Witch's Potion

Welcome to the monthly Artistic Outpost blog hop.  This month, our design team was given a theme of Halloween to create with and this is my sample for the hop.  Here is our hop line-up so you can visit all the design team members' blogs and gather inspiration from their fantastic work.

Gerrie * Lisa * Suzanne * Tracy * Alison * Terry * Kate 

And now for the details about my tag.  I started with a jumbo manila tag and dredged it through a puddle of Black Soot distress stain with some Pewter Perfect Pearls mixed in.  I did this repeatedly until the entire tag was colored, then dried it with my heat tool.  Then I spread a liberal layer of Claudine Hellmuth's Multi Medium Matte over the entire tag and applied regular white tissue paper, scrunching it up for texture as I patted it down.  You have to be careful not to rip the tissue paper when you are mushing it round.  Once I had it nice and wrinkly, I ripped off the excess around the edges and dried it with the heat tool.  But then it wasn't black enough so I repeated Step 1.

I decided it needed some sort of design and used a Dyan Reaveley stencil and white Wendy Vecchi embossing paste, which I tinted purple with a couple of drops of Dusty Concord reindeer.

I secured the stencil to the tag by applying low tack painter's tape to the back of the tag and stencil.  I didn't want the stencil to move.  However, as it ended up, I didn't have the stencil tight enough to the tag and some of the embossing paste oozed out around the design.  My assumption is that the surface of the tag was too textured for the stencil to lay tight enough thus allowing some of the embossing paste to spread outward a bit - a practice makes perfect sort of error.  Just know that you have to hold the stencil tight enough so it is totally flat and be conservative in the amount of paste you apply.  The embossing paste takes the color beautifully with one or two drops of Distress Ink reinker.  I decided not to re-do my tag for a more crisp look because normally I cover up my designs anyway.  

The apothecary bottle was stamped on white CS with Jet Black archival, sponged with Vintage Photo and painted with Clear Rock Candy Crackle Paint.  The tags were all cut with the Tiny Tabs and Tags die, cut with white CS and again with chipboard and then stamped with images from Artistic Outpost's Apothecary and Haunted Halloween plates.  The spider was cut from chipboard and painted with Black Soot crackle paint and the "31" clips were painted with black Vintaj paint from the Retro Highway.  I think that covers it, but if I have left out anything or you have a question, please leave a comment below.  

Thanks so much for visiting and enjoy the hop!

25 Jumbo Manila Shipping Tags 8x4" #12	50 Jumbo Manila Shipping Tags 8x4" #12	Ranger Inkssentials Surfaces Tags - #10 Tags - Manila	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain - Black Soot	Ranger Distress Crackle Paint - Black Soot
Ranger Perfect Pearls Pigment Powder - Pewter	Claudine Hellmuth Multi Medium Matte	Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste - White	Ranger Tim Holtz Dusty Concord Distress Ink Reinker	Dyan Reaveley′s Dylusions Stencil - Diamond Border (5x8)
Sizzix Alternations Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers Baroque Die	Core′dinations - Tim Holtz Ranger- Nostalgic Kraft Core Cardstock 12 x 12	Tim Holtz Sixxiz Texture Fades - Halloween Words and Cobwebs	Tim Holtz Ranger Idea-ology Sanding Grip	Tim Holtz idea-ology Refill Pack for Sanding Grip (4 sheets)
Tim Holtz Mini Spider & 31 Sizzix Alterations Movers and Shapers Dies	Tim Holtz Idea-ology Ring Fasteners	Tim Holtz Idea-ology Stencil Mark