Sunday, October 02, 2005

The artful journey in creating the Monthly Tag Swap...

Yesterday I decided I'd better try to continue working on the Monthly Tag Swap and for some reason I was stuck in a rut regarding what to do next. So instead of creating anything else for them, I worked on cutting the stamped images out and adhering them together first before adhering them to the tag. I also decided to ink the edges of my tags using the French Blue Colorbox Chalk; since the cardstock is Bazzill's Whitewashed Blue and is a linen texture, I lightly touched it in a few areas to pull the texture out.

This morning I was still stuck for ideas to continue on the tags so I decided to browse through my Two Peas in a Bucket Book of Scraps to see what I had added that I desire to try to incorporate into my tags. Lying under my keyboard was a sheet of paper that I had originally brainstormed on regarding the month of January...... some ideas regarding the Mythology of Janus, gates, doors, doorways, portals, beginnings, endings, the progression of the past into to future, changes, from one condition to another, the remembrance of the passing year, a window of opportunity, etc. I had previously decided the color scheme I desired would be this whitewashed blue, mixed with a metallic silver cardstock, and a lighter printed blue paper that I chose simply because I already had enough of it to create the 12 tags. What I wasn't expecting was how wonderful it all seemed to come together! In my Book of Scraps, I had saved various artwork created by other peas and that I had seen done many times yet had never actually in my own artwork. It was a series of smaller tags, usually a group of three that had been decorated and embellished. Since I was desiring to add some text to my design, I thought this would work perfectly for a sort of title I had came up while brainstorming! So, I continued to pull up MS Word on my computer, created a text box, and typed in the "title". After playing around with it a bit in various fonts and colors, I stumbled upon one that I really like. What I discovered that once a title, quote, or saying is created inside a text box was that I could highlight it, hit the copy function, open a new blank document {simply in case it didn't work!}, and then, hit the paste function. It worked amazingly! So, I decided to format the title page into 3 columns, clicked after the pasted text, and hit the return key and continued pasting until the page was filled and ready to print. I did end up with a few extras which was another blessing in disguise as my page shifted along the bottom while actually printing and smeared the bottom row of text, so all is good!

I continued on working with the title to add to the small tags that I decided I'd keep using with the same color scheme and created them myself. Of the three lines of text, one set of 12 is now completed, and the prototype for the remaining two are created. Don is still asleep and Chaos has finally decided to pull my lightweight blanket out of my computer chair while I was up creating and has laid himself down on top of it. The little stinker! He's been so rambuctious this morning, full of mischief, it was great to see him finally worn out a bit. Knowing you let sleeping dogs lie, I grabbed my camera and took a quick pic! I cannot get over how much and how fast he is growing! All legs and puppy pals!!! He is going to be a big dog, as his paws are huge. Oh, and how can I forget about teeth....... he's all teeth... cutting in his back molars and wants to chew. Luckily, he is easily distracted, loves his toys, and chew bones. Today, is the first morning he actually came to me and whined to be let outside to potty. I believe we're making progress! {YES!}

Well, I'm going to get back to finishing the other two tags for my title.... hopefully, I can knock out all 22 of the remaining ones. I'm hopeful to do a bit of shopping at Lowes today and possibly take a trip to Michael's to see if they've a small object I'm certain I'd like to use as a second 3D embellishment on these. Wish me luck in Don agreeing to do so........... *tootles*

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