Finnabair: Create Art Vintage Tag by Emilia Tapiola

To celebrate spring that has finally arrived here in Finland, I wanted to create a tag, light and hopeful with first rays of spring, but still having a bit of dark, long winter in it.

I covered a sturdy carboard tag with Finnabair Musica tissue paper, attaching it with Soft Matte Gel and making sure the tissue paper was nicely crumbled. Then I primed the tag with a gentle layer white Heavy Gesso.

Next step was layering. I cut a 7 Dots Studios scrapbook paper piece slightly smaller than the tag and another one slightly smaller than the first paper and crumbled them so that they were a bit ripped and worn out from the edges. Then I glued them to the tag, larger one first and the smaller one on top, adding glue only to the middle and leaving the edges free. Then, I took some vintage paper scraps and tea bag material and with Soft matte Gel layered them on top, adding tea bag paper also here and there onto the bottom layer paper and onto the tag itself. After that, I painted a thin, gentle layer of white gesso on top.

Being me, I wanted softness in form of fabric and lace into my tag, so I attached some with Soft Matte Gel, and again primed everything with white gesso. After that, I used Iris Tapestry stencil and Modeling Paste, I applied an uneven layer of stencil images all around the tag but making sure that there were also empty spaces left.

I had a Re.design with Prima flower mould resembling a dried flower stem still standing after long winter months that was just perfect for the tag, so I primed it with gesso. Then I painted over with a mix of Impastos Pitch Black, Snow White, Linen, and Dark Chocolate and wiped some of the paint off with a baby wipe, leaving only a soft layer of paint. I attached the mould figurine into the tag with Heavy Body Gel and added a chipboard word clipping to the tag for balance.

Then I used the same mix of Impastos Dark Chocolate, Pitch Black, Snow White, and Linen and gently painted the edges of the tag and the layers and also shadowing around the flower mould and the word clipping, using a wet brush and only a little paint and spraying the paint mix to spread and blend into the tag naturally and wiping any too dark paint off with a baby wipe. To deepen the shadowing, I used only a hint of Liquid Acrylics Ink Black, Umber, and Burnt Sienna, and repeated the process for some places.

The tag needed some gentle hint of sky colour, so I added a soft layer of Metallique paint Light Patina here and there, spraying it for blending.

As finishing touches, I first highlighted the flower and some parts of the tag layers with Gold Metallic Flakes and used Gilding Glue for attaching a hint of it into place, brushing most flakes off and leaving only a soft glimpse of gold. Then I sprinkled some white paint splashes all over the masks using Impasto Snow White and very wet brush. I added an antique bronze eyelet to the tag hole, and tied a matching coloured, botanically hand dyed cotton lace ribbon to the tag. Last, using Heavy Body Gel I attached a half of a Rusty Paper Clip with a word Inspire on it onto the layer on top of the tag, and a Scrapyard Dragonfly to the flower.

And it was ready, a soft and gentle tag celebrating the spring and saluting the winter, while reminding that whether it was a light springtime or dark winter time, there is still beauty, art and creativity everywhere inspiring us.

There’s a tutorial video here: