A Couple of Birthday Tags for a Couple of Special Brothers

Here are a couple of other projects that were pinned before I had a blog.  I made a couple of vintage tags for my two older brothers who are 8 and 9 years older that I am.  The second oldest brother made his appearance 5 days before my oldest brother turned a year old.  My poor mom ... it was rough during those first few years with these two boys.  They were a wonderful handful.  Now you know why there was an 8 year hiatus before my parents decided to try for a girl.

My oldest brother likes to work with his hands.  He's skilled with woodwork and is pretty handy with a set of tools.  So, I made a nostalgic 1958 license plate for my oldest brother's tag (kind of like the one in the image below).

Vintage North Carolina License Tag

I stamped a piece of cardstock with a license plate stamp from Stampology.  The set includes all the alphabet and numbers for a personalized license plate, so I stamped my brother's initials and 13 for the year 2013.  I inked the plate with Wild Honey Distress Ink and used Ultra Thick Embossing Powder over the entire tag to give it an old enameled look.  I used a small "bolted screw top" stamp on four dots made from a standard hole punch.  The dots were glued on the license plate to look like the bolts that hold the tag onto a car.  Glossy accents and Vintage Photo Distress Stickles was added on top of the stamped dots to give them a little more dimension and "rustiness".

The tag background is made with a collage of vintage scrapbooking papers.  I stamped the word "journey" on the tag and attached a spinner in the letter "o" with a vintage brad.  The tag was grunged with Walnut Stain distress ink and sand paper.  I added a Fibers ribbon and attached the license plate to the tag using pop-up foam adhesive squares.  Other embellishments like assorted nuts, washers, gear and a key were then added to the tag.

My other older brother's birthday tag celebrates his love of bluegrass music.  He plays the guitar, dobro, bass fiddle and the mandolin in a bluegrass band called Appalachian Fire.  He is incredibly talented and is now learning how to play the banjo.  Anyway, I love the look of his mandolin and decided to feature part of an F model (F for "fancy") mandolin on this collage tag.

Gibson.com:  Gibson F-9 Mandolin

I sketched out the shape of the part of the mandolin that I wanted on the tag.  I found several vintage papers to include in the collage.  I started tearing the pieces and adhering them with Ranger Glue-N-Seal.  .  When the body and handle of the mandolin had been covered, I added some walnut stain on the fretboard (handle of the mandolin).  I sketched in the frets with a Picket Fence Distress Marker.  I added a little shading on the sides and grunging with a Vintage Photo Distress Marker and Distress Ink.  Then the entire mandolin was covered with Matte Multi-Medium mixed with Wild Honey Distress Stain.  Distress Inks were used to color the remaining background of the tag.  I used a sand paper to distress the sides of the tag and these edges were grunged with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I added a few embellishments like the metal spool and an initial charm.  I also used some gold flecked twine for the strings of the mandolin and a black piece of card stock for the bridge.  The hole where the sound comes out (looks like flourish) was painted with a Black Soot Distress Marker.  I really like the translucent look I got with this over the Multi-Medium.  To finish the piece, I added a ribbon tie and my brothers birthday month and year were paperclipped to the strings.

I really love the look of this tag.  I am planning to do another mandolin collage on canvas in the near future.  I can't wait to get started on that project :)

Hope you are all having a great weekend.  Time to go down and play in my craftroom.  Until next time -- Mary Elizabeth