T Tuesday with Tags

 

Through Valerie's beautiful blog I became aware of Tag Tuesday and decided on a whim to participate in the current challenge - the theme is "shells". I love shells, driftwood and all the other things you can find on a beach.

It's been a long time since I joined a tag challenge. I did it several times back in 2010, but since then, I have hardly made any tags at all. I felt a bit rusty, to be honest. Fortunately I found a few old tags where I had already created the background (probably years ago) and used them as a start.

This tag already had a painted background and the torn piece of a page from a French book. After that I had abandoned this tag, waiting patiently for this challenge, I assume. I used mainly stamps for this project - the water plant, the seastars and the big seashell. The sea horse epoxy sticker was hiding in my box of random supplies that I had bought over the years. (Water plant and shell stamps are by Stampington, seastar stamp is by denami design) 

The second tag had a sprayed blue background.

I had wanted to use the stamp of the little girl collecting sea shells for a long time and only used it once to make an ATC. This time I stamped it on watercolor paper and painted it with Derwent Inktense pens which I then washed out with water. I bought these pens seven years ago (!) at the National Gallery in London and have hardly used them. But now I totally fell in love with the rich and brilliant colors. Shells were stamped on a left-over piece of scrapbook paper and I stencilled the top. (Girl stamp by Stamps Happen, shells by PSX; stencil by Stencil Girl)

And since I was on a roll I made a third tag that already had a painted background. 

I just added a couple stamps, some Stickles (I had to get that flowing since it was kind of dried up in the bottle because I hadn't used it in years), a little shell and some final touches using a stencil. This is actually my favorite of the three tags. (Scripted shell stamp by Club Scrap; I don't know who made the swirly stamp, I found it at a Goodwill and it's just mounted on a blank wood block; stencil by The Crafters Workshop)

I drank coffee while I was working on these tags - I love to drink it out of this mug which is one of my favorites. This is for T day!

I'm sharing with Tag Tuesday and Altered Book Lover.