Rustic Spring Tag

Hello and welcome to my blog  :)  I'm sharing a piece of tag art with you today which I created as the third of my GDT posts on the Chocolate Baroque DT blog.  I love painting in the folk art style, and this stamp is perfect.  I have used stamps from the Breath of Spring set; Pebeo Deco acrylic paints, black Versafine ink, Distress ink, gold gilding wax and embossing powder.

I decided to practice on a piece of scrap card first.  I stamped the large floral image in black ink, and dried it thoroughly.  I then chose my colours.  I decided to use a technique in folk art called dotting, as well as comma strokes and long strokes.  Dotting is done using a ball tool dipped into paint, and dotted onto card.  I started with pink for the petals, then sepia for the centres.  These Pebeo paints are great for folk art as they are runnier than normal acrylics.  

The dotting technique doesn't show all the tiny details but I think it really works with this stamp. 

I wanted to make the tag quite rustic so I created a crackle background using PVA glue and paint. I painted the tag with a dark coloured acrylic - in this case purple - then dried it with a heat gun.  I painted a coat of PVA glue on top then partially dried that.  I used some left over emulsion paint over the top then used the heat gun again.  As the paint dries it reacts with the glue and cracks appear, giving the effect of old dried cracked paint.  The colour from the first coat shows through the cracks.

As usual I stamped and cut the images out of copy paper and arranged my composition before stamping onto the tag in black ink.  

I then painted the image using the dotting technique.  I chose to paint the flowers blue this time.  I put a dot at the end of the petal with a medium ball tool and dragged the paint a little to create a petal shape. I used sepia for the centres again, and dotted around the outside of the flower as well.  Then I painted the foliage with a mid green, added shading with a darker tone, and dotted around the bottom of the flowers.  

I blended DI around the edges of the tag then embossed some swirly foliage in gold at the top and bottom of the tag. 

  

I blended gold gilding wax around the edges of the tag.

I added a blue ribbon from my stash, to compliment the flowers.  I then stamped the sentiment and embossed it in gold.  

I'm very pleased with this piece.  The stamp wasn't designed for folk art but it has worked  really well.  It is such a beautiful stamp in it's own right, and I wanted to use it in a different way.  I think this is a lovely gift or keepsake to give to anyone, or a beautiful piece of home decor for yourself!

Thank you for popping in today, I hope that you've enjoyed this post and to see you here again soon  :)