holiday haute couture

The theme this month at the Emerald Creek Dares Challenge is "Believe."

We hope that you will join us and share your winter or Christmas creations.
For my project I thought it would be fun to create some holiday haute couture.
These dressform tags could be used on gifts and then hung on a tree or used as decor in the coming years.

If you follow me on social media, you know that I have been a little obsessed with making faux greenery with my Tim Holtz dies and distress inks. I had the idea that it would be really cool to use these "greens" for some "en vogue" fashion designs. Each of the tags is edged in an Emerald Creek embossing powder, some tags fashion stenciled and embossed designs, while others use pieces from the Emerald Creek Forge as embellishments, all tags are edged in Emerald Creek powders.

The six dressform tags are a set of chipboard laser cuts. The first step is covering each side with a paper of your choice. I prefer to use collage medium to attach the papers, as it is not affected when I add embossed accents on top of the papers. For these tags, I use a text paper on one side of all the tags, the opposite sides are covered with various materials including patterned paper, linen, and Christmas collage tissue. 

When both sides of the tag are covered, I coat the edges with Versamark embossing ink and then sprinkle with embossing powder. The embossing powder is heat set and, when needed a second coat is added. I love using the chunky powders along the edges of my projects, it adds so much interest and always feels awesome to the touch.
For these tags, I use a few of my favorite powders.
Charred gold, this powder is very chunky and gives a wonderful blend of color.

Another chunky powder is hammered metal.
These two powders generally will only require one coat along the edge.

A third embossing powder on a couple of the tags is oil rubbed bronze. This is a fine powder; in some areas I add two to three coats to achieve a thick smooth edge.

Special, embossed details are added to the finished sides prior to adding any of the greenery pieces.

On this tag I use a sponge applicator with Versamark embossing ink through a Tim Holtz stencil and sprinkle with oil rubbed bronze embossing powder. I then heat set the powder. One thing to note: on the linen surfaces, the embossing powder needs to be re-coated multiple times to achieve a finish that will mimic embossing that has been done on a non-porous surface. The upper portion of this tag was coated with collage medium to seal the collage tissue; when the embossed detail was heat set, it only required one coat, the bottom of the tag needed many coats, as the linen was not sealed. 

This Tag used the same technique; 

however, the surface was paper and the embossing powder, charred gold.

I love adding metal embellishments to my tags.

The Emerald Creek pinecone charms are a perfect fir with the greenery on these tags. 

These pinecone charms are colored with alcohol ink before being tied to a dyed, crinkle ribbon "scarf".

The pinecone charms are embossed with charred gold and oil rubbed bronze embossing powder then used to accent braided "necklace" on this tag. 

Another piece from the Emerald Creek Forge collection, the believe buckle connector charm, is used as a "belt". The connector has been colored using alcohol ink along the raised areas to coordinate with the charred gold tag edge.

Here are a few more detailed pictures:

I hope you have been inspired to join the challenge this month.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by the blog,

 I truly appreciate it and I wish you the very best this holiday season!

~Ann

 xxx

I am entering my holiday haute couture tags in the following challenges:
The Funkie Junkie Boutique: It's the Holidays



supplies:
Alcohol inks:
sepia, mushroom, black, gold mixative
 Distress collage medium: matte
Distress inks:
crushed olive, forest moss, mowed lawn, peeled paint
Emerald Creek embossing powders:
charred gold
hammered metal
oil rubbed bronze
Emerald Creek Decor - forge:
pinecone charm
believe buckle connector charm
eyelets: 3/16"
Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts: dressform tags
Tim Holtz Ideaology:
christmas collage tissue, crinkle ribbon, metallic kraft stock, paper stash christmas
Tim Holtz / Sizzix:
deck the halls, funky festive, large funky festive, holiday greens, holiday greens mini,
pine branch, tiny tattered florals
Tim Holtz / Stampers Anonymous stencils:
holiday script, mini stencils set 19, sparkle