Dragons' Dream TIO - Number 1

Hello and Welcome to Magpieheaven! Today it's time to dream with the Dragons again and this fortnight we start a new theme! We would like you to create a tag, using at least one real stamp as usual, but to include a number chosen by one of the Design Team! This week it's the number 1. Please do take a look at the blog here to see the fabulous inspiration from the rest of the team.

I began by brayering a tag with Honeydew PaperArtsy Fresco Finish and Guacamole. I then stamped a leaf from Darcy's Electica in Hyde Park and covered the tag with Sage Fresco. I wanted to make my tag in shades of green because I had an old folk song playing over and over in my mind: 'I'll give you one ho, green grow the rushes oh/ What is your one ho?/ One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so...'

I gave the tag a good rub with a Baby Wipe so the leaves re-appeared, but the blend of different greens remained.

I stamped this Sara Nauman text, 'The problem of the solitary artist' in different shades of green Fresco: Green Olives, Hyde Park and Chartreuse. It seemed to me that the solitary artist described the number 1 perfectly! One of my favourite techniques, learned a long time ago from Darcy Wilkinson, is to dip a circular lid into a little puddle of paint and use it to print circles. I then painted between the circles in Hey Pesto and again rubbed layers away in places.

The next step was to colour some card with Sage Fresco, which I spattered with Hint of Mint. This I used to stamp a Tim Holtz 'Admit One' ticket onto...

and two little number ones, stamped using the Tim Holtz Tattered Alphabet. I have a confession to make now! Ever since my primary school days, I've loved words and stories; but I've always been a little intimidated by numbers! I recall as a school child having to give the numbers in my 'arithmetic' book characters before I could really feel comfortable with adding or subtracting them! For this reason I've turned the ones on my tag into little pierrots, creating them hats with black pom-poms and lacy trim.

 These 'ones', with their borders of green and gold frantage, could represent the loneliness of the performer who stands in the spotlight and gives his or her all night after night. In the song 'Green Grow the rushes oh!', it has been suggested that 'One is One and all alone and ever more shall be so' refers to God, who Moses encounters in the Burning Bush and who tells him, 'I am that I am', although the song's meaning is really lost in time and it is a strange mix of Christian and Pagan references.
  The word 'problem' takes me back to the days when my heart would sink as the teacher announced that we would be doing 'problems' today. How exactly were we to ensure that Mary, John and Susan would share their sweets equally with only arithmetic to help us? I'm sure that now 'problem solving' has become a far more exciting activity and that Maths can be taught as a useful skill rather than an incomprehensible mystery!
Thank you so much for stopping by Magpieheaven today. I do hope you will have a take of your own on the number 1 and that you will be able to link up a tag to our challenge this fortnight.