Queen of Hearts Tag

Happy Leap Day! 
It seems I've been away a lot this month -- but after taking my son for his college visit tomorrow I think we'll be able to stay home for a while. 

For this tag I'm joining in the fun with Tim Holtz' 12 Tags of 2012 challenge!  You have a month to create some "tagspiration" and I'm cutting it REALLY close.  I guess it's good for me that I had an extra day this year. 

My inspiration for this tag, aside from it being my friend's birthday, actually came from this past year's 12 Tags of Christmas (by Tim Holtz, of course).  His tag for day 12 utilized his deco strip die "Vintage Lace" to create a faux dresden paper lace/german scrap (for more info on dresden/german scrap click HERE).  I was so excited about it that I immediately went out and bought the die.  I had recently acquired several rolls of German foils and I got straight to work cutting out the "faux dresden". 

I got a bit carried away with my cutting of the colored foil, so I adhered them to blank paper with removable adhesive down the left & right sides of the paper. I gently pull them off the paper as needed, and they store flat very easily.

Another tip Tim Holtz passed along was to take adhere a strip of packing tape to the die and run it through the cutter prior to cutting paper.  It helps all those little pieces to come out SO much easier!  What a fantastic tip!

As most of you know, I love my Perfect Pearls -- and Sunflower Sparkle is my favorite!  Using an acrylic block I misted with water, I scooped some PP on my brush and added it to the water directly on the block.  I misted more water as needed to make it more of a wash and painted it over my queen.  I also should mention I used the same PP in a spray mix to spray the background before I started my tag, as well.  I used the Swirls embossing folder, inked with Tattered Rose distress ink, for the background of the tag before assembling it together.

Weathered Wood & Aged Mahogany distress inks were used on the queen, but after going over it with the Perfect Pearls it gave it a sort of Platinum look.  I also used Blush Perfect Pearls over Tattered Rose for the heart -- framing it with Forever Red & more Sunflower Sparkle PP.  =) 

For the background of the queen  I squeezed a blob of Barn Door distress stickles directly on the image and moved it around with my finger to fill in the crevices for an additional pop of glitz.  To finish it off, I used Fired Brick distress stain to color white seam binding ribbon and tied it off over the faux dresden.  The photos don't do it justice for all the shimmer it actually has.  =)

The products I used for this tag: 

Dies:  TH Tag & Bookplates, TH Tattered Banner  (thx Marjie), TH Heart Wings

Embossing Folders:  TH Swirls Texture Fade, TH Poker Face Texture Trades

Distress Inks:  Tattered Rose, Aged Mahogany, Weathered Wood

Distress Stains:  Weathered Wood, Fired Brick

Distress Stickles:  Barn Door

Perfect Pearls:  Sunflower Sparkle, Forever Red, Blush

"For My Friend" - Michael's $1 bin stamps

Hug Snug Seam Binding - White

Thanks for stopping by! Lisa