12 Tags for Christmas - February

As promised in my last post, I'll be sharing holiday versions of Tim’s monthly tags for 2015 and today features the February tag which focused on creating a collage with ephemera.

I used Distress Stickles since they are less sparkly than regular Stickles and compliment the well-worn look of this collage technique. The star cut-outs are from his Correspondence paper.

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Look closely, and you see red paint (applied with a tiny paint brush) that highlight the bric-a-brac on the Industrious Sticker frame.

In closing, I must say I was surprised and pleased to receive comments on my first tag in this series, thank you--I appreciate your support!

12 Tags for Christmas - January

I used some time-off during the last two weeks of November to make holiday versions of Tim’s monthly tags for 2015 which I'll use to embellish my Christmas gifts this year.

It was a great excuse to break out the glitter, get in the spirit of the season, reminisce over each month’s theme and give some great techniques another try.

While I might have wished for an unlimited craft stash, instead I embraced the process and pleasure of creating and just used what I had on-hand.

To share my experience and some new discoveries, I’ll be posting the rest of them over the next few days and perhaps they'll inspire and motivate your own holiday crafting this year.

And so, I begin with January which featured letters and numbers:

Do you remember the pre-cut grunge board parts and pieces Tim designed before his partnership with Sizzix? Well that’s what I used to make the letters spelling TWENTY. Just painted, they looked kind of blah until I outlined them and added some glitter.

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The big number 5 was hand-drawn, cut-out and filled with Crackle Accents.

My favorite technique/design element on this tag is the border.

Made with an outline of black ink, it was dotted over with white Scribbles spacing the dots just far enough apart to give it a checkered appearance.

Well, I hope you’ll return for the rest of my Christmas tag postings in the coming days and if you'd like to see a preview there's a link to them on the sidebar.

Choose Joy

I made this card for a teacher who inspired me with a quote recently read in class (just the right words for the way I was feeling that day) and I'm linking it to Jennifer McGuire's Share Handmade Kindness challenge post.

Made with Wallflower vellum, stamped fabric using a hand-carved butterfly and a background stamp by Inkadinkado, it was embellished with machine stitching and Ranger's Liquid Pearls. The text is a Remnant Rub mounted onto a painted Grungeboard scrap.

On the inside, I typed the following quote:

"Choose joy. Then cherish and savor it.

Joy is not a fleeting emotion based on outward circumstances, a transitory feeling of the moment, a reaction to the scenery around you. It comes from within your heart like the waterfall that rushes out the side of a mountain. Joy is a runoff from the wellspring within you. And sometimes it is a delightful, surprising contrast to the scenery around you.

Embrace joy. Relish it. Even if those around you don't have it right now, you can feel your joy. You don't have to be disrespectful of their feelings, nor do you have to let their lack of joy diminish yours.

You have done your work. You have chosen to open your heart. Now you have your reward.

Cherish joy. It's your treasure. You've found it. You've earned it. It's yours."

-Melody Beattie

I'm also linking this to Simon's Monday blog challenge this week. The theme is Create Something Beginning with the Letter N (I used a needle) and it turns out that stitching is an excellent way to anchor vellum to cardstock. My thanks to the inspiration provided by Andrea Ockey Parr which gave me the idea to use fabric on my card.