Blue, Music, Tissue!

I've been wanting to dream along with the Dragons for some time, but the days and weeks just keep running away with me! This time I was determined to try my hand at the latest challenge, which is to use the recipe Blue, Music and Tissue so I am entering this tag. If you would like to find out more just click HERE. I found that I was having so much fun adding layers that I have also decided to enter this tag for The Country View Crafts Challenge too, where the theme is 'Layers'.
I started by die-cutting two tags, one from corrugated card and one from white card. I then tore the white card one and layered it onto the corrugated card one.

To begin with I painted my tag with Paper Artsy Fresco Finish in Snowflake so that it had a good foundation for me to work on. Then it was time to add more layers!

I sponged my tag with first the opaque blues like Bora Bora and Sky. Next I went for translucents like Inky Pool and South Pacific. At the same time I sponged some card with blues and just a touch of Butternut and put this aside for stamping on and adding at a later stage. When my Fresco background was dry, I went into the corrugated sections with Treasure Gold in White Fire, Green Amber and Classic. I still have some lovely tissue from my crafting friend, Kezzy, so I tore strips of this - the musical notes and a lovely shell, the significance of which I'll explain later, and stuck the top layer only onto the tag with Claudine Hellmuth Mult-Medium.

Now, I know I should have taken pictures as I went along, but I became so absorbed, adding my layers and thinking of what would go with what that I just forged ahead! I will try to break down what I did by looking at some detail pictures. Apologies to Dianne and Sandy who have asked if I could video my process. I am looking into doing this, honestly! Here's the first detail...

I decided to make a frame for my tag so I die-cut a Spell-binders frame from card, which I cut in half so that I could put one piece framing the top and one framing the bottom. I painted this with French Roast and then Crackle Glazed it and painted it with Bora Bora. If you click on the photos you might be able to see this in a little more detail. I edged my frames with Treasure Gold. I added a Tim Holtz tattered pine cone rose made from the card I had painted with some musical notes stamped onto it. This I also edged with Treasure Gold. In the picture you can see a paper-cut of a bird's egg, which I cut to look as if it has cracked open. There is also an old part of a broken earring like a skeleton leaf, rubbed with Treasure Gold. I used the lovely wood-mounted stamp my son, Isaac gave me last Christmas: I am sorry I don't know who the artist is or who the manufacturer is, as it was a gift.

 I stamped with black Archival onto a die-cut oval, heat set and then hand-painted this and added accents with gold pen and Posca white gel pen. The butterfly from the stamp, I cut out again after stamping it on tissue and painting the back. There is some foliage from the tattered pine-cone and a twig painted blue and gold over this. I added dimension to the picture of Saint Matilde by adding tiny pearls.

Here is my frame at the bottom. I didn't have a sentiment that seemed appropriate, so I made my own, writing it onto some distressed card - I used Tim Holtz Broken China and Soot Distress Ink pads. You can see the shell layered over the musical notes here. The shell is the emblem of pilgrims since the Middle Ages. One of my dear friends walks the pilgrimage to Santiago from her home near Brussels every year and the route is marked at intervals by little metal cockle shells embedded in the road. In the past the pilgrims would sing beautifully as they went, so this is the reason for my including the shell. The key, which I made from Shrink Plastic and clear embossed, adding tiny pearls, is a bit of a pun - musical keys?

Here is the tag on its little easel. Thank you so much for stopping by today to look at it. Thank you Dragons for inspiring me to dream along with you and thank you Country View Crafts for all the inspired layered pieces on your challenge page that filled me with the enthusiasm to enter a second project!