SWEET STAMPIN - CHRISTMAS IN JULY - TAGS

It's Christmas time here on Sweet Stampin - yes you read that right!  A lot of companies have to get themselves organised for Christmas early and stampers are no different.  Actually doing Christmas cards all year round really helps to relieve the pressure when November December looms - there's enough to do without trying to get your Christmas cards ready also.  Although there is something weird making Christmas cards when it's warm outside - I guess though it depends on where you live in the world!

I've been on a bit of a journey with all my Tim Holtz stuff recently - spurred on by watching his Facebook Lives really helped me to understand the various TH products I had and how to use them properly.  I've always loved his grunge style although I know it doesn't suit everyone - what I love is that no matter how many people use his products all the art looks individual - so often using a certain companies stamps or products makes it all look so samesville so it's hard sometimes to recognise if it's your own work or not.  Does that make sense?

I've used an old Christmas set from TH called Holiday Joy which has stamps and matching dies.  I made myself think outside of the box and not use red and green for the second tag - I'm always in a bit of a rut come Christmas using the same two colours which happen to be my favourites.

This tag was simply coloured, stencilled and finished with a layer of Distress Collage Medium.  The Joy was part of the set - the To The World is from a Kaisercraft Stamp and the sentiment was from Idea-ology Christmas sticker book.

This tag had a lot more inking going on with Distress Inks in Chipped Sapphire, Speckled Egg and Salty Ocean.  I then went over it with a French Script Stencil and coloured it with white ink.  I then took a TH stencil and a baby wipe and wiped away some of the ink to reveal the stencil.   I also used some TH texture paste and Speckled Egg embossing glaze with the wonderful TH mosaic stencil - which has to be one of my favourite stencils ever!