 Hey guys, we are here for another Monday with DecoArt Challenge, and we are going to make some tags Generally speaking as you all know, I usually fast forward through these videos For the most part. We're not gonna really do that today I'm just looking for a gel pen Something light in color We might have to try a couple of things on a scrap piece of paper I have all these gel pens like I'm sure you all do also and you know, you we don't use them often enough, right? so I've got a few kind of light colors and then the gray and I've got these tags and these tags I bought a long time ago from a paper supplier and I don't remember The name of the company, but it was a wholesale place and these tags are like die-cut without they don't have the hole Reinforcer so they're nice and flat and great for what I think we're gonna do which was we're gonna do some stamping I'm gonna use this paper just for a background and that way if I do some over stamping it'll get on the paper Not that if I care if it gets on the canvas obviously but You know I'm not might not be using waterproof ink and I don't want my next project That's on on the table here to get ink all over it. So So there that got there you have it. So we're gonna start with the gel pen and I'm gonna See I'm gonna start with the gray. I kind of like the gray and I'm going to just do some journaling in the background Nothing that's gonna really make any sense and I'm gonna write it really messy I've got six tags here so I'm gonna do all six of them and I'm going to gift some or all of them in some racks Coming up. So let's see And let's switch colors there. I wanted to each be a little bit different It's more about putting the texture on the back of the tag than it is Actually having it be readable or even spelled correctly and these pens have been sitting for a while So that's why I'm gonna keep making sure they actually still write on the paper here I want to do white on this one. I think I have one color that repeats itself. I think it's gonna be the white Just write whatever first comes to your mind Cap all the pens so they don't dry out That would be bad very bad Do one more and now we have our tags with some texture on them So let's let the gel pen dry and let's go back to the first one. I Like this one. All right. I've got my distressing out. I've got some water I've got I in the drawer of distressing so I also have distress reinkers So I think I want to start with the reinkers. I want to start with a light color And I don't remember how light these colors are so oh See this one's never even been opened And teak linen might work. I want something really light again. We're gonna test it on the paper It's not horrible, but it's not exactly what I wanted. I'm sure this is really exciting watching me open reinkers bottles Okay, let's get this one open This one is tumbled glass No, no why the heck these have to be so hard to open. I know they're trying to keep them from spilling during shipping But there should be like a pull tab or something really like they don't want you to get in there Okay, I like the tumbled glass. I kind of like both of them. So All right, so we're going to do this is what we're gonna do We're going to spray the tag a little bit and then we're going to Dribble some ink on there or water Need a brush. Of course. I need a brush. We're just creating background, right? Some texture and drama to our Tag now if you feel like it's too dark You know, you can always lift a little bit of it up with a rag Right you can dry it with a heat gun I've got a few more of these to do obviously so we're gonna just set it aside if when we get done with the last one It's not completely dry. Then we'll get in there with a heat gun put that in there Let's go in with the what one is this antique linen back with our brush So Be just be careful about you know getting it too wet because these type these tags are not watercolor paper These are just regular cardstock. So if you get it too wet, it's gonna not be good I love this sparkly blue gel gel pen. It's fabulous. I love the color I don't even know if you can see that it's sparkly on camera That too They're looking so good. All right got three more We're just gonna keep alternating colors here until we get to the last tag So pick, you know, you could pick a different color for each tag pick something light not too dark and Whatever color you pick spread it out with water. You could use paint for this water down You could use fluid acrylics If you have reinkers use them you could use Ink sprays if you have some sprays. I've had these tags for like a million years So it's about time I use them up to do something with So by the time you see this I will be out of town again in Lake Tahoe, California Well, Nevada actually technically I'm gonna be in the Nevada side and don't forget to catch the other my design team members are also making tags their video links will be in the description below and Don't forget to go over and show their channel some love and watch them Get some ideas Some months when we do the design team talent challenges It seems like we all have the same idea and other months. We all have different ideas So we don't plan these things that we try to keep it as organic as possible. I like that. Okay, I Don't think we need the spray bottle anymore, but what we do need to do is dry all of this So we're gonna get down to the embossing tool And let's give everything a dry. Shall we okay? Sorry about the glare on the acrylic block So we have our tags here and they're all dry. I didn't make you guys watch the drying time And they already look interesting, right? All right, so we're gonna take them again one at a time and we're going to continue layering our background and First we're gonna pick out some stamps this these are all of my stamps my designs from the very first couple of collections all the way through to the current ones and I'm going to pick something For my background Continue to add to the background right I go to this set a lot. I really like these stamps. They're great background stamps I think I want to use the arrows Let's