12 Tags for Christmas 2018 - No. 6 & 7

I'm doing a look-back to Christmas tags of the past (see previous post) and this one was inspired by a crackling technique Tim demonstrated on one of his early tags.

I was probably listening to the Nutcracker Ballet when I thought of the design 😏 and, with a very limited amount of crafting supplies back then, I found a pattern for the ballerina and cut her out of card stock by hand.

The background stamp is the classic Tim Holtz Flourish and I may have hand-drawn the numerals. The snowflake sequins were dabbled with paint and glitter and a ribbon was used for the ballerina's tutu.

I am sharing this next tag for a remarkable feature that looks excellent in person but impossible to capture in a photo. Let me explain.

Santa's face is a clip-art photo that was printed onto a transparency (used with an overhead projector in the "old days" for business meetings). Then I placed the image in front of a sheet of metallic silver paper before I set it into the frame.

The effect is truly astonishing and the image takes on a vintage quality similar to that of mercury glass. It's hard to describe but I highly recommend trying this technique so you can see what I mean.

I'm linking this post to Simon's Monday Challenge Blog ("B is for Ballerina").

12 Tags for Christmas 2018 - No. 4 & 5

I started making tags when I discovered Tim Holtz and his blog at the beginning of December 2009 and got caught up in his daily posts for the 12 Tags of Christmas.

I had little experience stamping, didn't know about Distress inks, and his tutorials were very detailed and very helpful. I was mesmerized and I was hooked.

Tim has kept links to these posts on the sidebar of his blog and I recommend them to paper crafting beginners as a learning tool--they are so much fun!

I've decided to share a few of the tags I made during this period (before Beulah Bee) because I'm a little short on time this year and won't be able to complete all 12 new ones.

This one shows my penchant for paper-cutting even back then but before I learned to tint the cut paper edges with a darker shade of ink (so they would blend in better). Scraps of pages from an old German bible were pasted on the background.

I used the same image on this tag (photocopied from a vintage greeting card that belonged to my Great Aunt Esther) and embellished it with a stamp embossed frame using antique gold powder.

The background is Tim Holtz kraft card stock and the tiny stars were recycled from a store-bought card and tinted with alcohol ink.

I could never have imagined back in 2009 that this year I'd be short on time making tags because of working on projects for Tim's Idea-ology booth at the January 2019 Creativation trade show!

What a journey (thanks, Tim)!

There are links in the sidebar to my Creativation/CHA projects or Christmas tags from past years.

12 Tags for Christmas 2018 - No. 3

I've used another Penny Black stamp called Tree of Holly for this tag and I'm linking to their Creative Christmas Challenge and also to Simon's Monday Challenge for the "Let It Snow" theme.

I used embossing ink and silver powder for stamping then filled in the tree with the juiciest, most powerful purple in my arsenal of crafting supplies--Seedless Preserves Distress Stain.

I filled in the holly and berries with paint and glitter, added more bling to the border and placed a Christmas Remnant Rub from a few years back along the bottom.

The snow was made with texture paste and a stencil by Simon Says Stamp called Falling Snow.

To see more of my Christmas tags you can click on the label at the bottom of this post or use the link I've placed in the sidebar.