I wouldn't normally gift something with photos of myself but over Christmas we visited an elderly friend who we hadn't seen in a year. She had said on the phone how much she missed me since we moved to France so, as I know she uses a calendar and being stuck for other ideas, I used this Basic Grey calendar kit to create her gift with photos of me with my husband and/or son.
Here are the last of the tags, following the tags of Tim Holtz, that I created at the end of last year: Tags 7, 8 and a mix of 9 & 12. These formed the basis of a second workshop to share the techniques and materials created and shared originally by Tim and others.
The third tag shown here takes inspiration from Tim's tag #12 for the background and tag #9's background 'double embossed technique' for my bauble.
OK, I'm on a roll now! I've actually finished tag 7 too but haven't got the light to photograph that one and I've got to prepare the studio table for tonight's scrap class!
Materials: both tags: Sizzix 'Tag and Bookplates' die; for tag 5: Sizzix 'Festive greenery' die; adirondack alcohol inks: watermelon, terracotta, sunset orange; plastic packaging; white card, ribbon and pearls.
For this tag I used Tim's Christmas background embossing folder and inked over the raised words with different colours of Distress before giving it a good coat of Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls Mist. To get the different directions, I embossed the top part of the tag sideways then lined up the bottom half of the tag with the edge of the plates so it only embossed that bottom section and didn't put pressure on the part already embossed. After that, a little arrangement of leaves from the Sizzix Strip die 'Festive Greenery' with some red bling for the holly berries, ribbon coloured with frayed burlap and some twine with a bell and I was finished! 
My second tag uses Tim's Christmas Memories kraft resist paper, Picket Fence Distress Stain, Distress Inks, Tattered Banners die, Pine Tree die, Ornate edge die, Trinket Pin, Muse Token and Grungeboard along with Sepia Archival Ink, Sticky-back canvas mounted on card, brads, PaperArtsy Old Gold paint, ribbon, jute, twine and my own home designed and produced stamp! Tags 3 and 4 are already done so I'll be back with those tomorrow I hope...
Despite my lack of blogging for a while, I've been doing LOTS of crafting and that's included lots of metal work. I promise I will catch up on projects over the next few weeks but, for now, here are a few pieces made using foil on card coloured with alcohol inks. The ornaments were embossed before being coloured and are my entry for Grungy Monday #28 taking inspiration from Tim Holtz beautiful foil covered pumpkin. My ornaments follow the same technique except that I put the foil on to card before embossing it and used a blending tool to apply the alcohol inks.
All of my foil pieces are backed on to the same shimmery green card that I cut the letters from so they are pretty from the back too. For extra shimmer I also covered these letters in Crystal Ice Stickles. I am busy making cards and other bits for a charity sale (le téléthon) next Saturday so these will get added to the mix, hopefully with a few others as they are quick and easy to do.
Here's another holiday snap (only another few hundred to go - lol!) scrapbooked with some handmade flowers so I thought I'd share the technique too: I started off by tying some thread through one seed bead, then threading on 5 more and taking the thread back through the first bead. Repeat this 4 more times (for a total of 5 petals), always threading back through the first seed bead, then tie off the thread. If you want bigger, more open flowers you can simply add more beads to each petal. Using thin wire as the thread is another good option. I've used the flowers here as the centres to paper flowers which I've inked a little with some Wild Honey Distress Ink.
