Tag Two for Funkie Junkie Twelve Tags!

For my second tag, I was inspired by Linda's little gold stars in her second tag of the Twelve Tags of Christmas challenge she sponsors through her wonderful shop, The Funkie Junkie Boutique.  I had used something like this on the second of three pieces I made recently, and as I really loved the effect I decided to go down that path once again!

Not sure what I would actually be doing, per usual, I decided to use the wrinkle free distress technique with one of Linda's #10 tags, using Picket Fence, Antique Linen and just a touch of Hickory Smoke Distress Paints....these will act to protect the tag in case I want to throw a lot of wet media at it.  I didn't end up doing so, and the paint actually made the eventual stamping a bit more messy - but I still like the end result.

Here is my inspiration photo.... taken at my brother's farm back in March from his front yard - no stars, but I have seen them with such a sky at a different time of year!

I started by swiping Stormy Skies, Mustard Seed and Worn Lipstick on my craft mat, and spraying generously with water before laying my tag down into this mix.  I didn't swipe the tag around, as I wanted the colors to stay in bands, but still blend a bit due to the water.

Once that was done and dry, I sponged in some Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink along the top edge and right corners..... and added a bit of Picket Fence Distress Pain along the bottom third, to create the base for my snow....

Next, I stamped, and stamped off, using Watering Can Archival Ink, with a couple of the individual stamps from the Tim Holtz "Treeline" set, which also has some fabulous panorama stamps with these trees.  As you can see, my underlying paint caused some ghosting and wobbly stamping...but it all adds to the scenic snowy look, lol! The faded look is a bit enhanced because I used a lighter ink than the usual black.

Then I previewed some Tim Holtz die cut trees for the foreground.... I had thought the fuller tree on the right would be my choice, but given the look of the trees in the background, I went with the one on the left.

I cut the tree out of black cardstock.  I wanted to give the tree a more organic look than the silhouette, so I coated it with Picket Fence Distress Paint, spritzing it with water after applying the paint.  Once it dried, the paint had absorbed largely into the paper, but leaving some lighter splotches where the paint was thicker.  I don't have a picture of this, but it pretty much looked like the original, except for scant areas of very faint grey.

 So I dabbed it with Forest Moss Distress Paint, which gave it a bit more of a forest feeling. The picture doesn't do it justice - adding this darker green really called the tree out as a tree.

So, onto the little stars that inspired this tag...using Wendy Vecchi's gold texture paste, I swiped through a stencil.

Then I attached the tree using matte medium through my fine tip bottle, and adding a few more stars with the Wendy Vecchi gold paste.  I taped the tag down with removable tape as it was curling a bit, which would interfere with the additional stenciling of the sentiment.

Ah, the sentiment. As I have done before, I fussed about this a bit - well - a lot.  It took me three days looking at all my stamps, and my dies and thinking what to do.  And finally I decided that using the "leftover" from cutting the word "Believe" from the Tim Holtz Handwritten Holiday Words dies would give me the look I wanted.  I love what happened when I used this "stencil" with the Wendy Vecchi gold paste to match the stars.

Now to another fussy bit.  I wanted to put snow on my pine... and tried several methods on trial pieces without success. Alas, my SnowWriter clogged, despite all attempts to clear it with toothpicks.  I didn't trust myself to get a delicate touch with a palette knife using texture paste and glitter, or even with Finnaibair's Snow Paste.... so I ended up using a very small bottle of dimensional white paint, and sprinkling it with Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter.  Not the most beautiful, but it worked.

Next, I added some shadows to the base of the tree, using Black Soot Distress Ink.

Then I added some snow beneath the tree, using the same dimensional white paint, and applying over the shadows, as I knew they would blend in a bit to help keep a shadowed look under the tree.  I applied the Distress Glitter Clear Rock Candy as I had on the other parts of the snow for the tree.

Last, I added a simple bow from seam binding sprayed with Stormy Skies Distress Ink.... and here, at last, is the final tag.  

I truly admire those, like Linda, who can get such beautiful results from an evening.... I hope as I keep doing this, I can approach that goal line!  Meanwhile, I will keep working on my tags for this year....

Thank you so much for stopping by, and if you've time and inclination, please do comment.  I appreciate every one, and love hearing from you!

xxx Lynn