Simply create art, Studio 490 style

I recently hosted a tag swap on the EWV Yahoo group.  There were 22 participants from 14 states and 3 European countries.  Everyone was assigned a tag (3 sizes, vertical or horizontal position) and asked to make 12, 11 to swap and 1 for the super designer, Wendy Vecchi.  Her displays are being mailed today.

The inspiration for this swap came from one that Tim Holtz and Jennifer McGuire did earlier this year.  I also opted for 12"x12" canvas for my display.  First I treated the canvas to a coat of my own version of Claudine's Trad Tan.  After many, many swipes of various distress inks and archival inks I stamped several of Wendy's images (from the newest release) on the base and sides.  I glued on Tim's gold corners before I started arranging the tags.

Once the tags were arranged I made a diagram of the layout, the artist's name and their location.  I slipped the corners into photo corners then glued the whole thing onto the back of the canvas.  I also added a picture frame hanger so it was wall-ready.

Behind each tag is foam tape.  I really liked how it made the tags pop out on the lighter background.  It also made it easier for some elements to flow into the adjacent tags. 
I didn't feel I need many embellishments but I did add some Maya Road chipboard words that were inked with several distress inks, then pen-stitched around each letter so you could easily read the words.  A TH muse charm and 2 small frames hold the computer-generated words '490' and 'style'.  Glossy Accents were applied to make them pop. 


Hosting this swap was a lot of fun and I hope to do it again when more artists have managed to snag a few of Wendy's latest stamps for their collections.  Thank you everybody for such inspiring work and to Wendy, a super designer of red rubber!

I really wish that in the preview it looked the way it would look IRL.  All this reformatting just gets lost in the final version.  Sigh.