Distress Mixology No. 4 Inspiration - Whimsical Tags

Hi friends! Today I’m showing what I made using the Distress Mixology No. 4 color palette. If you want to see the results of my experiments you can find them here. The colors used were Dusty Concord, Fossilized Amber, Chipped Sapphire and Hickory Smoke. I also used Fossilized Amber and Hickory Smoke embossing glazes on the backgrounds on my final project. I’ve put together a full tutorial for you below on how I created these tags. Enjoy!

I have to admit I have a love for whimsical art. When I was a child, I drew picture after picture of whimsical characters and scenery. The cutesy images made out of shapes were so fun to create for me and I did this for hours and hours without end. I wasn’t one who enjoyed school very much either so my notebooks meant for taking notes were filled with artwork instead. I sure wish I had kept those notebooks. It would be fun to see what I imagined all those years ago. Every once in a while I feel a need to create something whimsical and that is what happened when I decided to pull out the Tim Holtz Sizzix Abstract Elements die set to work with for this color palette. Enough of my gabbering, let’s get to the tutorial!

Making the Backgrounds

To create the backgrounds for the tags I spritzed three 4.25″ x 5.5″ pieces of mixed media paper with water and then with Distress Spray Stain & Oxide Sprays. I moved the papers around to move the ink and oxides and dried with a heat tool. I continued this process adding layer upon layer, making sure to dry each layer before moving on to the next until I was happy with the outcome.

When the inks and oxides were completely dry, I used the Tim Holtz Sizzix Stacked Tags die set to create the tags.

For the first tag I added some images from two of the new Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous stamp sets, Note Quotes (CMS463) and Botanic Collage (CMS447). The butterfly with text was stamped with Black Soot Archival Ink and the circles were stamped with Dusty Concord Archival Ink.

This tag was tamped with the Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Bubbles stamp in random areas. I only inked up a small portion of the stamp and applied the image in a few of the open areas.

For the third and final tag I stamped on a few of the images from the Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Creative Blocks stamp set in Black Soot Archival ink. I colored over the perimeters of each stamp with a Black Soot colored pencil and softened the line with a waterbrush.

I wanted to add some embossing glazes to the tags with colors from the Distress Mixology No. 4 palette. The only two colors of embossing glazes that are available from this palette are Fossilized Amber and Hickory Smoke so I used those two colors. I used three different techniques to add the glaze.

The tag on the far left was done by adding some stenciling with crackle paste and sprinkling it with Fossilized Amber glaze. After sprinkling on the glaze I let it sit until the crackle paste was dry and then heated it with a heat tool to set the glaze.
For the middle tag I brushed the top right and bottom left corners with Hickory Smoke ink and sprinkled on Hickory Smoke Embossing Glaze over the ink before it dried and then immediately heat set it with a heat tool.
The tag on the right was splotted with water droplets and sprinkled with Fossilized Amber Embossing Glaze. I then removed the excess glaze and heat set it with a heat tool.

Shapes Used for Whimsical Images

To create the flower for my first tag, I used these shapes from the Tim Holtz Sizzix Abstract Elements die set.

Above you can see the shapes I used to create the bird. Most of the shapes were used as is but for some of the pieces you will need to clip and cut them. The head feather and feet were the two pieces I needed to alter a bit.

In the photo above are the pieces I used to create the butterflies. When the wing shape is cut out it will face left. To create the right wing, make sure to cut out the shape on the backside of the cardstock or inked paper you’re using so the wing will face right when you adhere it to your project.

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I put these tags together and I hope you liked the Distress Mixology No. 4 color palette. I thought it was a really pretty mix of colors for my whimsical tags.

Thank you so much for stopping by and spending your time here with me. I really appreciate it!