12 Tags of 2014 - July version

I can't believe it!  July is almost a thing of the past.  Good thing I checked my blog, because I totally forgot to submit this tag.  I created it about three weeks ago, and I'm not sure why I didn't do it.  Oh, well.

Tim Holtz has an awesome series on his blog for 12 Tags of 2014.  Each tag showcases new techniques as well as new (and tried-and-true) products.  Sometimes I don't have everything that he uses, but I do my best to recreate using what I do have. Anyhow, I like to "make it my own" instead of making an exact duplicate of his.  What would I learn if I did that?

This time, though, I was really out of luck.  I had very few of the materials he used on his tag, so I got all sad and figured I couldn't participate. Imagine what it was like when I was playing with my Cricut and found a seahorse on one of the cartridges.  Suddenly I could cut out the seahorse!

 

So then I went to my stash of embossing folders and found the bubble stencil; even though it's not the same as the one Professor Tim used, it provides similar results. And I didn't have any of the embossing powder in the color he used, so I used some Spanish moss instead.  Looks a bit like seaweed, right?  I also didn't have the spring greenery die, so once again, necessity was the mother of invention, and I improvised with another one of my dies that looks like the fingers of seaweed that float under the water's surface.

 

Oh, and I didn't have the sand dollar die, so I used distress ink to gussy up some of the seashells that came right out of the Gulf of Mexico!  Isn't that key to die for?  I used the eroded metallic technique that I learned in Creative Chemistry 102.

 

Love love love this bow!  The colors are so beautiful.

 

 

When the tag was finished, I tried to figure out what to do with it.  Once again I called upon a valuable lesson learned in Creative Chemistry 102, Tim gives ideas for using the tags after they are created.  So, I distressed and stamped some cardstock and mounted it onto a small canvas.  I added one of Tim's stamps (instead of the word band) that has a saying that speaks to my heart. I also used the eroded metallic technique on a clock face and mounted it on a hitch fastener.  Now, this pretty creation sits on the window ledge where I can see it every morning when I'm enjoying my coffee.

 

Thanks, Tim, for your creative genius!