Tag Tuesday - Monogram

This morning a friend emailed me a link to the Ten Seconds Studio blog where they had the coolest video demo of the 'Controlled Squish' technique. The minute I saw the results, I knew I had to try it out! Of course, did I have any of the 'right' tools or supplies? No! It seems like I never do. So I did my best to improvise....

My friend Cyndi had told me long ago (and even sent me a card w/the technique!) that I could adhere aluminum foil to cardstock and it would be a cheap and easy stand-in for more expensive sheets of metal. So, that is what I did for my tag. It's colored with a combination of alcohol inks, Stazon, and acrylic paint. Be careful when you're sanding this! The foil doesn't stand up to a lot of abuse.

The bird is made from Grungeboard that's been stamped with a raven from Oxford Impressions' Haunted stamp collection. The sentiment is from one of Tim Holtz's clear stamp sets.

The texture on the top is created by heating various acrylic paints. Most I used were cheap craft paint, but the gold Lumiere worked the best of all of them. The samples they showed used a special German paint, but since it's not like we can run out and get that here, I think plain old cheap stuff works just fine.

I added a foil-covered and embossed chipboard 'B' and voila - perfect for today's Tag Tuesday challenge!

UPDATE!  I just came across a link to Lin's blog where she gives step by step instructions for her tag. I totally misunderstood the paint part, but I'm still glad I experimented!