12 Tags – tag 6 and 7!

Caught up now – tag 6 and 7 are here.  As with most of the rest I didn’t have “the stuff” but made a reasonable facsimile.  Tag 6 uses silhouette cut out for the reindeer, a bit of twisted starry garland for the wreath, another Miss Cutie Pie ticket and some ribbon.  I dragged out an old snowflake charm and a star.

Tag 7 uses embossed felt for the poinsettia.  I realize I forgot to add the little dangling bits and the ribbon.  I’ll get to that tomorrow, I guess. I’m sure I have a big button that would look good in the middle but I can’t find it at the moment.  I DID have the wood print texture fade, so that was nice.

Time is short, so not sure when I’ll get to the rest of them but I will!

Tag catch-up – Tags 4 and 5

I was out at a crop on Saturday and busy setting up the tree on Sunday so I am only now getting a chance to catch-up on the Tags from the last few days.  So far I’ve managed 4 and 5.

Tag 4 – this one is totally different as I had none of the supplies.  I used an image from The Graphics Fairy that is so cute – it’s way more “vintage” than Tim’s version but I like it a lot:

Tag 5 is closer to the original, except I used a santa stamp and holly stamp that I had in my stash.  I like this one too, although I am thinking I will colour the hat red, and maybe add some of the sparkly stuff to the beard .  I really need to make note of the techniques that I didn’t get a chance to try and go back and do them at a later date.  Now I have to have a look at tag 6 and see how I can manage it without the embossing folder and the reindeer – or anything that is even remotely similar.

 

12 tags – Tag three!

I won’t bore you with the mess on my desk, but here is Tag three:

Again, I didnt;t have all the stuff but managed one that looks pretty much like the sample.

I didn’t have the right tree stamp, so used the Stampotique one.  The branch is really too thin, but it more or less works.

The little tickets are Miss Cutie Pie again.  I really like them but it was tough to find on of the right orientation.  I used two for more weight. No tinsel, so I used a bit of ric rak with some gathered ribbon behind, for the dimension.  I always ass a bead to the end of stick pins – although the colours are red and green, not sure blood would be a welcome addition to the design! The flower is tissue paper sort of pinched and stuck around the edge of a circle, with some strips scrunched across the middle.  The big bead is Basic Grey.  No bird, so I just googled “bird silhouettes” and picked one, printed it and cut it out of music sheet paper stuck to heavy cardstock.  I cut the wing to sort of the right shape and stuck it on. None of that green stuff, so I tied a little bundle of yarn, frayed out the ends, and stuck that on.  No spatter stamp, so this one is actually an old scenic stamp of little flowers (although they are very indistinct so you can’t really tell that from looking at them.

I do like that tree stamp so it may make it on to a shopping list at some point. I like this one better than yesterdays!

Nw, I have to prepare for a crop tomorrow and get ready to go to Reading to see DD in a performance at the Town Hall! Where does the time go?

 

12 Tags – Tag Two!

So far so good – but this was a struggle.  I had virtually none of the things I needed.  I don’t own a single re-inker, don’t have the pine cone sprig (although I do love it) and no metal charms even vaguely appropriate.  No sheet music stamp, no baubles, no big Holiday Sentiment, no Cutn’Dry felt … Not even any manila tags or folders.  I’ve looked in the UK Staples and not found them.  I may have a few out in a box in the garage but finding it would be a challenge.

So first, a look at my desk when I woke up – after the Tag One experience:

Scary, I know.

Then, after a quick tidy, with supplies amassed ready for Tag Two!

Finally Tag Two done!

That is perhaps cropped a bit to closely, but hey ho.

OK – first, the tag is white card, not manila.  I mixed the inks on the stamp, a pine tree that I then embossed. The edges were smudged with Weathered Wood and Stormy Skye then misted with bronze Radiant Rain – I don’t have a gold and I didn’t really feel like mixing one up.  Can’t really see it in this photo but I’ll do an angle shot in a minute.  That should also catch the stamp on the edge – the coat-with-Versamark-spritz-with-water-and-stamp trick from Tim’s book – that replaces the frame stamp and sheet music one. It’s that Fancy Pants one with the frond of hearts that I have used A LOT.  The Sentiment is from a font you can get here – it looks like an old fashioned woodcut to me. I just printed it, attached the tag, and printed again.  The glimmer mist shows thru the ink so I think I might mask off the area if I did it again.

Not very clear but you can just about see the glimmer and the stamp.  The little JOYFUL ribbon slide was silver – I coated it with Krylon gold metallic marker.  I did have some small Jingle Bells from an old broken pair of earings that I added to the ribbon and ric rac.

