TFJB Inspiration Ave: Dark & Mysterious Valentine's Day Tag

Friday, February 10, 2023

Dark & Mysterious Valentine's Day Tag

Here at TFJB Inspiration Ave this week our theme is All About Love. Its Janna here and I was inspired to make a dark and mysterious Valentine’s Day tag featuring the new Distress color Lost Shadow. For video tutorial click here.

For this project I used Sizzix dies Gentlemen, Alphanumeric Bulletin, Collage Medium, Prima Finnabair Gilding Flakes, Gilding Paste, Distress Sprays Lost Shadow Oxide, Black Soot Spray Stain, and Tart Cranberry Mica Spray Stain, Walnut Stain crayon, Collage Paint Brush, Stencil THS032, Idea-ology Crinkle Ribbon, Mixed Media tag, Lucky in Love Impresslit, Black Heavy Stock and Metallic Kraft stock.

For this project, I began with a Ranger Tim Holtz Mixed Media tag for the foundation.

To add color to the background I used Distress Sprays Lost Shadow Oxide, Black Soot Spray Stain, and Tart Cranberry Mica Spray stain. Lost Shadow is an absolutely amazing color and will help give a dramatic flair to our background.

Before adding the spray stain I placed the tag in the Splat Box and misted the tag with water from the Distress Sprayer. Below is the outcome from mixing Black Soot and Lost Shadow together to create a moody background.

Next I added a splash of color with some Tart Cranberry. Before spritzing the color, I added some water to help the color flow along a set path.

Below are the finished results. I dried the tag with the Ranger heat tool.

For the crinkle ribbon I altered it with some Black Soot and Tart Cranberry. Then I dried the ribbon with the heat tool.

Next I am going to show you how I added the gilding flakes using Finnabair Gilding flake glue.

To apply the glue, I used a small sponge. For the background, I used the Tim Holtz stencil Flourishes THS032 off to the side. I placed some of the glue using the sponge to dab into the glue, and then onto the stencil.

I quickly lifted up the stencil and immediately washed it so the glue would not stick to it. I let the tag dry until the glue turned transparent and felt tacky to the touch.

With the tag dry, I then added the gilding flakes to the sticky part of the tag. I placed the large flakes down by hand, trying to get a variety of colors.

I used the collage brush to push and swipe the gilding flakes around on the tag. Once I had a fairly good coverage, I used the collage brush to brush off the stray pieces of gilding flakes and reveal the stenciled pattern below.

With our background complete, it’s now time to create a couple of small embellishments for the tag. Since our current theme is all about love, I decided to pull in the Lucky in Love Impresslit die.

Note: an interesting thing about this particular Impresslit, when cutting out the heart, try turning the folder on its side and running the base of the heart through the die cutting machine first. Normally we would run the folder through at an angle, but because of the distribution of pressure it is necessary to turn this Impresslit on its side to avoid cracking the main part of the heart. Getting a heart to crack can be a very cool look, but sometimes it is nice to have a smooth finished heart. I learned that little tip from Tim. Now, as a reminder to myself, I have an arrow that points in the direction that I should feed this folder through the machine.

To alter this heart, I added some Distress Walnut Stain crayon.

For the main sentiment, I die cut the letters from the die set Alpha Numeric Bulletin. I die cut the letters twice once from Distress Black Heavy Stock and the second time from Metallic Kraft Paper. Before die cutting, I added double sided tape to the backs of my substrates.

As the main focal point, I added a die cut from the Sizzix set Gentleman.

The final finishing touches included the altered Crinkle Ribbon and the metallic 3-D heart. I also added a secondary sentiment from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology label sticker set.