Texture, Vintage, Flower with an Oriental Flavour

This fortnight at Dragons' Dream Tag it on Challenge - click HERE to find out more - the recipe is Texture, Vintage, Flowers. It's been so hot just lately I wanted to go for really cool colours and make my flower a water lily. The colour combination I chose reminded me of Chinese Art so my tag is vintage, but I used a vintage image of a Geisha so it's vintage with an Asian twist!

I painted my tag with Paper Artsy Fresco Finish acrylics in Bora Bora, Inky Pool, Mermaid and Ice Blue. I then added a little Crackle Glaze here and there and then stencilled through a Crafters' Workshop Harlequin Stencil to give my first example of texture. I also worked some Treasure Gold in White Fire into the cracks. If you click on the images you can see the texture in a little more detail. I then fixed the top layer of a paper napkin, which I bought from the giftshop of our local 'Fan Museum' (Yes, we have a museum entirely devoted to fans!) onto the tag with Satin Glaze: I was pleased with the way the stencil showed through!

I added further texture with  Grunge Paste through a flower stencil, which I thought looked rather like a sunburst. I die-cut Tim Holtz pediments from card and Crackle Glazed them before adding them to the top and bottom of the tag. I also added a gold embossed stamp from a Lynne Perrella Asian plate. The water lily - also from a Lynne Perrella Paper Artsy Asian plate - was stamped in Coffee Archival ink several times onto card painted with Bora Bora. I then cut out the flowers and layered them to create depth.

I used the same technique with the lily in the bottom right hand corner. I added slightly singed peacock feather gauze fabric dyed with Broken China a Tattered Rose DIs as extra petals and glazed this flower with Glossy Accents and a little Treasure Gold.

At the centre of my tag is the vintage image of a Geisha. In the photo she is leaning back on a sofa, but on my tag I thought she gave the impression of floating through the lilies on a beautiful decorated barge on an ornamental lake. The glittery embossed carp, attached by foam pads,  seems to be leaping up from the tranquil waters and three glittery embossed butterflies flutter by! The Crackle Glazed pediment at the foot of the card suggested to me the prow of the barge. I used some colourful fibres, a gift from a dear crafting friend, aka 'My Magpie Cousin' to hang from the edge of my tag and as they flutter in the breeze they could almost be reflections in the water. My finishing touch is some more of the lovely fibres my friend sent me used as a loop to hang the tag...

My Geisha of long ago is dreaming with the Dragons on the water on  sultry summer day! Thank you, Dragons for letting me dream with you this week!