Dreaming with the Dragons - Transport and the letter 'Y'

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven! August has been a busy month! As some of you may know, I've been working at my family of art dolls for Mary Jane Chadbourne's workshop for a lot of the month. Now, to my amazement, it's time to dream with the Dragons again! Last time it was my turn to choose the recipe and we had some highly original interpretations of Rust and the letter 'O'. We'll be announcing the Dreamboat 3 and Guest Designer very soon. Now for this fortnight's challenge! It's been chosen by the lovely Jax and she would like to see the letter 'Y' and the theme of 'Transport' on your tags! Please click here to see some of the fabulous ideas the Dragons have come up with! This is my take on the challenge!

I know this sounds weird, but I started with a couple of tea-bags, lovingly dried by my dear friend, Sue's daughter Dominique. Sue and her family live in Brussels and when she stopped off in London recently she handed over a collection of tea-bags and cardboard, courtesy of Nicky. The tea bags resemble tiny sepia leaves of tissue and they are great to stamp on. I stamped two images - one of the Artistic Stamper Gibson Girl and the other from a Hot Picks plate HP1206. As I looked at the result I thought how vintage they seemed on the tea-bag paper and my 'Y' word came to me - Yesterday!

This vintage car from PaperArtsy Hot Picks HP1206 seemed perfect for the theme of Transport. It reminds me of Jay Gatsby's car in 'The Great Gatsby' : so glittering and modern it is transformed from status symbol to a literal vehicle of tragedy in the novel. The transport of yesterday always seems so much more romantic than that of our own era, yet in Scott-Fitzgerald's novel there is a real sense of concern at the world of the nineteen-twenties hurtling out of control: fast cars, air travel, speed boats - where exactly are Gatsby and those who congregate at his fashionable parties rushing to and what are they running from?

I liked this Gibson Girl image, as she seems to be dreaming, contemplating 'Yesterday'. I stuck the tea-bags onto my tag with Satin Glaze and coloured them with Inktense. The safety pin is a rusted Tim Holtz one and I dyed some seam-binding with Distress Inks in Fired Brick and Vintage Photo before stamping the script from the new PaperArtsy Sara Nauman plate on it. The script on the tag itself is from Hot Picks HP1006. I had lots of fun using Grunge Paste through a stencil of bricks for my background and then scraping through Grunge Paste with a Catalyst tool to create a change of pattern too. Treasure Golds in rosy and copper tones helped bring a bit of warmth to the tag. I love the way that Fresco colours can have a vintage glow about them. For this tag I coloured my Grunge Paste with Caramel Fresco and then blended Brown Shed, Chocolate Pudding and Tikka Frescos with just a touch of Yellow Submarine in places. The little heart is a paper one from the Funkie Junkie Boutique with a fleur de lys charm and a faux chain created with Grunge Paste and Treasure Gold. There's also a sprinkling of Frantage in Copper and Aged Green and some little card tiles cut from a master-board and coated in Clear UTEE, edged with gold UTEE.

Thank you so much for dropping by today. I do hope you will get out those stamps, inks, paints and tags and join us in this fortnight's challenge. Remember your work should be some kind of tag and remember also to use at one real stamp and to incorporate the letter 'Y' and some kind of transport. Have a wonderful creative day whether you're in the sunshine or the rain!