My November 2014 Tag - Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2014

I'm playing along with the Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2014.
Here is my version below. I was off to a late start this month so my tag is a mixture of Fall and Christmas!

The Creative process is not an exact science
I had some leaf dies, and some leaf embossing folders but none of them matched up, so I ditched the whole idea and used an embossing folder I had and just cut out the Christmas Tree shape with some scissors. What-ev. It's vintage, eh?

I followed the Tim Holtz technique pretty closely, substituting with whatever I had on hand. Now where did I put all those Christmas embellishments? I used Ranger walnut stain distress spray, and tarnished brass distress stain. I have obtained a few distress spray stains recently! Still getting the hang of making it spray bigger droplets. I mostly sprayed my hands. More spray on my hands than the cardboard.

I used distress paint on a tag for the tree and used distress ink to highlight the embossed areas.
I had some old gold foil, and I used a stamp that looks like raindrops and embossing ink with sticky powder. The sticky powder works well with the gold foil.

 

I used some embellishments I had and decided to make a wire hangar so I can hang my decoration up on the wall. 

A Simple Christmas

I like this simple project made from simple materials. I reminds me of the olden days where you could celebrate the holidays by making whatever you have look festive. Even plain old cardboard. 

Christmas Memories and Cardboard

I once made an entire city of Jerusalem out of huge cardboard boxes for a church Christmas party. Cardboard and poster paint. I painted an almost life-size wall of Jerusalem, I'm not kidding. Made signs for all the city shops, like "The Inn", "Cheese Shop", "Lamps", etc. The idea is you go there to be taxed, then the Christmas pageant starts and you are part of the city crowd. Soldiers come around randomly and you have to pay taxes. You can use your roman coins to purchase food at the shops. Our family used to put on this Christmas Party for several years. It was quite a moving event, AND it was mostly plain old cardboard. I have since "retired" the city and no longer put on the program, but I do have fond memories of the good feelings felt by those who attended. It always puts things into perspective. Here is a similar "Return to Bethlehem" event I found on youtube. Here is another one even more similar to ours except with funky music.

When we first put on the program my son was just a little kid of about 4 years old, he has since become a fine musician who is partial to "funky music". Little did we know back then that he would stick with those guitar lessons he started when he was 5. 

The Journey

I always learn something new in my Tim Holtz 12 Tags journey and I had fun trying out some new techniques.

Steam-punk snowflake
I used my steam-punk crocheted snowflake left-over from my spectacular steampunk Christmas hot-air balloon project I did for the Compendium of Curiosities iii challenge #14. Some day I will make a youtube tutorial on how I make the steamp-punk crocheted snowflake, but I'm still figuring out how to explain how I do this.

Thanks for checking out my project. It's always fun to participate in the Tim Holtz 12-tags of 2014 projects! Tim is so creative and I enjoy seeing how different everyone's tag is and how talented everyone is. It makes me happy!

Funky Music
My son's band "The Str!ke" playing the funky version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" last year. He's the one with the hat and scarf.


The Str!ke website