Men only... Really!

Hello and welcome! Today I'm going to show  a Tag I made for the challenge at County View Crafts.

This challenge was chosen by Gabrielle of crafty Thoughts  and the Theme was 'Only Men Allowed'.

I thought I would use the new Decoarts Americana acrylic paint I have just purchased, (recommended by a friend) brayered onto a piece of mixed media paper by Daler  Rowney 

Colours I used were Burnt Umber, Tuscan Red and Light Green

 

I added some circles and dots using the drawing paint, which has a fine nib to allow you to draw with it - how cool is that! straight from the bottle.

I found a mask of a man I had downloaded from somewhere which I had cut out in acetate. I used this on the tag to mask off an area. I used Blood Orange from Paper Artsy,  a translusent paint which can be watered done even more, to give a light wash over the mask. I wanted enough colour so that the man stood out, as well as, still being able to see the stamping underneath. In areas I sanded it back to let some of the green show through. I edged the man using a white paint pen as well as going over the white swirls ( I wish I hadn't done this as it looked better before but forgot to take a picture)

The next layer was some stamping in black archival using papermania stamps urban

I added stamping randomly over the paper. To give a shabby look I roughed the edges and edged with walnut stain distress ink. I tore the paper down from the top so that it would fit my tag. Next was a coat of gesso in clear. Once dry I screwed the paper into a ball, manipulating the paper to gives lots of creases. The torn off piece were to be used later.

Smoothing out the card it felt more like like material than paper, I've never used this paper before as I've only just got it but I love it. You can do about anything to it and it still hold together.

Rubbing treasure gold in White Fire over the creases pops them off the page and adds an aged look which is what I wanted.

I added more texture by sticking the torn off pieces to the tag after they had been ages and edged with Tea Dye distress ink. I used lots of glue which made the paper very supple and it could be squished into shape becoming one with the paper on which it was stuck.

I know the theme was  'only Men Allowed' and there's no doubt this is a male Tag but I wanted to expand the term Men well, I think I did? It worked in my head, here's hoping it works in yours too. I used a bright colour card to give the Tag a bit more colour.

I added a heart pinned to some fabric pieces and some  little cogs flowery things at the bottom.

So here is my Tag

Thanks for looking. I would love to read your comments.

Bye for now Debs xxxx