Americana

- May 19, 2023

Hello and welcome back to this weeks TFJ Inspiration Ave blog post. This week we are creating to the theme of “Americana”. Today I have decided to create a red white and blue themed tag. On the tag, I have added some silver stars and an altered vintage photo from Idea-Ology.

If you would like to see a video tutorial for this tag, go ahead and click here.

For supplies I used: the inspector stamp set CMS465, shifter stencil set stars THS111, distress watercolour pencils, Sizzix 3D adhesive, Ranger water brush, Idea-ology photo, metallic dots, metallic kraft stock, Ranger ink distress spray uncharted mariner, frayed burlap, distress mica spray stain tart cranberry, mixed media tag, foundry wax sterling, and Finnabaire gilding flakes.”

To start this project I’m going to be using a Ranger Tim Holtz multimedia tag.

For the first layer of the background, I am using a combination of uncharted mariner distress spray stain and frayed burlap. First, I sprayed the tag with some water from the Distress sprayer. Then I added the spray stains over the top. After I drop the tag off with the Ranger heat tool.

Next, I added some tart cranberry mica spray stain. And since I wanted the red in a very specific area, I added water first to the tag before adding the tart cranberry. The water allowed the colour to travel on a very specific path and contain it to the bottom half of the tag.

Again, I tried the second layer, and then added some drip drops of water for a splattered and distressed looking background. After I dried that layer as well before, adding a few lines of foundry wax towards the base of the tag. I use the coloursSterling for some stripes on our Americana themed tag. Then using the Sizzix embossing gun, I heated up the foundry wax to turn it into bright silvery lines.

Now we are going to be adding some texture to this tag with some 3-D Sizzix adhesive and the Tim Holtz star shifter stencil, THS111.

With the Ranger Tim Holtz palette knife, I applied some of the 3-D Sizzix adhesive through the stencil onto the tag. The adhesive has a texture of mayonnaise, and spread very smoothly through the stencil.

Below are our stencilled results. The adhesive takes approximately 20 to 30 minutes to dry. However, this dry thyme could change depending on your location in the world, since some environments have more or less humidity.

Well, the 3-D adhesive is drying, then pulled out the main focal point for this project. Next we are going to be altering a photo from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology collection. I will be altering the photo with some distress coloured pencils and a water brush.

I have to sharpen each of the pencils I do save the crumbly bits and place them into the Ranger ink pallet. This allows me to use the pencil shavings as watercolour paints. The colours are used include: candied apple fossilized amber, rustic wilderness, and mermaid lagoon.

Now back to the tag. With the adhesive, all the stars, all nice and dry, it is time to add some shine to the tag. To do this I have brought in some metallic flakes by Finnibair.

I use the steam punk mix for the tag. Since that has three different colours in the jar, I just picked out the silver bits and added that to the tag. I gently pushed the flakes into the adhesive on the tag using the small Tim Holtz collaged brush.

After I brushed off the excess with the collaged brush. I absolutely love how shiny all the stars are from using the gilding flakes.

Now for some trim and details. At the base of the tag, I added a strip of Metallica cardstock that was embossed with the 3D Sizzix stars trim impreslit.

I also stamped with thin star trim from the stamp, set the professor CMS465. I stamp the trim with some black soot distress archival ink. Near the bottom I also added some Idea-ology metallic dots.

To finish off the tag, I added a piece of crinkle ribbon trim, dyed with flickering candle distress mica spray stain. Down below is the complete a tag for the theme of American. Here we have created a car that has red white blue and distress.