Q is for Quilt

Before I started getting into mixed media art I was a quilter. So from a machine quilting practice piece that I still had I was able to make this tag. The other thing I like to do and still do is hand embroidery and hand quilting big stitches with embroidery floss and perle cotton.

I started out with a quilted tag that was ho hum so I used some watercolor paint to give it some life. Here's a before and after of the quilted pieces to give you an idea of the difference a little paint makes. The paint dries to a lighter color. The top picture shows it still wet.

A small piece of fine white cotton muslin was lightly painted and the words were stamped with brown permanent ink. Behind it was some white open weave textured ribbon that I also painted.

Another detail of some stitching and some ribbon and a small chipboard circle from Altered Pages that I painted as well. Those little chipboard circles and sprockets sure come in handy for a variety of projects

Here it is straight on or should I say a little crooked. The piece of muslin with the words "is for Quilt looks like it's going downhill. Oh well, I'm striving for a perfectly imperfect look. Right?

N is for Note, O is for Ornate and P is for Painted Paper

I couldn't think of a word that started with the letter N that represents a technique ( I kinda did that on a few already) so I chose the word note as in musical note. The tag was stamped with swirls using clear ink with clear embossing powder. Then brown ink was used to bring out the pattern of the swirls. Next came the stamped music sheet in black and over that I glued a transparency of a treble clef note. The words were printed and then distressed with some more brown ink.

The word ornate seemed like a good word to use for the letter O but I found it very challenging. It started out fun when I took some sparkly metallic watercolor paints and colored some embossed specialty paper. Well it turned out so pretty I didn't want to cover over it but I had to. So I fished around in my supplies and found a swirly thing-a-ma-bob and painted it with gold metallic paint and some more of the sparkly watercolor paints so it would sort of match the background. Then I had this big fat chipboard O which was very plain so I ran it through my Sizzix machine inside an embossing folder. Then more gold paint. Well you can't put that over a busy background so I put both onto a reddish purple rectangle of paper. The words were printed, cut out and inked. Phew! That one was a pain!

This one is my favorite one out of the three tags. All the backgrounds were cut from textured and painted paper I made last year. The background for the words and the letter P come from the same paint - lucky I still had some left over. I wrote out the words with a white gel pen. For me, it's all about the color!

M is for Masking

For this tag I used a Gelli print that had been printed with a leaf branch. The color you see is the original color before the red paint was applied over the mask. The outline of the branch was accented with a little purple to make it stand out. I'm not too crazy about my M or my lettering but I must push on to the rest of the alphabet!

On to J, K, & L alphabet tags

Moving right along we come to J is for Journal which was made from different scrapbook papers and joined together into a sort of tag booklet. I used a little charcoal paint to the front page with a sticker letter J and wrote the words with a pigma pen.

K is for Kick used a green gelli print background with a gypsy image over that and some punched circles from a red gelli print. I then used those same paints to paint the letter and corrugated paper. A scrap of the background was used for the words and written also with a pigma pen.

While antiquing in Pasadena recently I came across some beautiful vintage black lace that I had to have and so I used a piece of it for my L is for Lace tag. Gelli prints were used for the background and words. I added some black and white polka dot washi(?) tape behind the words a a teeny scrap of paper in the same print to use for the eyelet.

My alphabet tag series continued...

Man it's been ages since I posted but then I've been busy with posting for Altered Pages and taking mini vacations this month. So without further ado I will go on to the next letter in my alphabet tag series.

G is for Gelli printing was made with cutouts from different Gelli prints 

including the chipboard letter. scalloped edging and the eyelet flower.

I used some specialty paper from the art supply store and painted it with a charcoal grey. 

The owl image was cut into an oval with yellow paper behind and 

cut with postage stamp decorative scissors. I designed the words in Publisher.

I is for Itsy Bitsy Inchies was inspired by my friend Rita who had just done a recent inchie art swap. Again, a Gelli print was used for the main background as well as the inchies.

Supplies used can be had at Altered Pages