Captured!

Hi everyone! A while ago, I picked up these cute little mason jar tags on clearance at Michaels. I had no idea what I would do with them but the price was right and I always enjoy the challenge. They are  approximately 2 x 3 inches big which turns out to be the perfect size for the tiniest TH Paperdoll figures.

I first inked the outside edges with Coffee Archival and then used Inktense pencil and water to shade under the rim and between the white lines on the jar rings. White coloured pencil was used to highlight. The backgrounds were stamped and stencilled with Coffee Archival Ink or Gesso. To ground the people and give a little interest behind them, tiny collages were made with the smallest of scraps of vintage papers and washi tape, all of which were edged with Coffee Archival ink.

The people and the outside edges of the jars were edged with black Big Brush pen to help them stand out against the kraft background. To finish the tags, TH Remnant rub words were added as well as a number stamped die cut tag attached with glue and baker's twine. I think they turned out so cute!

Thanks for stopping by!

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Mini Envelope Tabs following a tutorial by Junk Journal Ideas YT channel

Hi everyone! I made these sweet little fold out letters following a tutorial on YT by Donna Phillips (Junk Journal Ideas) called Mini Envelope Tabs. It's an easy to follow tutorial so I'm not going to go into the details of how to construct them because she explains it better than I could.

Basically, she takes a rectangle of paper, folds it in thirds, and then folds the top section in like an airplane. I have seen my talented friend, Jen (Jenny Miller on YT) use these in her fabulous junk journals all the time. What I liked about Donna's tutorial was where she went next with these embellies.

She layered the flap with bits of lace, circles of paper, and sweet metal charms plus a plethora of other sweet ideas. Then she tucked the flap over a page edge and used a tiny paper clip to hold it in place as needed.

I used threaded vintage buttons, tiny crocheted doilies, bits of cheesecloth, ribbon, cork, and pretty much anything else that I could get my hands on. Some of the envelopes were made from coffee dyed paper, some patterned paper, some stamped and others not. It's pure play with no rules...a lovely playground for the imagination!

Thanks for popping by today. Thanks also to Jen and Donna for the inspiration. It's greatly appreciated.

Life is good; so is art.

Bonnie

Scrappy Kraft tags

Hi everyone! I raided my scrap box again to decorate some tags die cut from kraft cardstock. I love collaging with scraps, although I'm building up enough of a stash that I think I'm going to have to send out some happy mail so I can create more. My joy comes more from the process of creating them than from actually using them :)

The two larger tags were die cut using a 3 x 4.5 die from Poppy Stamps with pinpoint detail around the edges. The other 4 were cut with a Paper Smooches die which is about 2x3 inches in size. All 6 tags were inked around the outside edges with Coffee Archival Ink. The four smaller tags were faux stitched around the outside edges to create a border.

Scraps of various sizes and shapes were layered onto each tag after they were edged with Coffee Archival Ink to help the layers stand out. Threaded buttons were added as well as punched reinforcements for the front and back. Fine cord was used as toppers for each of the tags.

Thanks for popping by today. That was awesome of you. I have several more tags and embellies to share with you later in the week so stay tuned...LOL

Life is good; so is art.

Bonnie

Altered tags

Hi everyone! I had this tag pad from K&Company kicking around for ages. I had already used all the ones I really liked and was left with a bunch that were OK but not really my style. They sat neglected for so long that finally I decided to alter them, keeping the parts I liked about each but changing the parts I was less fond of. Now, I love them and can see myself or someone else using them.

First I added scraps of patterned paper to cover the sections or details I didn't care for or to create a different colour story.

Then I added details such as die cuts, clear stickers, lace, buttons, brads, or tags to make them more interesting. Coffee dyed paper was adhered to the back of each to add strength and texture to the plain white backs.

The front and back edges were darkened with Coffee Archival Ink and faux stitching was added with brown Sharpie pen. Reinforcement circles were punched from kraft or coordinating cardstock and edged with Coffee Archival Ink before being glued on to the front and back.

