August in Venice

Hi everyone, and thank you to all of those who have entered the giveaway draw for the pocket watch card HERE. If you haven't entered yet you have until tomorrow night to comment and be in with a chance.

Now, yesterday I had the best of days ever visiting Anne and her lovely husband. It was the first time we have met face to face and it was every bit as fantastic as I'd expected. Anne is the most kind and generous  person you could ever wish to meet and she spoiled me rotten with some of the most beautiful gifts and a ton of die cuts using her Sizzix dies. As well as chatting away for ages, we got to play in her lovely craft room and Anne taught me how to make the most fantastic boxes (can you tell how much I enjoyed myself yet?!) Whilst there I made a start on my August Tim tag, but it wasn't working so I started again today, and...

Phew! This took some doing! Tim asked us where our dream journey would be. There's nowhere for me to hide on that subject so I couldn't have lied and said Paris to fit with my Stampers Anonymous collection!

Fear not; one of my birthday presents was the brilliant Darkroom Door Venetian Volume 1 stamp set. It took a while to work out which images to use and what else to team it with, but in the end I plumped for the gorgeous and versatile Stampers Anonymous Classics 3 set.

Using one of The Funkie Junkie Boutique's jumbo manilla tags I got to work with Scattered Straw and Weathered Wood Distress Stains. The edges then got the usual edging with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

The most prominent images were stamped first using Black and Watering Can Archival Inks. Having been masked I then stamped the large image of Venice using Cornflower Blue Archival Ink. Can't begin to tell you how much I love Wendy Vecchi's new Archival colours.

Due to the size of the tag I was left with a lot of space still to fill and it took much deliberation/testing to work out where to go with it. Finally I settled on a repeat stamping of the diamond pattern to represent carnival harlequin  patterns so prevalent in Venice. It was stamped in a mix of Wild Honey and Faded Jeans Distress using my markers and spritzing the stamp with water before applying it to the tag.

Finally the tag was finished by clear embossing the focal images and adding stained seam binding and filigree metal embellishments from The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

So that's this month's Tim Holtz tag completed successfully following the most wonderful day yesterday. Don't we make the most amazing friends through this obsession of ours. I am thrilled to have finally got to see Anne and I'm looking forward to the next time immensely (if she'll have me of course!)

For now take care of yourselves, and don't forget to come back on Friday to find out who has won the pocket watch card. Hugs, Jenny xxx

ps. Thank you Terry for reminding me about the 'My Summer Vacation' challenge over at Inspiration Journal. I will be entering this tag.
pps. Just remembered Craft-room challenge are having a 'Something New' theme (my new DD Venice stamp set)  - this'll teach me to post at silly o'clock when the brain is all fuzzy and useless!