grab the arrows out of here and Let's grab this circle one. It looks like an orange slice Let's use that Maybe this one it seems to want to come out too. So We'll use that we'll go with that right now. All right, so we're going to put them on our block here and sort of a random ish Collection of shapes maybe we need a different one of these Just pull this whole set out. Why don't we because it seems to want to come out anyway You can get my stamps When you order them they come unmounted Red deep-etched red rubber you can order them special order Cling like this or you can get wood mount You have to message me and Let me know that you want that. I'm just looking at it here to see My cling stamps are dirty. That's why they keep falling off I'm really bad about cleaning them. Okay, I really like that layout. So we're gonna go with that and we are going to stamp our backgrounds of Our tags and we're going to use I think the same couple of colors. I Have my mini stamp pads here in which I have all of the colors Well up to a point. I don't have any 2016 colors. This is the tumbled glass What was the other one antique one in let's see we go right on top Antique linen that yellow color. I Don't know. Maybe we should use the yellow color I'm kind of liking that yellow If we put the antique linen away and we use the yellow color then what should we use? We could use the yellow on the blue ones and then what about we could use the tumbled glass on the ones with antique Let's do that. Let's let's try it. Shall we okay? So I'm just gonna ink my stamps here I'm trying to get them all good and inky but this is a background We're doing it in another kind of lightish color with the idea that this is a background And this is not the focal point It's just to add texture and interest to the background of our tag and you could do this definitely do this on a journal page You don't need tons of stamps One collection of stamps and a couple ink pads is all it takes. I'm gonna turn it this way. That is cool Okay, let's do that again. Shall we? Let's do all of the blue tags first and we'll clean the stamps off I like distressing because it comes in like a million little colors plus they have these little tiny stamp These stamping spots that that's an affordable way to get a whole bunch of colors of ink Without spending a fortune And again, this is scattered straw B-list. All right, let's give our stamps a quick clean Not that I'm obviously very great about cleaning my stamps because I'm not but we do want the Tumbled glass ink to stay mostly blue. I'm not mixed too much with the scatters drop All right, dry that off a bit And we'll recap this one and we will put it back in our case I Decided I couldn't buy any more of these little spots because my case is full So he may come out with new colors, but I can't buy them. My case is full So this is the other one Tumbled glass the blue color. Oh, yeah, that's pretty All right, one more two more to do it again. Shall we? You could switch it up and you could use any of the stamps for this You just want to build up your colors slowly probably keep them light. So and then you whatever your final image or words are Stamp those in the darkest color probably black. I can't wait to see what the other girls come up with for their tags That's nice All right I need that So all of my stamps are available in the Etsy shop. So if you're stamps, you're suddenly having trouble with them sticking Oops, they're probably the cling side is probably dirty Mine are always dirty just FYI They always are dirty, but I really prefer cling stamps because they're easier to store So let's put these away before we grab any other stamps Make sure I put it away right side up so I can read The words that are part of the stamp set And you notice when I flipped it over nothing fell off. That's because I cleaned Okay, so now we're gonna pick out some stamps for the focal point and I think I'm thinking I want to use this set It's the one that comes immediately to mind for me. So I think we're gonna go with that So these are our doodle girls all of these again in my Etsy shop as of the filming of this which is August 9th Everything is in stock. If for some reason when you place your order items are not in stock. They will be shortly I Do allow processing time for that usually things go out within a couple of days But I do allow in the listing it says two weeks Just in case things aren't in stock. So I think we're going to use one of the girl heads Here so I have words as part of some of the new stamp sets for this year So we're gonna do these two. This is black archival ink So we're gonna get our our stamp Good and inky with the black ink You want your tag to be dry. You don't want it to be wet because for this you want a nice sharp clear Impression push. Hopefully it's gonna come out straight. I don't know we'll see I should probably be standing up So I can see what I'm doing Okay These are a great easy quick thing to do to gift to friends or to make You know gift tags for packages you could Do these for Christmas the holidays coming up for Christmas or whatever other winter holidays you celebrate birthdays you can have a stock of them and if you have if you're like me and you have a Section of your spare closet that has wrapping paper and stuff in it. You could just have a bunch of these That are over there That you can just grab one and use it as a gift tag on a bag or a package or no two more fabulous It re-inkers away and get things out of your way. We're gonna need a couple of those gel pens back again I'm gonna grab the white And have a light pink. I know I do I want this one back again Just the blue-green color that we used on the background. Okay, so now I'm gonna zoom in and I'll show you what We're gonna do so I'm gonna take the white one and My reading glasses I can see what I'm doing Holy moly. Okay. So in the word here, there's a bunch of let's see. I think we need to zoom in more There we go In the word here, I've got these little dots that I've doodled in the word. So we're gonna go in And with white gel pen It'll accent the word and help it pop