First Tag of the Year

Yes, it has been awhile since my last post.  Last month turned out to be very busy; with the holidays, family, work, and a few projects for the Tim Holtz CHA booth (I know, how cool is that!).  With CHA even earlier this year, the projects need to be done and sent away before the end of December.  I always seem to push it to the last moment, and no matter how I send my stuff, it never gets there in the time it should.  It  always amazes me why a 3 day Xpress package goes east to Chicago from here and then back west to California, taking eight days.  Well, enough of my ranting, hope all of you had a great Christmas and New Year's.  I've been suffering with a terrible cold and flu since New Year's, so being stuck at home has given me a chance to do some scrapbooking without deadline anxiety!

As I was packing away my Christmas decorations, I started thinking about this box I had altered years ago.

I covered a wood box that looked like a present, with patterned paper.  Remember when printed acrylic sheets were so popular?  I loved this one with snowflakes, not sure what company, Fancy Pants, maybe?  Anyways, I love the look of see-through dimensional layers, and cut out the snowflakes, layering them with thin wire.

I had added in a bit of alcohol ink in the turquoise colour.  I really like this look and decided to make a tag with the light layers of snowflakes.

I am really addicted to Tim Holtz Distress Stain Sprays right now, especially the combination of Brushed Pewter, Picket Fence and another colour.  I was in a spray frenzy with my last Tim Holtz project using Iced Spruce, but I wanted to do a colour I don't use a lot.

So, this time after I embossed my tag with Sizzix's Tim Holtz Snowfall Embossing folder, I sprayed my combo of pewter, white and this time, Shaded Lilac.  I should mention that with this embossing folder, it's heavier on one end with texture and almost nothing on the other end, so I embossed each end of my tag separately.  After my sprayed tag was dry, I lightly sanded the raised parts and went over lightly with Distress Picket Fence paint.

The foil snowflakes are die-cut from Ranger's metal foil tape adhesive sheets and Sizzix's Tim Holtz Paper Snowflakes thinlit die set.  I coloured the foil with Alcohol Inks and directly applied some of the flakes to my tag, and one to an acrylic snowflake. The acrylic snowflakes are die-cut with Bazzill acrylic and Sizzix's Tim Holtz Stacked Snowflake Bigz Die.  This acrylic is discontinued but is now made under the American Craft's label.  It's thin, but not enough thin enough to use with the thinlits, or thin dies.  I alcohol inked these too and added a few white rub-ons from Tim Holtz Christmastime Rub-ons.  I just poked a hole through the center and strung my snowflakes with very thin wire and leaving a bit of space in-between.  To finish off my tag I dyed some white crinoline type fabric with alcohol ink.  When dying ribbon, I usually put my colorant in a small ziplock bag with my ribbon, seal it and squish it around.  Less mess on my hands!  For the tinsel type thread, I took a piece of Tim Holtz Silver Tinsel Twine and pulled the end of the thread.  Kind of like pulling a piece of crochet.  If you're lucky it will unravel right away, but if not, just pick at the loops to get it started.  I didn't want the tinsel to be as thick and it worked out perfectly!  I also dyed it with alcohol ink (I think it was a combination of Pink Sherbert, Sailboat Blue, and Wild Plum) just using a couple of drops of each colour.  I almost forgot, I added a border on the bottom of my tag using Tim's Industrious Border stickers.

And that is my first tag of 2015!  I love doing tags, it gives my an opportunity to experiment with product and not have to commit to a large project.

I don't know if any of you have been checking out Tim Holtz's blog, but the new products are amazing!  

I think I gasped when I saw those small metal frames and the Sizzix word die-cuts in my cha package!

That's all for today, have fun checking out all the sneak peeks for CHA!  It starts on Saturday and I know that Urban Scrapbook is going to try and post photos daily.

Thanks for stopping by,

Jan