Tag Friday at a Vintage Journey

Hello Friends

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

There are five Fridays in December so that means it is Tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey.  I had a set of ice skates left over from another project so I used them, together with one of Alison Bomber's wonderful sentiment stamps, to create a simple wintry tag.

I made the tag to attach to a Christmas gift so I don't have any step outs but I can tell you briefly how I made it.  First up I used some of Anna Marie Design Christmas papers for the base of the tag, adding some white embossing around all of the edges.

The skates were cut from white matboard, grunged up a little with some Distress Ink and laced up with some brown embroidery cotton.  I applied two layers of silver embossing powder to the skate blades and heat embossed each layer.

I love Alison Bomber's fabulous sentiment stamps and I used one from her winter sentiment collection Paper Artsy EAB05.

To finish off I dyed some seam binding with Ground Espresso Distress Stain and I added some Tim Holtz Idea-olgy jingle bells to the skates.

So there we have it, a quick and easy wintry gift tag.  Please do have a look at what my talented team mates have made over at A Vintage Journey, you won't be disappointed!

We will soon be into the New Year so I would like to take the opportunity to wish you all the very best for 2018, I hope it is a good year for you!

Hugs, Anne xx

Ice Skating Anyone ?

Hello Friends

Over the last few weeks I have been busy making Christmas cards and gifts for family and friends and I thought I would take a little time out to create a little Christmas wall hanging for my craft room.

As a child I pestered my parent incessantly for a pair of ice skates, but I didn't actually get my first pair until I was 12 and although they were second hand and a little battered looking, they were the best (and most memorable) Christmas present I ever received.  My Brother and I would spend hours skating on the frozen rivers and lakes near our home..... such happy memories!

I was so thrilled when I heard that Tim Holtz has re-released this skate die, it is one of my all time favourites!

I started with a canvas base 5" x 7", giving the base a coat of Ground Espresso Distress Paint.  I used a candle to mark a few areas of the canvas before applying Crackle Paint.  Once dry I rubbed away parts of the paint, where the candle marks were.  I watered down some Salty Ocean Distress Paint and covered the whole canvas.  

I added lots of die cuts to the top, including the latest Tim Holtz Festive Greens and some older Holiday Greens die cuts together with Tim's Mini Poinsettia and Idea-ology flower centres.  I added some seed beads to the ends of some of the greenery.

I gave the skates a coat of white paint to the boot part and covered this with Clear Rock Candy Distress Paint.  I used embroidery cotton to lace up the skates and added jingle bells to the laces. The blades were covered with silver embossing powder.

I really enjoyed making this, I hope you enjoyed seeing it!

I rarely seek out challenges to join in but I found three this time, to round the year off, that I would love to join in with!  I would like to join in with Suzz's challenge - Most Memorable Gift, over at Frilly & Funkie Challenge Blog.

I would also like to enter the 'Tis the Season' challenge over at That's Crafty Challenge Blog.

And also, over at Emerald Creek they are having a Happy Holidays - Anything Goes Challenge and I would love to join in there too!  I was inspired by many hours of ice skating with my brother!

As always, thanks for looking, hope to see you again soon.

Hugs, Anne xx