Sweet Springtime Tag For A Friend

Spring is almost here but not today, well not here anyway, we are still being plagued by storms and hail and lots of rain.  My pond is full of frogs spawning so Spring must be just around the corner.  I remember the same thing happened last year and then we got some really cold weather and the pond froze!  Didn’t seem to do the tadpoles any harm though.  So Spring is on my mind and so are birthdays, so I decided to combine the two and make this Spring inspired gift for a friend’s birthday and maybe invite Spring to join us soon.

We are going to be using a very large tag base, and this spring shapes chipboard set from GSL.  I am also using my precious Fresco chalk paints, some stamps and a few different mediums, so let’s get started.

These tags are BIG!

and this sweet spring shapes set has so many useful shapes included

I started by choosing and arranging the shapes I wanted to use on the tag and once I was happy with the layout, started to stick them down using Collage Medium and allowed it to dry.

Then I covered everything in white gesso.

Once the gesso was dry, I added a layer of crackle paste and left that to dry overnight.  Here’s a close up of how it looked the next morning.

It was then time to start painting, and I had a colour palette in mind, so I pulled out some of my Paperartsy Fresco Chalk Paints and got started.

I painted everything with this gorgeous Aquamarine paint – love this colour!  It’s one of the new ones for 2020. There’s an added bonus in that we are both Pisces and Aquamarine is our birthstone! 🙂

Here’s a close up of the bird again so you can see how it looks with the paint on top.

Don’t forget to also decorate the back of the tag!  I painted this side with Stone paint.

Then when it was dry, did some stamping using my favourite Rubber Dance set and some green Archival Ink.

And here’s another close up of that

OK, so now it was time to get back to work on the front of the tag. I don’t have any more photos of the painting process because I was in the painting zone and forgot, but you can see the colours I used here.  Yes, I’m using an acrylic block as a palette lol.  I also added some stamping of little dragonflies and text to the background (they are from a couple of Finnabair sets) using the same green Archival.

I wanted to add some white splatters to the background but first I needed to mask the bird as I didn’t want him splattered, so I cut this little mask from a post-it note and covered him up before splattering.

Here’s another close up of that birdie saved from splatters!

And another of the dragonfly

I love this paint as it dries super fast so I didn’t have to wait long before I could start deciding on ribbons.  I pulled out all of these lovely things from my stash – why of course I have a ribbon stash, have we met? lol

And here’s a close up of the chosen ribbons I tied on to the tag – love these teal bobbly bits!

Here’s some views of the finished tag!  These teals and turquoises make me very happy.  They are some of my favourite colours in all areas of life and especially in art.

I was thinking about my friend as I made this for her and how much she loves her garden, and it reminded me of a book we read together in our book group – The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”…
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…”

It’s a bit like that now, the rain falling on the sunshine bit I mean lol. The sun peeks his head out of the clouds for five minutes before the rain comes battering down again and he disappears again for days.  I wish it was the other way round :/

Anyway, this happy Spring tag is being carefully wrapped and posted off to my friend as part of her birthday package.  I hope that it makes her smile when she sees it and maybe it will even encourage the sun to come back and start those Spring flowers growing.

Challenges

Funkie Junkie Challenge Blog – Aquamarine – I painted the whole background of the tag with Aquamarine Fresco paint from Paperartsy.
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – Use Some Green – so I’m entering this tag in this challenge too

PROJECT RECIPE:

GSL Cuts – Spring Shape Set D85B, Tag Set Super X Model: D92C
Paperartsy – Fresco Chalk Paints, various
Decoart – White Gesso, Crackle Paste
Tim Holtz – Ground Espresso Archival Ink, Collage Medium
Ranger – Archival Ink Library Green
Rubber Dance – weed love stamps
Finnabair – stamps
From Stash:  variety of ribbons