Floating High Above the Horizon

I seem to have this fascination with hot air balloons, not that I have ever been up in one...and I chose that theme for three challenges: Simon Says "Air Mail" and Tim Holtz's 12 Tags "August Travel" and Inspiration Station "Summer Vacation" (guess these are places I traveled in my imagination this summer).

Tag background: Paint the tag and let dry, then rub on patches of petroleum jelly to act as a resist. Next, using a different color "whitewash" the tag and let dry. Rub off with paper towel, then a baby white. I think next time I would use white instead of gray to get a greater contrast.

I decided to stamp the hot air balloon separately so played with the inks and water and spritzing to get this background to stamp on.

All stamps - Tim Holtz

I stamped the compass directly on the tag, and colored parts in with the distress markers.

Cut out and scattered air mail stamps on the tag.

Layered the tag up with the hot air balloon, metal compass, ribbons, embellies, wood plane...
Did anyone notice the tags are different? Do you like one better than the other? I made two - one for me, and one for my art exchange of Tim's tags. Such fun to make and try some new things, including techniques I learned in Technique Toolbox with Claudine Hellmuth and Creative Chemistry with Tim Holtz.