#wolf electric

The Last 90 Days | Villanueva (formerly known as Wolf Electric)

One of my closest friends sent me some of his bands new tracks the other day, this is my favorite from his unreleased EP. It's absolutely amazing, his voice and his lyrics speak to my soul and take me to a new place. If you live in Alaska, you may recognize the frontman from his former band, Wolf Electric. 

Let go of all distractions, hit play, close your eyes and just listen. 

I made tags for Wolf Electric's band t-shirts for when they opened for Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros this month. You could use a similar method to make gift tags. I took manilla shipping tags and made them appear aged/textured through a process of coffee staining and baking. I finished them by stamping them with the band's name, image from their C.D., and Facebook url. 

Materials

manilla shipping tags

coffee

cookie sheets

self inking customizable address stamp

decorative stamp

ink pad 

safety pins 

Pre-heat your oven to 200-225 degrees. While the oven is pre-heating brew a pot of coffee, the stronger the coffee the darker the color the tags will take on. 

These are the plain old shipping tags. 

When the coffee is done brewing pour it into a container that will allow enough room to soak the tags, I used a glass casserole dish. Make sure the tags are completely submerged. Let the tags soak for 20-30 minutes. If you're using tags that are smaller then standard sized shipping tags, or aren't manilla, be cautious of the how soggy your paper is getting. The manilla tags wear extremely well in the 20-30 minutes soaking time. Also, don't worry if you're tags are overlapping, or if coffee grounds got into the coffee, it'll just make for a more interesting texture.

  After your tags are done soaking lay them out on a cookie sheet, making sure there is no excess liquid on the pan. Place them in the oven and bake for 3-5 minutes. Be sure to keep an eye on them, but you can leave them in their for up to 7 minutes. With the longer baking time they will have a few dark marks and appear a little burned, but it can create a cool effect depending on your project. I did a few at different time ranges to diversify, because I was making a bout 150 tags. If you do leave them, be cautious of any time over 7 minutes, you don't want them to catch on fire. 

After the tags are done baking lay them out to dry on a flat surface.

I waited about two hours before stamping, because I was in a hurry to finish the tags, but if you want them bone dry it's probably best to wait over night. To create the stamp with the band's information I used a self inking customizable address stamp from an office supply store. 

   After I stamped the text, I added the pocket watch symbol, that's on Wolf Electric's C.D., in gold ink. Next, I tied the twine on the tag together and attached a safety pin in order to fasten the tags to the shirts. if you're using the tags as gift tags skip this step, and leave leave the twine open until you're ready to fasten it to something. You could stamp these tags with pretty much anything, I might make some "handmade by", or holiday gift tags eventually. If you don't wait for the tags to be completely dry before you stamp them the ink will bleed, if that isn't what you're going for wait for them to dry over night.