The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 7

A Tale of Two Sticky Back Canvas Flowers

The focal point of Tim's Day 7 tag is a very beautiful poinsettia that he made from Claudine Hellmuth's sticky back canvas.  Beautiful AND labor intensive.  Made even more so for me by a broken hot glue gun.  Oh, this would have gone so much faster with that tool.  But enough whining.

The real star of this tag, though, for me, technique junkie that I am, is what Tim did with his embossing folder.  He inked the folder itself (the side that would be considered the bottom or back), placed the tag in face down and embossed.  What happens is, the color of the ink winds up in the debossed areas instead of the raised areas.  So then you can swipe some color on those parts without affecting the first color.   Clear as mud?   Please visit Tim's blog for the details.  (Actually there is a YouTube video on Tim's blog post from yesterday that explains this technique).

I did make the poinsettia for my Tim tag; I couldn't resist.  There will be something else, however, on my Wendy tag. (If this is your first visit, here, well WELCOME, and to explain, some of we Wendy Vecchi fans are attempting to not only do a Tim tag each day, but also using Tim's techniques as a jumping off point, we're creating tags using the stamps and style of  Wendy ).

So, here is my version:



Tim used his woodgrain folder.  I chose a Cuttlebug folder called holly ribbons.  I inked it with fired brick, which created the red background, and after embossing, used the blending tool to get the pine needles on the raised areas.  Pretty cool, huh?

Tim applied rock candy distress stickles all over his embossed background.  That's great to do when you want to blend the colors you've used, as the stickles will reactivate the inks and move them around.  Not such a good idea if you want to keep the colors separate, as I did, so I eliminated that step.

As I complained mentioned before, no hot glue gun, so I used glossy accents to adhere my poinsettia leaves.  It works, of course, but not nearly as quickly and efficiently as hot glue would have.  I also wound up positioning the flower a bit too high on the tag, so instead of attaching anything to the top, I hung my type charm from a little length of chain in the middle. 

The grungeboard word I  used is different, and I colored my flourishes differently as well. 

My opinion:  the poinsettia is a little cock-eyed but all in all, I'm happy with the tag.

My Wendy version:

Yikes!  My color is a little off.  The word JOY sure looks purple.  It isn't.  It was inked with aged mahogany, so it's really a reddish brown.

The embossing folder I chose here is from Stampin' Up and is called petals-a-plenty.  I've always liked this folder for Christmas projects;  though I'm sure it wasn't meant to be a holiday folder, to me, the flowers resemble little poinsettias, especially if colored the right way.   I inked the folder with worn lipstick, then after embossing, applied peeled paint to the raised areas.

Tim's tattered florals die was used again, but instead of making a poinsettia (once was really enough without a working hot glue gun), I stamped the pieces with some of Wendy's background stamps, curled the petals and put them all together to create the flower (and I used the leftover flower from the Tim tag).
Wendy's stamps were also used on the leaves and flourishes.

Seven down, five to go.  And enough new techniques to last for a good long time.  Thanks,Tim!