Twelve Tags of 2015 ~ December ~ The Final Tag !

With hardly any time to spare, I have just completed my final tag of the year for Tim's Twelve Tags of 2015. You can see his fabulous December tag by following this link. It's been a great year for the Twelve Tags Challenge, with, as usual, some ingenious creative ideas from Tim. I'm pleased with myself  that I've managed to complete yet another year of tags. This one has a few improvisations. I haven't any of the lovely punches that Tim has used on his tag. It's sometimes hard for us in the UK, to keep up with new products as they are often in limited supply and you have to be pretty quick off the mark to grab them. Still I'm glad I was able to use the Box Wood Twine, I'd bought a while ago. I used the Poinsettia Layering Stencil in the background as this has been a firm favourite for my Christmas cards this year. I've given them some gold centres by dotting with a gold leaf pen. I made a lot of these little Christmas trees last year after they were sold out just about everywhere. I used sisal string, wire and a hand drill.This is one of three that were left over. I trimmed it so that it would lie flat and glued it on with my glue gun. This is what I did with the other two.....

I was thrilled when I saw Tim's trophy cup project, as it was perfect for these two little cups I bought earlier this year from our local junk shop. I knew they'd come in handy!

Well that's it for this year. Thank you Tim for all the inspiration you have given us this year. May you have a wonderful 2016 !!!! x

Grungy Christmas ~ New Challenge at Stamps and Stencils

Hello everybody ! It's time for our final challenge of the year over at Stamps and Stencils. If you've been over there, you may have seen that there are going to be some changes as we go into the New Year. Sadly we are saying good bye to three of our lovely team, the very talented ladies, Julia, Yvonne and Sharon are moving on. I'm sure that like me, you have enjoyed seeing their fabulous projects over the last year.  Luckily for the rest of our team we have manged to lure in not just three but four wonderfully talented ladies to step into those big shoes ! You may already know that Cec has joined us, and our other new teamies are, Autumn, Branka and Rachel. It's going to be a lot of fun getting to know them.
So now on to this month's challenge. Julia is our host and she has chosen a 'Grungy Christmas' as the theme. You can see by my altered gift box, that I definitely got stuck into the 'grungy' part of the title! I chose to alter an empty box, which originally had some posh soaps in. This was a Christmas present I received last year and try as I may, I just can't bring myself to throw a good box away! here is the 'before' picture......

I used a technique I learned at one of Finnabair's workshops, I love her distinctive style and this project pays homage to her. I gave the box a coat of black gesso before stencilling over the surface with thick gel matte medium.

Once this was dry, I applied more black gesso and then started to assemble all the bits and pieces I used to decorate the surface. I played around with a few arrangements and once satisfied, I adhered each piece, using a hot glue gun.

As you can see, there are a variety of different materials, metal, resin and plastic, chipboard and wood. Once everything was secured, I then painted everything with even more black gesso! once this was dry, I spritzed on a bit of gold spray.

I then painted selected areas with iron paint. This came as part of a two pack rusting kit. The kit contains a bottle of iron paint and a bottle of oxidising solution. The one I have is by Triangle Crafts and it's called Instant Rust Set. the great thing about it, is that it creates real rust and you never quite know how it's going to turn out ! 

Here's how it looked before I got started with some metallic pastes .....

I used Treasure Gold and Inca Gold to highlight certain areas, and buffed the surface to add a bit of sheen here and there. I added a few bits of bling  here and there using pearls, and gems. After all it wouldn't be Christmas without a bit of bling !

So there you have it my Grungy Christmas gift box ready to have some goodies put inside, Question is can I bear to part with it ? If you fancy some Grungy Christmas fun, hop over to the Stamps and Stencils blog and you'll find all the details of how to join in the challenge. You'll find some fantastic work by the rest of the current team and also have an opportunity to meet  Autumn, Branka and Rachel.