So there you have it.  Tag Two with almost nothing from the supply list except Distress ink (even the craft mat is a teflon baking sheet from the £1 shop, & the mister is from Muji, LOL!)  It IS possible to make something a bit like the original from stuff on hand so I am encouraged, two tags in, that it’s possible to make the set.

Now, to clean up, again!

 

Tim’s Tags – day one

Well, my tag looks very little like Tim’s tag, but it may be a distant branch of the same tree.

I cleaned my desk to get ready. If you look back to the WOYWW post you will see how significant this is!

I haven’t taken a photo of my desk at the end, but will do so in the AM. Here’s the tag:

Let’s see – the house is from Dan99 – one of his cut-files.  Pretty sure you can get  them from a link on his blog, although mine has been resized to fit.

The little ticket is from Miss Cutie Pie – she does adorable ticket sheets to download and print.  You can’t see it in the photo but it’s curled like Tim’s!

The fence is Stampotique, the wreath is a stamp from a Papercraft Inspirations cover gift, and the “tree” is twisted paper bag.  I don;t think my snow fluff is the same as it’s more clear than white, and I have no idea where I got it (a GoGo kit maybe?  it’s a small unmarked pot)

I used both the lined embossing folder and a tree bark one to cover the house – no grunge paper so just plain old back-of-a-tablet piece of cardboard.

My tag is also way more blue, which is fine, although the warm “glow” (as if from a roaring fire) thru the window looks a bit greenish.  I think I might try to slip a bit of white card behind the window to back it.

The snow drifts are just curves of cardstock, with a little bit of Tumbled Glass on the edge and the snowy glitter. Thank goodness PST is a good 8 hours behind us in the UK, so I’ll have time to take a photo and then tidy up before Tag 2!

 

 

WOYWW 1 December 2010

Well, given the snow and the darker days, I made an effort to snap my workdesk yesterday, in the midst of making my warm-up tag for the debut TODAY of Tim Holtz’ 12 Tags of Christmas.  I have to say I am looking forward to a little bit of time each day to make a tag – with everything else that is going on, it’ll be nice to know I have a small creative goal to focus on when I look up from the “business” part of my desk. Be sure to pop to Julia’s blog and see what everyone else is up to today, and every Wednesday.

I have two shots today.  The first is my desktop:

A bit of a mess, as usual.  It’s a wonder I get anything done at all.  The next is taken from the door, and is perhaps a truer indication of the chaos I create in:

For an even truer indication I really should have stepped further back so you can see the disaster that s the floor! But this is enough “truth” for the day. I’ll probably pop a new post on later in the day with my tag, if I manage it, and if I don’t I’ll hope to add it tomorrow.  I am determined.  I am resolved.  I WILL make, if not all than at least the majority, of the tags this year.  It’s only 12.  I can do it!  Who’s with me?

 

 

12 Tags of christmas warm-up

It’s that time again!  Every year Tim Holtz does his 12 Tags of Christmas – you can see a short intro video here and there are links to the last three 12-tags posts for 2007, 2008 and 2009 in the sidebar.  This morning I reviewed the last two years (and saved them as PDFs for future reference – be warned that uncompressed the PDF was over 100 mb (!) and even compressed it is approaching 25 mb.  I know how to save it on a Mac just by clicking PRINT then Save as PDF but no idea how to do this on a PC.  I’ve heard you can do it using Tiny PDF but can’t vouch for it) and decided to do a “warm-up” tag to get ready.  I haven’t done the whole 12-tag thing in the past, although I have used some of the techniques seen in the tags at various times.  I dragged out A LOT of stuff and basically made  huge mess.

In the end, this is what I came up with:

The holly sprig is an old stamp, bought at least 5 years ago, from The Angel Company, I think, and it was still unmounted, in it’s little plastic box.  I stamped it, coloured it with Copics, then spritzed on some Cosmic Shimmer.  I squirted a bit of the shimmer mist into a little dish and painted it on the berries, just on the shadow part.

You can’t really see it there but hopefully this angle shows the shimmer better:

The words are also a stamp – I think I bought that at least 10 years ago, from a book club I was a member of, and there is no info on the stamp itself as to who makes it.  The frame stamp is one of Tim’s, and it’s stamped and embossed with Distress embossing powder.  The tag is smudged with Antique Linen and Brushed Corduroy.  All in all, a bit of fun, and it got my creative pump primed for tomorrow!

For me, the challenge with the previous 12 Tags sets was that I didn’t have much of the product.  This year I do have a bit, and enough of alternative product that I hope I can have a go at the tags using the TECHNIQUES even if I have to use different stuff and different stamps.  I have to say it was a real struggle to find anything even remotely “christmas-y” in my stash, so I know it’ going to be an interesting ride.  But that makes t a challenge, and I love a challenge so lets see how far I get.