*Live* - A Fairy Butterfly Tag wherein I totally channeled Tim Holtz and all that is Somerset Studio

Just say'n.

No, seriously. So, the other day The Hubbums and I made one of our fairly frequent (although not as frequent as they should be anymore) trips to Barnes and Noble for books, tea, and the general relaxation and happiness that comes from being surrounded by books. I picked up the lastest Laura Childs scrapbook mystery, Tragic Magic, and then put back the other four books, well, three books and one Manga, that I had found along the way, residing myself to the fact that I should really stick to one book at a time.

However, then I headed over to the periodicals to see what they had in the way of the latest paper crafting mags. Umm...found this. Why, yes! That would, indeed, be the October issue of Somerset Studio. HOLY CRAP! I've always enjoyed Somerset, but this issue hit me like a muse straight from A Midsummer's Night! I mean SERIOUSLY, FOLKS! SO GOOD. I was just enthralled with each and every page. Now, I totally want a subscription. This issue did it for me. It made me realize that I really love this stuff and I'm totally capable of creating cool altered stuff like that!

So.....carry that into the All Moments Remembered online crop over the weekend where the fabulous Angie offered a challenge to create a Tim Holtz style tag or bookmark, and I was raring to go! Seriously. I was pretty excited about it.

So, I grabbed a tag and a stamp and some embossing powder and some distress inks and went to town. I had no idea WHAT town I was going tooo.....but that wasn't important. I was just gonna make somethin' great!

And thus, this fairy butterfly was born.

I employed a multitude of techniques on this tag. I began by stamping an image, embossing with clear powder, and then inking the base tag.

The body portion is a stick pin with velvet ribbon folded onto it accordion style. I stamped her face from a larger stamp and then used a punch to extract the portion of the image I wanted, distress inked it and then covered it with Liquid Glass to finish her off.

I inked the Grungeboard crown and then ran it through my Xyron X to put adhesive on the front of it and coated it with Martha's crystal glitter.

The Grungeboard wings are inked with two colors of distress ink and then coated with a thin layer of Distress Stickles. I used my Crop-A-Dile to punch the holes and strung the beads on with wire.

I added the title plaque with wire as well. I really love the way this came out. It feels so PERFECTLY in line with what I had set out to do. I love when that happens!

What have you done lately that worked out just how you wanted? Maybe it was something you made, or an event you planned, or even just a great recipe? I'd love to hear about it!

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