The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 5 (And Something In the Mail)

(I have settled my blog problems -- not Blogger's fault; sorry to have accused it of going nuts and sorry to have cursed at it all day yesterday.  It was Windows' fault!  And now all is good again.)

I loved doing today's tags because two of my favorite techniques were involved.  One, an old favorite, the other new to me and I'm in love with it!

First, my Tim-inspired tag.  I pretty much used all the techniques that he did, but my layout is somewhat different, and I chose a different stamp and color scheme. 

Tim showed us how to get the look of old porcelain on metal letters.  I wanted to continue the snow theme so instead of using the letters, I cut some snowflakes from thin metal and applied that technique to them.

The other cool one was using distress embossing powder on metal.  Tim made a flower on his tag.  Again, wanting to stick to my theme, I used weathered wood on foliage pieces, but put them in the center of my snowflakes so they appear to be part of them.  I think it works.  Of course for specifics, go to Tim's blog (which I find hard to believe you haven't already done.)

I had an immediate brainstorm when it came to my Wendyized tag.  This just tickles me to no end.

Before I inked the art chick I masked off the top part of her head with tape.  (When you do something like that, you have to remember to remove the tape before stamping.  Otherwise it is very very ugly.)  The Santa hat is a stamp I got ages ago from I Brake For Stamps, and holding my breath and squinting a lot, I managed to position it correctly, so it all looks like one stamp.  (OK, I admit to being very impressed with myself on this one.  I stand, I take a bow.)   I painted the brim and pom pom white, and while still wet, applied some white fluff.

The sprigs of berries are actually just branches from the tree on Wendy's Mail Art set.  I used forest moss ink and then put dots of red stickles on the berries.

I thought the metal numerals Tim used would be too large for my piece so I used the stencil type instead, and I do feel the proportion is better.

For my embossed foliage, I used four of the pieces with 2 leaves to make what I like to think looks like a poinsettia.  I embossed them with peeled paint first, then re-embossed the tips only with barn door.  I put a small flower, embossed with peeled paint, in the center and held the whole thing together with a brad, which was also embossed.

I didn't think a sentiment was necessary (and there didn't seem to be any room for one), so I left it out, along with the stylized label and the crackle paint.

Oh, and now that uploading photos is not the impossible chore it was yesterday, I want to show you all what came in the mail Friday.  The box of goodies I won on Wendy's blog, just for leaving a comment (and having the good fortune of having it selected randomly).

I opened the box and looked inside:

  



Yep, a very good week.