June Tag "Garden Party"

   June is such a lovely time of year. I love watching my flowers bloom and I often think about how lovely the old gardens must have been. After all once upon a time people actually had garden parties where they dressed in their finest attire to attend. My garden will never be close to anything like those gardens, but I thought it might be nice to pretend. So I choose Garden Party for the June Tag theme. I thought maybe others might like to dream, too.

MY GARDEN PARTY TAG

   For the front of this tag I made the background paper with my gelli plate using acrylic paints. I wanted to give the impression of filtered sunlight. Then using my Silhouette cutting machine I cut out first the two little girls from black card stock then I spritzed them with gold Perfect Pearls and set them aside. Then using a leafy frame and after re-sizing it and using the cut tool I cut sections out and re-joined them repeatedly until I got the leaves where I wanted them to fall. I cut four of these before I got it right. Then I painted it using a couple shades of green. I then mounted it on the tag using foam strips that I made with my sticker maker. Then it was time to make the tree frame. Once again I re-sized, stretched, and re-sized. This was even harder because it had to be made so that the back layer would not be completely covered by it. I cut it apart and re-joined again and again. This layer took seven tries before it was right. Then I painted it and using foam strips I applied it to the tag. Then using a tiny leaf punch I punched the leaves out of double sided vellum. I glued them onto the tree branches framing the top of the tag. Now it was time to stick the little girls in place. Then I went back and used my cutting machine to cut out the grassy knolls. I used a tiny flower punch to cut out the yellow flowers. I used glitter glue in the center of each flower. When they were dry I glued the into place.
   Now it was time to make the back of my tag. The background is made from paste paper that I made a while ago. This was the perfect place to use some of it. I then cut out the little tea set with double sided yellow card stock. I glued a paper doily in place as a tablecloth. Then I glued the tea set in place. I used a marker to give it some dimension. Then I carefully cut little flowers from another paper doily and glued them onto the tea set as decorations. Lastly I added the ribbon ties.    
I worked so hard on the front of the tag and wasted so much paper but in the end I was so happy with the way it turned out. After working so hard on the front I was happy that the back went together so easy.
  

TAGS FOR THE SWAP

 Lori Otto

 Sandie Hamel

 Kathy Keller

 Marna Bennett

 Kathy Scholl

Barbara Hahn

 Judy Lawson

 Carol Kirkland

Gabriele Haider

   I love the way that there are so many interpretations of this theme. I really expected a lot of flowers. These were a pleasant surprise. Thanks to all the talented artists that joined the tag swap. It was a real pleasure to see these arrive in the mail. They were the best part of a really bad month.

Take Care 

Kathy