Hannah's Halloween Tag

When I remember the Magpie brood's childhood days, the most vivid memories seem to cluster around October. I recall the twilight coming in late afternoon shades of violet and orange; tiny feet running through swirling golden leaves and lots of giggles as we prepared for Halloween Parties with all the excitement of dressing up in wigs, masks and cloaks. An artist friend of ours painted a picture of our son as a wizard and our daughter as an angel which hangs in pride of place in the Magpie living-room. A frequent guest at these parties was our friend, Hannah, resplendent in shiny witch's hat and flowing cloak, usually with a pretty sequinned dress underneath! Well, it's now Hannah's twenty-fourth birthday! I hope she will remember those magical autumn days when she sees the tag I've made for her, which I should like to enter for The Our Creative Corner Halloween Tag Challenge Here. I should also lie to link this up with the Paper Artsy Challenge this week where Joanne Wardle has been creating her lovely Clean and Simple creations. I do admire what she does - not as easy as it looks to be simple - although it's not my style of crafting. Nevertheless, I was inspired by Joanne's idea of using Grunge paste through negative leaf die-cuts. Another inspiration for this tag was a lovely tag of Laura Bomber's I recall of 'Frosty Leaves.'

I wanted to incorporate lots of texture on my tag and to create the dreamy twilight I associate with Halloween. I cut a tag from corrugated card and peeled off a corner. I then painted my whole tag in Snowflake Fresco. When this was dry I die-cut some Tim Holtz leaves from card and from waxed paper. With the negative die-cut I created my own stencil, Grunge pasting inside the leaf shapes. I then sponged my tag with misty twilight colours: Lake Wanaka, London Night, Pansy and South Pacific. I have a Woodware punch of tiny leaves, which I love, although it is broken and has to be literally punched into action! Somehow I punched out a few tiny leaves too to use both as stencils and as 'stand-out' leaves fixed with sticky dimensional cubes.

I stamped the pretty, little witch from Artistic Outpost's Halloween plate onto the white underlayer of some napkin tissue; heat-set it and then painted the back in places with Snowflake in the areas I wanted to appear to glimmer. I used different shades of Treasure Gold: Green Amber, Aqua Marine, White Fire and Classic over the Grunge Paste and Ice Stickles and White Lace Stickles as well as Crackle Glaze on my leaves and the rose at the centre of the tag, which is the Tim Holtz Tattered Pine Cone die. In different lights the TG appears different colours, which it is difficult to show in a photo unfortunately. I also picked out the brooch fastening the little witch's top with Stickles, but again this is difficult for the camera to show. The moths are from a Paper Artsy 'Wings' plate, stamped in black Archival on card painted with Butternut, Smoked Paprika and Pumpkin Soup Frescos and then clear embossed and accented with Stickles. The little cobwebs that form a chain from the witch's broom are embossed with Wow white embossing powder, their edges just touched in places with South Pacific.

I hope these photos gives some impression of the surface texture and different layers I tried to incorporate on this tag.

I also cast a bit of a spell on the witch myself!

I stamped her onto Shrink Plastic painted with Lake Wanaka, die-cut into an oval and then glazed with Glossy Accents so she has a little tiny 'doppel-ganger'. I added a sentiment from Paper Artsy Wings - now what does the 'Take Flight' refer to? It could be the witch's broom, the moths hovering over the tag or the swirling Autumn leaves - or Hannah as she starts out on her adult life, having graduated she's now doing a media training course. Here again I hope some of the textures can be seen more clearly, including the 'just melted' UTEE gold and the glittery black lettering on the Sentiment! I had lots of fun with Stickles too!

I used Tim Holtz pediment die-cuts at the top and bottom of my tag. I crackled the top one and then darkened it a little to try to create a woody look with some Wendy Vecchi Potting Soil Archival. The rose was Little Black Dress then Crackle Glaze and Eggplant. The petals are edged with White Fire and Stickles. The leaves around the edge are stuck to the bottom of the corrugated card tag and then sandwiched between this and a plain card tag on the underside. The beautifully coloured yarn to hang the tag by was a gift from my dear Magpie cousin, Dianne Marcoux. So thank you for stopping by Magpieheaven as Halloween approaches. I'm off to add Hannah's tag to the patchwork Owl Cushion we bought her for her main present! Happy Halloween when it comes!