A Dive into the Subconscious - Tag - by Claudia

Servus and thanks so much for stopping by! 

I have taken quite a long break from regularly crafting - mainly caused by moving and adapting to having two studios in two different parts of Austria (which has the benefit of getting to enjoy the beautiful city of Vienna AND the wonderful nature of Austria's beautiful Salzkammergut district). I found that the "new life" also changed a lot of habits - one of these being my former crafting routine. I re-discovered a lot of stamps that I had bought in my early crafting times, when I had just started to dive into the world of rubber stamps of all kinds and special stamping inks, embossing powders and a lot of other cool techniques and crafty miracles. 

So one of these stamp sets was what sparked the idea for this tag and for a new (or maybe old...but in any way different) approach to using the many Craft Parts that I still have in my stash. I also had to find new ways to get back to enjoying a bit of crafting besides developing new routines with the two spots I am now living in - so I am now trying to focus more on experimenting, doing smaller projects or simply not finishing a larger one in one go as I used to. This tag emanated from some very spontaneous and joyful play with what I had at hand mostly...some really cool Calico Craft Parts, a re-discovered stamp set and beautiful and inspiring book pages and collage paper scraps. 

I picked the Craft Parts that spoke to me most and that I felt corresponded with the stamped focal image in a way that the tag could evoke stories in the beholders' heads...stories from the Subconscious. I definitely followed my subconscious when creating this tag. ;)

Calico Craft Parts used:

- MDF Tag Shape - Rounded Rectangle (150x75mm)

- Crucian Carp MDF Fish Wood Shape (small)

- Word Elements - Art & Journaling

- Mini Star Wreath (medium size)

- Star Shape - Mini MDF Wood Plaques

- Sheet of Mini MDF Hardware Wood Shapes

- Sheet of Mini MDF Label Holders

I started with tearing and gluing some book pages to the MDF tag. For that I used matte DecoArt Decou-Page as it dries fast and does not wrinkle the paper too much. I primed all the MDF Wood Shapes I wanted to use with a thin almost dry-brushed on layer of DecoArt Beige Chalky Gesso. Then I painted the fish with a very thin wash of DecoArt media fluid acrylic Prussian Blue Hue, the single star with Titanium White media fluid acrylic and the star wreath and label holder with DecoArt Americana True Red acrylic paint. 

You can also see the fussy cut stamped image of a young woman and pair of wings in the picture, as well as a golden German Dresden Scrap crown that was a perfect fit! 

I had decided to have my stamped fairy queen sit on a Word Element and have a fish swimming in the ocean underneath (=her subconscious). I found this old black and white gel plate print and tore off a scrap to use it as my "deep sea" background.

The bright gold of the crown got toned down using DecoArt media Carbon Black Antiquing Cream and DecoArt media fluid acrylic Metallic Gold was used to paint the two screw heads and the jump ring that I used for the fairy queen's necklace.

I like how the random black and white patterns of the ocean background repeat the irregular black and white patterns from the fairy queen's face and sleeve! Using more Prussian Blue Hue I painted some ocean waves on top - mainly to repeat the blue from the carp. More blue was added by using the thin washi tape above the Word Element band. 

 

My original idea was to use the whole bright red star wreath around my queen's head, but that covered up too much of the crown and other lovely detail, so I had the idea to cut the wreath in two and only use one half on top of the tag...for me these are all the shining brilliant ideas emanating from the fairy queen's thoughts...or maybe her reign is under more than just one good star...

Final touches were added using a white Sharpie pen (the tiny dots border around the tag's edges). The hand painted ocean waves got a white outline too and the fairy queen's cheeks needed a bit of pale red - done! 

I am sure the tag will tell you a different story than the (not too precise) one I had in mind when creating it - or at least different in some aspects. But that was what I wanted - to give you some visual "hints" that will let your minds run free and evoke your own stories. I hope you'll enjoy them (and the tag of course)! ;)

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx