September's Tag of the Month...

was a tough one for me.  It was Roxanne's turn to choose our challenge in our little "tag exchange" group which was, use a recycled item.  I thought it was going to be easy, I came up with a great idea.  But, it was one of those ideas that sound cool, but once I started making them nothing worked out the way I thought it would.  I should have quit when the lid from my bottle of diamond glaze split open when I was squeezing it and I had the stuff everywhere!  So I trashed that batch, and ended up with this:

I used an old book and cut out a lot of tags with Tim Holtz's tag die.  I put his mini butterflies mover and shapers die inside the tag.  I stamped on the top tag with Pink Paislee and Tim Holtz stamps. Using acrylic from packaging, I cut out a tag and then used rub-ons on the area where the butterflies were cut out. After stacking all the layers of tags with the acrylic one in the middle, I drilled holes in the four corners.  I then used nylon screws (colored with alcohol ink) to secure them together. Taking a bunch of the butterflies that were left from the tag cutouts, I stamped the top one with versamark ink, embossed it with clear powder, inked with Forest Moss distress ink and stapled them together.  I glued it on the tag, and finished it off with Forest Moss Distress stain, seam binding and tulle.  In this next photo you can see how many layers of paper I used (about 1/4 thick).

I haven't been working on any layouts lately, I've been having fun playing with stamps!  I signed up for Jennifer Mcguire's online class "Inspiration Showcase".  I'm lovin' this class! Lots of inspiration, tips and techniques, great videos and Jennifer is a great instructor.  If she offers this class again, I would highly recommend it.  This is what I've done so far:

Each tag is a different technique, and there will be five rows when I'm done.  Her samples are heart shaped but I decided to do tag shapes and I had this wood "canvas" so I decided to use it instead of a white canvas.  I put a light white wash over it, but I think I might put another one on before I adhere all the tags.  I haven't decided if I'm going to put a hole and ribbon in the tops of the tags.  What do you think?  I think it's a great idea to put all these techniques on a canvas, so I can just look at it on the wall for inspiration and so I can remember what the heck I did!  Well, I'm off to finish another row...
Have a great week!