Tim Holtz - 12 Tags of 2013 (July)

Happy Fourth of July! This month's tag from Tim is very patriotic. I used the flag stamp from the Stampin' Up! "Liberty for All" set. I stamped the image onto acetate with StazOn, added color to the reverse side and layered it over a piece of white tissue paper. For the background I used black cardstock, applied hexagons punched out of HVAC tape and ran the whole tag through my BigShot using an embossing folder. I punched the stars out of whisper white cardstock, added silver ink and a layer of crystal effects and a few drops of ink, and placed a star shaped piece of acetate on the top to create the marbled effect. I used all Stampin' Up! products to make the tag except for the piece of tissue tape with the number 4.

OWH - Sketch #173

In preparation for Memorial Day and the Blog Hop at Operation Write Home, I used the "Liberty for All" stamp set from Stampin' Up! for this week's sketch. I started by stamping the image on acetate using StazOn ink and attached it to the cardstock with black eyelets. I added bakers twine in place of the circle and finished the card with a rub on sentiment.

Honorable Mention

My acetate and tissue card using the Faith In Nature stamp set was featured in June's Stampin' Success magazine!

Step By Step

Here is the card that I made for my acetate & tissue technique swap.  I posted the written instructions previously but thought it would be good idea to show the step by step instructions.

I started by stamping the sentiment directly onto the tissue paper using Stazon.  This was just to demonstrate that you could stamp onto the tissue paper instead of the window sheet (acetate) with the same results.

I then stamped the image onto the window sheet using Stazon.  As you can see my window sheet was much larger than my image to try to minimize the mess. (You can always trim it down.)

I applied the Crystal Effects liberally to the back of the window sheet, added a few drops of ink and used a piece of scrap paper to mix the ink and Crystal Effects together.  You can also use rubber gloves.

After the ink was throughly mixed into the Crystal Effects I turned the window sheet over and placed it onto the tissue paper which was sitting on crumb cake (kraft) card stock. Using my fingers, I pressed down on the window sheet to spread the mixture out under the window sheet to create different patterns and depths of colors.  If you use enough Crystal Effects it will soak through the tissue paper and adhere everything to the window sheet.

After letting the Crystal Effects dry (30 min to overnight) you can trim the window sheet down to the desired size.  If for some reason the tissue paper or the card stock is not fully adhered to the window sheet you can add more Crystal Effects; it won't ruin the effect.

Tim Holtz - 12 Tags of 2012 (March)

For this month's tag I used the acetate technique and actually stamped the woodgrain directly onto the tissue paper before adhering the acetate.  The butterfly was cut using Stampin' Up's Beautiful Butterflies Die.  I copied the mosaic technique used by Tim and covered the whole thing with clear embossing powder.  All products used on the tag are Stampin' Up! except for the film strip at the bottom of the tag.
Here is the link to Tim's tag and blog post.

Technique Class #2 - Acetate & Tissue

Here is the second technique of the year with two variations on the card.  It's a fairly messy process but the results are well worth it. After doing just two of these I would recommend the following: 

1.) Cut your acetate or window sheet larger than you think you need it to be.  The reason for doing this is to keep the crystal effects from bleeding over the edge.  You want to keep the stamped side as pristine and glass like as possible.  You can always trim it down.

2.) Less is more.  Use just a few drops of color into a reasonable amount of crystal effects. Remember you're going to lay tissue paper on top and then a piece of card stock so you don't want a goopy mess.  You will need to experiment.

(Instructions below.)