Home is Where the Heart is Tag

It's been a while since I've just been able to play so I thought it would be fun to start with a Valentine's Day tag celebrating family which is how I came up with this -   Sadly, I was really just into playing and forgot to take "in the process" pics.

Home Is Where The Heart Is Tag

Supplies:

Tag
Acrylic Paint
Stiff Bristle Brush (like what we used for June's Calendar page)
Metal Foil
Hand Cut, Die-Cut or Stamped House/heart images

Instructions:

1. The first thing you'll need to do is dry brush the tag using 2-3 colors of blue and/or white.  I started off with the darkest color of blue - (Sail Boat Blue) then immediately dry brushed my medium tone blue (Cloudy Blue) and finished it off with just a touch of white. 

I did NOT allow the paint to dry before adding the next.  This allowed me to blend the previous and current colors each time a new one was introduced to the mix. 

2. After the blue background was dry I painted on some grass near the bottom of the tag.

3. Now comes a fun part...either free hand cut, die-cut or use stamps to create your house, heart, sun and cloud on metal foil.  I'm using Ranger's adhesive backed foil sheets but there are many on the market so use what you have. 

I created my "parts" using a bit of all three techniques...  The heart is a Sizzix die-cut, the house and cloud were free-handed and the sun was a bold image stamp (sorry can't remember the mfg anymore) that I stamped on the back side of the foil.

4. Paint the individual parts with acrylic paint and let them dry.

5. Apply either black paint or black marker to the edges of each piece.

6. Now it's time to play!!  Scratch up the paint using a variety of improvised tools to create different patterns and textures.    This is so much fun!!!!  Unlike embossing where you have a set pattern emerge these textures and patterns are totally random.

7.  Glue your pieces and parts to the tag. 

8.  Add a ribbon and hand write a nice sentiment for your sweet "heart" on the back of the tag. 

9. Brighten someone's day!