Tag. Your it.

Every now and then a chance idea can become something special. This post is all about one of those ideas - an idea to collaborate on something that came out of an e mail between me and a couple of blog chums . Along with Chrissie at Niminy Fingers and Cathy at Menopausal Musing we decided to do a tag project. I provided the tags, Chrissie provided the theme and the topics and Cathy..... well for those of you that know her blog well.... Cathy provided the light relief!



We agreed a few ground rules at the outset such as posting dates and how we would communicate etc. Whenever we e mailed we were all included so all of us knew what was happening when and to whom! If we couldn't hit a deadline we said so. In fact, we were so keen we spent half the time sending things early because we'd rushed on with the next tag! Our theme was the seaside and it could be interpreted in any way and in any medium. Although we had the tag base we could use anything as long as the size was consistent. We also agreed that we'd blog today so please take a look at their blogs to read their take on things.

The first tag was 'On the Pier' and knowing my penchant for maps Chrissie cleverly used a street map of Brighton with those wonderful diamante beads twinkling like lights along the promenade. Cathy went back into her memory box and used a photo of her Dad. If you enlarge the photo you can see how she cleverly stitched lines into the tag. All the components she chose were just right.

Then we moved down the promenade a bit to get 'On the Beach'. Cathy managed to capture the essence of it and Chrissie remembered my desire to get to the Quilts exhibition at the V&A and tailored her approach accordingly. There are also other things on the rear of some of these tags but I couldn't work out how to take the photos to show everything!

I think a favourite one for all of us was then our 'seaside memories'. Chrissie went back to a time in Singapore and used precious memorabilia from her youth. What you can't see is the airmail envelope on the reverse . It contains a typed letter from Chrissie on tissue paper. It was stunning. So too was Cathy's tag. Every time I recieved one I'd be saying to myself 'how on earth have they done that!?' The little camper van is a work of art and it is just so perfect. One of my favourites of the whole project without doubt.

The final theme was 'our favourite resort'. Cathy chose somewhere close to my heart. Weston-super-Mare was the seaside place closest to home and I just love donkeys whereas Chrissie chose the balmy Mediterranean for her focus. Both of them so different and, as ever, using very different techniques. That papercutting took patience and a steady hand!

One of the things that cropped up time and again during this process was the number of times we all had similar ideas. That was quite uncanny yet probably showed more than anything that we were kindred spirits and absolutely the right people in the right place at the right time.

I have had a wonderful couple of months doing this. Our friendship is now firmly cemented as we've held each other's hands through the weeks. These two are very special people for me. The excitement of receiving their work in the post has been tremendous. I would love to do it again or at least something similar. This time we wondered if anyone else would like to join in? Let us know in your comments to any of our posts. It probably won't happen for a month or two as we need to re-charge our batteries and finish other outstanding projects but we're up for a challenge. How about you?