vellum : noun

Modern imitation or "paper vellum" is made from plasticized cotton

and a little history of vellum:

Vellum (from the Old french Vélin, for "calfskin")^[1] is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used. The manufacture involves the cleaning, bleaching, stretching on a frame, and scraping of the skin with a hemispherical knife. To create tension, scraping is alternated with wetting and drying. A final finish may be achieved by abrading the surface with pumice, and treating with a preparation of lime or chalk to make it accept writing or printing ink

Helmars V2 Spray, Ranger Candy Crackle and vellum, those are the 3 products that I used to make my circle element on my seahorse tag:

Since I had a lot of questions and comments  on this tag yesterday, I thought I would share with you how I created this pretty element.

First off, I keep an old Cricut mat as my spraying board for the V2. Since it stays sticky from any over spray it does an awesome job holding down light weight pieces to be sprayed. So, first I cut my shape and sprayed it with the V2 and adhered it to the tag. V2 is awesome as it will hold down your shape without making the vellum curl or warp.

( I am making a new tag, so please forgive the new shape :)

Next, tear strips of vellum. Keep in mind when tearing that your water strips all need to be horizontal so that it emulates the waves of the ocean. I laid all the strips upside down on the cricut mat and sprayed them. Then layered them onto the vellum shape. On the circle, I had to trim the edges to fit the circle shape, a rectangle is much easier to follow.

After they are all assembled, I then layered the Candy Crackle on top.

 Now keep in mind that you will have to repeatedly check on your vellum while the crackle is drying since it is a heavy wet layer, the vellum will curl up dring this process.

I simply wet the tip of my finger ( ok, so I lick it, ssshhhhh ) and press down any edges that curl up or lift away.

And there you have it, trim it out as desired. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will answer them as soon as I can.

and a just so you know note:

I usually don't have a plan when creating something, it just flows and this is one of those times. I did make some adjustments as you can tell, like adding the solid paper for the sky. I did discover that you can simply lift the edges to the vellum while it is still wet from the crackle, to slide in the paper and then press the vellum back down...whew..right? I also free hand cut the mermaid from one of the books pages and then inked her and added a small rhinestone to her tail. The clouds are doodled...some fancier people call them zentangles, but I've done this type of doodling for a long time, and to me it's just doodling, lol

green ribbon - Really Reasonable Ribbon

blue ribbon and paper - from stash

white pen - Reminisce

vellum - NRN

letters- Sandy Lion

Helmars V2 Spray

Rangers Distress Candy Crackle, Liquid Pearls