March- 12 tags of 2012

This is my first attempt at one of Tim Holt's wonderful ideas. I don't have very many of his products so, I just dug into my Close To My Heart products and made this tag my own. First, a link to Tim's blog so you can read his tutorial and see his beautiful project.


Now, here is my interpretation of his mosaic tag for March. I hope to do Jan and Feb later.

First, I cut the tag from Close To My Heart's Desert Sand Cardstock using CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge. Also, the 2 butterflies were cut from lightweight chipboard (used from a cracker box) using this same Cricut Cartridge. I love this cartridge, it has tons of designs on it!


I distressed the sides of the tag with CTMH Chocolate Stamp Pad and stamped a design on the tag with a Stampin' Up background stamp I had in my stash. Its pretty light and hard to see the design. I used a sentiment from the CTMH D1453 Friendship stamp set and the hole at the top is actually a stamp from the CTMH B1298 Be Happy Stamp Set which I think is no longer available. I stamped the hole from Desert Sand, cut it out by hand and tapped it in and on a Cocoa Stamp Pad to darken it which in turn made it kinda wet but, I wadded it up to make it look old and it even looks like leather! So Kewl!!!!


I happened to have a Tim Holt's brand of embossing powder on hand called Distress Embossing Powder-Walnut Stain. I didn't have the Wonder Tape but, I had the Terrifically Tacky Tape from Hobby Lobby and used another participant's idea and just layered the pieces of 1/2" and 1/4" together and trimmed them off around the edges of the butterflies. I wasn't sure if it would work with the embossing and I still don't know for sure if its right.

It doesn't look or heat as shiny as normal embossing, it looks like crusty dirt or grout but, it doesn't come off. I guess that means it worked?
The papers I used for the mosaic look are from the CTMH Level 2 Paper Pack called Florentine. I used both sides in my different pieces on the butterflies. 

Finally, I used the March Stamp of the Month to add the swirl design at the bottom with the Chocolate Stamp Pad and a metal brad to give that little extra pizzazz. The ribbon is our new Color Ready Seam Binding ribbon that I sponged with Twilight Stamp Pad. Try this fun and decorative mosaic technique for yourself.