Dragons Dream TIO - Number 9 and Show Your Face on Friday!

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven, Followers and Friends. Last week I had a marvellous time staying with friends in Devon; but sadly they all had very bad colds and I have returned with a sore throat and snuffles! I haven't felt like creating until today when I was determined to join in with the Dragons again this week, where the amazing Gabrielle has chosen the Number 9. I also wanted to link up a face to Kim's blog before Friday comes round again! Please do take a look at The Dragons Dream TIO Design Team's great inspiration here and link up a tag featuring the number 9 and at least one real stamp. They why not take a peek at the wonderful Kim Dellow's Show your Face on Friday blog too?
 I've been working with 6cm x 12cm tags lately and decided that this time I wanted my tag to Crackle!

I just adore the look of Crackle on projects. I've tried the various Prima Crackles, which are very good, especially if you want lots of tiny cracks and kind of broken china appearance. Golden Crackle Paste is also a favourite of mine, although you do have to be patient and wait for it to dry and cure for several days. I must admit to being very disappointed with a recent purchase of DecoArt 2-Step Crackle. Friends have suggested that recent high-humidity might be behind my not achieving a single crack with this product, despite following the directions to the letter! For this tag, I used good old PaperArtsy Crackle Glaze. It's so simple and you can get brilliant effects with it.

I painted a tag with Little Black Dress before applying a thin layer of CG with a palette knife. When this was dry I took some Fresco in Honey Dew and applied a single coat of this with single strokes. I then added some Guacamole to the Honey Dew in my palette and applied a band of the barely mixed Honey Dew and Guacamole and then did the same with some Caribbean Blue. What I like about this is that strands of the different colours mix and mingle. I added a little Sara Nauman text stamped in Green Olives and dry brushed the edge of the tag with Green Olives too.

I've been having so much fun collaging my own art work onto little houses for Mary Jane Chadbourne's Tinytopia workshop - sadly now finished - that I wanted to play with collage on this tag too. You can probably see that I have created my Queen of Hearts by placing my own drawn head onto a vintage playing card. I used a 6B pencil, Inktense and a Graphik marker to enhance and change the expression of a face I had scanned into my computer and copied. I think she looks a little uneasy at wearing the crown! Her beautiful, golden crown is a Lynne Perrella PaperArtsy stamp, embossed with some detail gold. I created my own sentiment using Sara Nauman and Red Lead stamps - sorry about the awful pun! Well, maybe my Queen of Hearts is George Bernard Shaw's creation Eliza Doolittle! She was a bit challenged with where to place those aitches in the early days of studying with Professor Higgins! The musical version of Shaw's play Pygmalion, 'My Fair Lady' with its wonderful Lerner and Loewe lyrics and music and the fabulous Audrey Hepburn in the title role is a real favourite of mine. I don't mind too much that Audrey didn't sing really, although I do think it's sad that Marnie Nixon, the accomplished singer, who provided her voice talent for so many Hollywood stars isn't widely known for her contribution. She had such a knack for listening to the speaking voices of the stars and then creating that illusion of them bursting effortlessly into song. I hope that you are all free of coughs and colds and that you're enjoying this beautiful, Autumn season, if it's that time of the year in your part of the world.