Oh no! It's Friday the 13th .......

Good morning everyone, 
Happy Friday 13th. I hope today's a good day for you all.
Doing household stuff yesterday didn't last very long. I made the bed and tidied the bedroom. Did a pile of ironing whilst watching 'This Morning'.  Entered their competition to win £50000, not much chance of that I know, but, you have to be in it to win it! Entered online so at least it didn't cost me anything.  I emptied the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen, and that was it.  I'd had enough at that point so off to the craft room I went.  Well, I still had my Tag to do for April.
Yes, it's that time again. Tim's tag has been up there for 2 weeks nearly and I hadn't even started mine.   Check out his blog to see what he came up with. 12 Tags of 2012
As usual I didn't have all the products that he's used, I'm still waiting to get my hands on the new Bird on a Branch die.  So I had to see what was in my stash that would inspire me to create a similar look.
Here's my finished tag

It's a little more feminine than Tim's, I like the addition of the flowers and a little bit of pink, adds a touch of Spring.

Products used ....
#8 Manilla Tag
Tim Holtz Reflections Stamp
Sizzix Oval Frame Embossing Folder
Sizzix Caged Bird Bigz Die
SizzixTattered Florals Border Die
Grunge Board
Distress Inks - Wild Honey/Stormy Sky/TumbledGlass/Broken China/Gathered Twig/Vintage Photo/Old Paper

Black Archival Ink
Perfect Pearls Mist - Pearl
Vintage seam binding
Chain/jump rings/tiny clip/Adage ticket
Pearls

I did some of the techniques he used - stamped on the embossing folder with the reflections stamp before embossing the tag through the Big Shot, used the distress inks to highlight the embossed areas and colour the tag. Instead of misting my craft mat at the end, to pick up the excess ink, I spritzed some water into my hand and then splashed it onto the tag. I used kitchen roll to mop up any excess water, this takes some of the ink out and creates a 'mottled' look.  You can just about see this in the photo.
The bird cage was cut from grunge board and then coloured using Old Paper Distress ink.  It was then spritzed, very generously, with the Perfect Pearls.  I was hoping to get a nice shiny metalic look to the cage.  I think it worked.
The leaves could do with a little inking around the edges I think, but it's not bad.
I think I'm all crafted out for this week.  I need to give my room a good tidy and put some things away, ready to start again.

Thanks for popping by.  I hope you've enjoyed my ramblings this week.  Have a lovely weekend wherever you are, and whatever it is you're doing.
Bye for now

Linda

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