To finish them off, words from TH ChitChat Stickers were inked around with Walnut Big Brush Pen and adhered to the tag fronts. The good news is that I went from 10 tags I would never use to 10 tags I love. The bonus is that I used up more scraps and bits from my stash. And...I had great fun collaging them.

Thanks for joining me today. I appreciate that. Do you have anything kicking around your stash that you can alter to make something you like? Have a play! It'll be worth it :)

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Decorated Small Coin Evelopes

Hi everyone. A while ago, I posted about decorating the larger coin envelopes from my stash and I mentioned that I had a whole box of the smaller coin envelopes if I could only remember where I put them for safe keeping. Well, I found them! Go me!! I decided to go simple on these 2.5 x 4.25 inch envelopes and haven't stuffed them with a tag or other goody yet. I will leave that until I decide where they will be used.

I started by cutting a straight edge above some music notes on vintage paper. I then adhered that straight edge along the upper edge of the top flap and trimmed it to the shape of the flap. The top flap could be inked around after the music paper was adhered.

I took one of the envelopes apart to get a template for the bottom flap so I could cut more music paper to fit. This piece had to be inked around the edges with Coffee Archival ink before it was adhered to the envelope.

The heart embellishment for the center of the envelopes was created by first stamping one of the hearts from Carabelle Studio Hearts and Pebbles stamp set onto white cardstock. Each heart was then fussy cut and inked around with Coffee Archival Ink. Black Big Brush Pen was used to ink around the edges of the cut hearts to prevent any white from showing.

The heart was then adhered to the envelope  between the upper and lower flaps. A small black punched heart was used as an accent under the point of the text frame within each heart. Finally, both edges of the coin envelope were inked with Coffee Archival Ink to match the top and bottom areas. If I was using this as a floating envelope where the back would be visible, I would also ink the edges on the other side.

Thanks for stopping by today. I appreciate that so much.

Life is good; so is art.

Bonnie

Partial Tag Tuck Spots

Hi everyone. I am always looking for new ideas to create embellies for junk journals and art journal pages, especially ones that use items up from my stash. While browsing on Pinterest last week, I found one of those and I loved it so much the way it was, that I barely changed anything. It was originally on a blog belonging to Dorota Kopec, a very talented art journaller and artist. She is from Poland and her blog is certainly worth a good long look as she has wonderful ideas and creations. Her tags clusters were used on art journal pages but I thought they would make awesome tuck spots for junk journals as well.

I started by die cutting partial tags from both white and kraft cardstock. The white ones were 2 inches high and 2 inches wide. The kraft ones were 2.25 inches high by 2 inches wide. Both sets were inked around with Coffee Archival Ink and then Ground Espresso Distress Ink to deepen the edging. They were stamped with a variety of stamps using the same Coffee Archival Ink. Mainly writing or numbers stamps were used on the white tags and images or collage stamps were used on the kraft ones.

White reinforcements were punched to surround the holes on the kraft tags and kraft ones created for the white tags. The tags were topped with very fine hemp and then overlapped different amounts and with either the kraft tag on top or with the white one there. I wanted to change them up a little.

I created a few different embellishments for the tag clusters but before I adhered them, I had to decide the orientation on the page for each one. They would either be adhered along the bottom of the page or on either side. The one above would be adhered along the bottom edge of the tag cluster to allow something to tuck underneath with the tags holding it in place.

The one above would be adhered to the left side of a page. For the black and white heart embellie, I stamped the heart from one of Carabelle Studio Hearts & Pebbles stamp set onto white cardstock with Jet Black Archival Ink, fussy cut it, and inked the edges with Coffee Archival. Then the edge of each heart was inked with Black Big Brush Pen to help frame it. A small threaded vintage button was added over that and a scrap of cheesecloth was layered underneath the heart.

Similar steps were taken using a thread label stamp and also a die cut primitive heart. I also did a few using a tiny crocheted doily topped with a corrugated cardboard punched star. or a vintage white button. I think they all turned out really sweet and can see how they could be further adapted depending upon the tag paper and embellishments used. A big shout-out to Dorota Kopec for the wonderful idea!

Thanks for stopping by today. That was awesome of you :)

Life is good; so is art.

Bonnie