12 Tags of Christmas-Believe

Hello everybody!

Thanks to Pamellia, I heard about the party going on over at Stamping At Loll's  where Loll  is inviting us to make a Christmas tag in a mixed media style. Here's my last minute entry.

I used a Ranger #8 manilla tag, to which I applied three coats of gesso, drying between coats, pouncing the brush at the bottom to get some snowy texture.  I swiped my brand new Blueprint Sketch Distress ink pad on my craft sheet and spritzed with water until I got a good puddle, then dragged my tag through it.  I dried and repeated, then blended Blueprint and Tumbled Glass inks on with blending tool.  Before it dried I spritzed with water and dried with my heat tool.  There were some barely visible droplets left on the mat, so I flipped my tag over into that to get a little more visual texture.

I inked up a Tim Holtz image from his Merry Christmas set with Archival ink in Watering Can and rolled the stamp on the background to get a faded look to the trees. While they were still wet, I sprinkled on Frantage and heated from below to get the snowy look.

I die cut plain white card using my not so new, but never used Tim Holtz Woodlands Thinlits die. I dabbed the branches with Ranger's Embossing Dabber and sprinkled with Frantage, again heating from below to melt the powder.

The Ideaology Mirrored Star was dabbed with Snow Cap Mixative, and then lightly dabbed around the edges with Black Soot Distress paint.

The sentiment is from Tim Holtz Mini Handwritten Holidays set, inked with Archival, Watering Can, then embossed with Ranger silver Embossing Tinsel.

I hand died Crinkle Ribbon using Blueprint Sketch ink, and the grey seam binding is vintage from my stash. I dabbed on a little texture paste for "snow". The star and tree were adhered using Glossy Accents.

Here's one more look at my Christmas tag. As I was making it, I was remembering winters when I was a child and lived up north.  We used to get such wonderful snowstorms.  I'm sure it was hard work for my father, who was a dairy farmer. But for me as a kid, it was beautiful, and the pine forests were a magical place to be with the snowflakes floating down and resting on their boughs!

I would like to enter this into the following inspiring challenges:

-Stamping With Loll 12 Tags of Christmas

-Country View Challenges November # 33 The Colour Blue

Mixed Media World MMW # 9 Anything Goes

-Use Your Stuff Challenge #200 and a Blog Hop Celebrate I am celebrating Christ's birth with my Christmas tag! Thanks for inspiring me to use my old stuff:  mirrored stars, stamp image and sentiment, vintage seam binding, frantage.

Stamps and Stencils Remember, Remember See my text for my memories!

Natalie and Amy's Challenge # 38 Winter Scenes

-Paper Take Weekly Let It Snow

-Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge Tags

-Happy Little Stampers Mixed Media Challenge Tag

-Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Christmas

Thank you for stopping by today and for all your lovely comments! You are so inspiring! Hugs and Blessings!

Sara Emily

UPDATE:  Honored to be chosen for Christmas and Mixed Media challenges