizes the layers and shapes. I even added a little x or angled faux stitch on some of the edges of the sections. 

The tags were edged with Coffee Archival Ink to tie in with the inking done on each individual scrap. The tags were topped with either cotton woven ribbon tied with hemp or a length of crinkled seam binding tied in a simple know.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope I have given you another idea to add the texture/look of stitching without having to haul out your machine. Be sure to check out the videos linked above. They explain the Franken-page idea very well. It's a fun way to play with scraps.

Life is good; so is art.

Bonnie