out from the background And if you go up here and you look at the girl, there's some black Um dots, but we're gonna color them in white We're going to Two up here above her eyebrow put a white dot in her eye I'm gonna take this little light pink color And some of it to her lips. This is the blue one We're not looking to color all of her in we're just looking to accent The stamped image so that she stands out a little bit better I like that. All right, so we're gonna do the rest of them. Let me zoom back out So just put on your favorite music I don't think about it too much Have some fun Create some tags Hopefully buy some of my stamps That would be nice You can't see it, but I'm smiling as I'm saying that. Okay So do that to each one of your tags and probably things like the white gel pen They're gonna show up better If your background is darker and if you don't want to make your background darker Then start with a darker cardstock Now before any of you ask me, this is a souffle pen Uh, it says xp gb 929 This one is also a souffle pen and it says xp gb 920 And this is a jelly roll a white jelly roll pen The next thing I want to do and the final step is do something with the border. I like I do like to give my Tags a border So look around and you could use more ink You could use paint You could use some gel crayons if you have them I might use gel crayons. I've got a bunch of different kinds of gel crayons They might be fun And like I said before the White gel pen is going to show up better on a darker paper. It's definitely this is a white tag So that's definitely what I said about that's definitely true You can kind of see it's there, but still looks cool Maybe you can't afford to get any new stamps right now You can do tags like this with what you have in your stock Of course, I would love it if you bought my stamps, but I understand if it's not in the budget All of these designs and a few others are available as digital downloads So if you can't afford the stamp sets you can go buy digital downloads And you could you know print them on the tag And then color it in Okay, one more these are turning out really cuter than I was imagining them to turn out So here's another white tag and you can see the white gel pen Where there's other ink in the background and it and the paper is no longer white Where it's still white. You aren't going to really be able to see the white gel pen Up here you can see it because it there's black. I'm just putting it where the black the black dots already were I love this pink color About these gel pens years ago when I was taking my first official mixed media class with tracy vautista I'm actually surprised they're not dried up All right, let's cap them before they do dry up now that I said that and Let's get out our recollections Watercolor crayons. You could also use distressed distressed crayons or gelatoes depending on what you have I have these and I really like them so I want to use them Now the question is what color do I want? Hmm, maybe I want to do each one in a different color That's possible If you want to do them all in the silver Maybe I don't want to use these maybe because they're metallic I do do I don't want to do black that I do know I have lots of gel crayons So it's really just a matter of getting off my butt and picking a color. You know, I have a turquoise gelato Is it metallic? I don't think so So this color is this one. This is a fabric pastel gelato Snow cone That's kind of a nice color. Let's try that on this tag I just wasn't sure I wanted these are all metallic and I wasn't sure I wanted anything metallic on here Now I'm going to take my baby white And I'm going to try not to get Anything more than the gelato wet But the gelatos will move around with water Yeah, this was a good color choice it's I was tempted to do black, but if you do black, then it's going to take away from the focal image and that is perfect I love that All right, let's do the other ones This is something else I've had for a long time and they don't use nearly enough You know, if you get nothing else out of this video, I want you to Pull those supplies out of the recesses of your art room that you've had and that you bought And that you maybe at first we're using a lot, but now you've forgotten about them and they're just sitting gathering dust maybe drying up um Break them out and let's use them Because what did we buy them for if we weren't going to use them? And I'm going to just do you know if you're doing a big batch of these and you're especially if you're doing them for Racking or a gift giving Happy mail And you need to do them quickly just do a whole bunch of the same or similar designs um And you can do you know two or three batches like that and then mix them up when you send them out I try to remember to like sign the back or put a note on the back of when I do things like this um Because in the past I was pretty bad about remembering to sign my work And some of that work has since gone out in mystery boxes and I still forgot to sign it um So if you are one of those and you got something like that from me send it back I will sign it and I will return it to you Probably with free more free goodies But sign your work put a little note on the back if you're doing one of these tags Put a little note on the back to the recipient And that way they can remember always especially if they have a bad memory like I do Who they got it from And when don't forget to date it And if we all did little tags this month and sent them on those racks if you get enough of them Then you can make a little a little journal out of all the tags And you could just attach them by the ring at the top and then you have the notes from who they're from on the back So there we have it. There is one fun way to do some fun tags With a few stamps and some ink and a gel pen So have fun with it and don't forget the most important thing Go out and and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it Maybe do something nice for somebody else and send them out a tag All right, that's it for right now where everybody I'll talk to you later. Bye