April Destination Inspiration - Arriving At Terminal 1

Welcome to the first leg of our journey for April. Tracy here arriving at Terminal 1 with a fabulous list of ingredients for our travel bag:

Product - Distress Inks/Paints

Technique - Stencil Monoprinting

Colour - Green

Substrate - MDF

I thought long and hard about this challenge and opted to alter one of Tim Holtz Etcetera thickboard tags, the smallest from the set of three. The thickboard is my faux MDF as I had not actually got any MDF anywhere in my stash, so artistic licence and all that!

I have quite a few step by steps for this tags as I added many layers during the process.

I began by painting the tag with Distress Paint Cracked Pistachio. I then cut three strips of card to add to the tag. My idea behind this was to add texture and interest in the background. I then painted the tag and the strips of paper with a second coat of paint.

I then painted Peacock Feathers Distress Paint onto a scrap of white card.

I then pressed the card onto the painted background. The reason I applied the paint this way was to give a more random feel to the background. I often apply inks this way and its a fabulous way to add delicate layers of paint.

I then dried the layers of paint and repeated the same process once more.

For my next layer I opted for some stencil monoprinting; applying Black Soot Distress Ink to Tim's numeric stencil. Remember to ink the reverse of the stencil so that the numbers appear the correct way when added to the tag.

Spritz the inked stencil with water.

Place the stencil, inked side down and then press with a piece of kitchen towel to ensure good contact.

I love the black inking against the green and blue background.

Repeat the same process and then dry the ink with a heat tool.

Next I played around with ideas for the focal image and I opted for a small embroidery hoop which I painted with a wash of Peacock Feathers Distress Paint and then dried with a heat tool.

At this stage I decided to hold fire on adding the focal point and added some shading to the edges of the strips of card and to the edges of the tag, scribbling Salty Ocean Distress Crayon around the edges and then smudging with my finger.

I applied DecoArt Media Titanium White Fluid Acrylic over Tim Holtz Mini Nordic Layering Stencil to add a further layer of interest.

I love adding layers to my designs and I continued with the layering process, adding some Design Tape from Tim's new release called Chatter.

I like to add my layers in odd numbers as much as possible as I love the look and feel of odd numbers in artwork.

 I then added my focal image, the embroidery hoop and opted to add a fabulous Paper Doll to the frame.

I inked Tim Holtz Cling Foam Stamps Block Lower Case with Peacock Feathers Distress Paint, applying with a piece of Cut 'n' Dry Foam.

 I also added touches of Picket Fence Distress Paint.

This gave me tone on tone lettering which I could then highlight further with a black Pitt Pen later in the layering process.

I went back to the scrap of white card I added paint to earlier and then die cut some Mini Tattered Florals from the card.

At this stage I decided that I wanted three die cut flowers.

I added a small amount of Twisted Citron Distress Paint to my non-stick craft sheet and then dipped the rolled flowers into the paint to cover some of the petals lightly with paint to add texture.

I repeated the same process for all three flowers. Now that I was happy with all my layers I then began to add the finishing touches to my design.

I added the flowers to the side of my focal piece and I also added delicate splatters of white paint for further interest.

I added one of Tim's Quote Chips to the centre of my embroidery hoop.

From this picture you can clearly see all the layers I have added to my design.

I added some black pen markings to my lettering and to the edges of my tag and also included some delicate dots of white paint.

I love how the embroidery hoop has a woodgrain finish that is clearly visible under the wash of paint.

Thanks so much for stopping by, hope you enjoyed my step by steps. Please pop back next Monday for the next leg of our journey.

If you would like to join in our monthly challenge, please click on the link in the side bar.

Tracy Evans x x