Hey bloggy friends! I hope you are having a smashing week! Today is my hubs' birthday so a big shout out to my better half today! Woot Woot! Love you honey! Later tonight we'll be grabbing some dinner together and then on Saturday I think we'll make a trip to San Francisco to celebrate some more. It's raining cats and dogs (and hamsters and everything else) this week. I know we need the rain but this is kind of crazy. Our poor state has been very dry for so long...Now it's coming all at once.
Oh my goodness. How can it be that it's time for the last tag for 2014? You know how much I love making tags for Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2014! I'm kind of sad that here we are at December already. But, I can't be too sad because the inspiration tag for this month is AMAAAAZZZING and really got me in the mood for Christmas and Winter! I had lots of ideas flowing almost immediately and you know I love that Prancing Deer die so much because I already used it on another project last month!
I may have gone overboard with the glitter on this one...but I'll let you decide. Personally I think it's pretty hard to have TOO MUCH glitter!! Especially on frosty Winter tags and cards. I was in the craft cave all day Sunday whipping up this one...
After I dyed my tag, I used the leftover water and ink to dye my ribbon. You can see here that I also added some brown to both the twine and the ribbon. See that star? That is one of the really sparkly Tim Holtz Rhinestone stars... I wanted it frosty so I tried a few different things. First I tried crackle paint which I didn't like. Then, I used the matte medium and coated it in a couple of layers of Rock Candy Distress Glitter. The result - awesome frostiness!
Gosh, I could not love all this Tim Holtz Winter stuff more...sigh... It's so vintage-y Christmas and I cannot get enough! I used Tim's color scheme but then popped in a little red for good measure and to make it my own design. You can see I used most of the same dies as the inspiration tag... Here is a close up of some of my glittery stuff! Oh yes, I did it, I used the Fired Brick Distress Glitter.... POW! Love that red!
The snowflake adornment is silver, and I coated it with picket fence paint and then rubbed it off with my fingers to add a white patina. I attached it to the clip with a jump ring...
Here's a close up of that red glitter! I colored the die cuts with Fired Brick Distress Ink and then added the matching glitter on top. I like how it's not perfect and looks aged. You can also see my pine leaves here. I used two shades of green and then edged them in brown before adding Rock Candy Glitter. (Good thing I have the GIANT size bottle of glitter!)
These are all the dies and some of the supplies in their 'natural' state...
I used a Manila tag, and all my die cuts are cut from the Ranger Watercolor paper.
MMMMMMMM. I put three shades of blue ink down on my craft mat and put down lots of water.... This is how I made the background color on my tag. I really wanted it to look like a dark Winter night sky...
Here is my tag after I ran it through the ink and water mixture, and after it was dry. I flicked paint onto it to mimic snow!! I love how this came out! You can see in the final photo, I edged the entire tag with brown ink and a sponge dauber. Then I added glitter to the corners.
I came up with a cool idea for coloring my deer! I watercolored him first in a few shades of brown ink. Then I dried him with my heat tool. After that I took the Tim Holtz Speckles Stencil and some dark brown ink and I added spots to him! I thought it would make his coat look very natural. I kinda like how this came out.
What do you think?!
Here are my pine leaves in progress....
Okay! After all the inking and coloring, here's what I have! READY for GLITTER! LOL. This is the very best part...assembling everything together! You can see that I ended up only using the word greetings. It seemed like too much going on to use both words...
Here is my tower of ink pads! I used all these colors! I took a white pen and wrote on the side of my ink pads, because I store them in stacks. This way I can find the color I need. It's not fancy, but it works!
My reindeer needed a collar of some sort so I took some twine and a little jingle bell and put them on him. See that glitter!! Did I mention there's glitter? LOL.
I added my greeting in sort of an interesting way. At first I had it flat, but I thought I wanted more dimension, so I took it off. I ended up glueing the two ends down and making an arch out of the word. Guess I'm not mailing this one! For the pine leaves I cut and layered different pieces until I had to look I wanted.
Whew, that was a long post! Thank you for joining me in this creative endeavor! You have all month to enter your own tag. Won't you make one too? I love seeing what everyone makes each month! Until we meet again, have a great day! XOXO
PROJECT SUPPLIES!
*** Gasp! *** stunning!
Posted by: Judy Gudeman | 12/12/2014 at 11:02 AM
Happy Birthday to your hubby. This tag is Fabulous! I love your tutorial. Thank you!
Posted by: Veronica Fairbrother | 12/12/2014 at 06:13 AM
likey your color choices and your deer looks like gingerbread
Posted by: joyce | 12/11/2014 at 03:07 PM
Such a lovely, rustic tag (BTW, you can NEVER have enough glitter at this time of year! LOL). I especially love how you shared your crafty steps/techniques!
Posted by: Susi K | 12/11/2014 at 09:21 AM
Loved how you walked us through step by step. You made it seem so easy I could even make one! (you know, if I had the stuff). I can see why you are so excited by all the glitter. It's fabulous! The whole tag is fabulous!!! Whoo hoo!
Posted by: Princess Judy | 12/11/2014 at 09:21 AM
Great photo essay--I love how you created your winter sky background. I may have to get that prancing deer die.
Posted by: julie | 12/11/2014 at 08:59 AM
Love your tag!
Sally
Posted by: Sally Miller | 12/11/2014 at 08:59 AM
Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE..... Don't forget to tell Mark I said "Happy Birthday!"
Posted by: Chris :) | 12/11/2014 at 07:47 AM
Wanda you are amazing, gorgeous tag my friend. Happy bday to your hubs have a good time tonight!
Posted by: Tracey McNeely | 12/11/2014 at 07:10 AM
Happy Birthday to your husband! And oh what a glorius tag! I am in love with all the colors and techniques! The spots on the deer are so clever! I love the pops of red too!!!! Absolutely stunning! :) Jill
Posted by: Jill Norwood | 12/11/2014 at 04:34 AM
HAPPY Birthday to you Mark!!!
stunningly gorgeous tag Wanda...love it!
I think there is not to much glitter either..just perfect!
Posted by: Holly Saveur | 12/11/2014 at 04:23 AM