tag challenge for January

*edited to add: and my 400th post. oh my. really? i must do something to celebrate. next post!

back to routines. again.

i completely expected that it would be near impossible to get out of bed before 8am this morning. i also expected that i would be dragging two tired children out of bed at 8:30 and walking them into school late.

it is a good thing that i am not always right! especially in this matter.

i was awake just after 6am, and out of bed less than an hour later. both kids dressed, breakfast finished and ready for school by 8:15 am. plenty of time to get to school before the bell.

now if we can just continue this amazing time management for the remainder of the week....


i have been on a huge roll with my creative side lately. planning ahead AND getting the projects completed long before the deadlines. truthfully it is about time! the fall and pre-Christmas sets of deadlines snuck up on me in a major way. it was so bad i was forgetting dates and times. if it were not for iCal i would have been in major trouble!!


anyways it has been a treat this past week to not have major plans and be able to work on things without getting interrupted by taking kids to school or dropping them off. last Monday i accomplished so much in an afternoon that i was fully shocked.

our tag challenge this month was to create a tag that was inspired by our favourite winter activity.

really, my favourite activity is to sit by a large window....coffee in hand...while the snow falls. there is something so peaceful about that. our very first apartment was on the 12th floor. the winter world of the city is very appealing at that height! we had a huge window and the computer was right in front of it. i enjoyed watching the snow pile up in the streets and then the snow-plows and sanding trucks clear it away. of course it is a lot more fun when you don't have plans to drive anywhere either!

i asked Aidan what my favourite winter activity was. his response cracked me up: "scrapbooking." ha! he didn't even have to think for longer than 10 seconds.

here is my version:

**warning! i took lots of photos. and lots of talking. sorry! in the end i loved the various textures that the tag contains.








i think Tammy Tutterow called it the Frosty De-boss technique. then she had a second version for foil and acrylic. this tag was a version of that.

first i inked it with various blues in alcohol inks. then i added Rock Candy crackle paint, and scraped. then i added more inks and white pigment alcohol inks. at this point it was too blue. imagine that! so i added blending fluid to remove some of the blue. then i did some sanding. even then it looked nothing like Tammys!

determined to find a way to complete the tags without hating them....i continued on. after i set them aside and took a break. now that i look at it, it looks like a bad piece of plastic. except it kinda grew on me.


one of my pre-meditated plans was to have glitter paper on the reverse. i kept that plan. i even embossed more snowflakes into the paper. since i am also in a love affair with all things and all types of glitter....i went that route. how can you go wrong with glitter?! you can. i added too much. scraped off bits....after it dried! then added more glue and some other types of glitter. instead of it being a solid outline of the silver glass glitter....it now has clear glass, glass beads, and fine glitter sprinkled in the spaces.

then i took another break while i pondered what i should do on the front.

again i continued with another pre-meditated plan. Spellbinders foil and the Bianca Snowflake from Memory Box. a detailed die like this and foil is a lot of work...but worth the picking out of the small pieces of metal. since i hate to waste cool materials...i decided that my Martha Stewart snowflake was the right size to cut a few more. i think i will try more punches on thin metals. not a problem at all.

since the glitters were still out i thought i would use them in more places. i also had some white flower soft.


you can see it just under the acrylic mini snowflake on the left side. it was at this point, Aidan suggested i add some fine iridescent glitter with the flower soft to look like real snow. have i ever mentioned that he is totally brilliant?! he is.

i can't remember if it was Pat or Jan or someone else from Urban....but another brilliant individual added glitter to tulle once upon a time. i tried nearly every ribbon in my stash and none of them fit right. at which point i added tulle and decided to be happy with that. then i ripped it. well, shredded it. and liked what i saw. it was at this point that something from my memory came back and i seemed to remember a similar type of ripped tulle with gems or glitter added. deciding that it couldn't hurt, and i had a whole roll if things went wrong....

i also used some silver wire to add the little acrylic snowflakes. they kind of look like they are suspended in mid-air. if you use your imagination!

i cannot recall spending this many "days" on a project before. i did reach THAT POINT {where you want to throw it out!} a few times. but when i thought about the amount of time i had spent already i decided i should see it to completion even if it ended badly.

i added a quote to the back:

Silently, like thoughts that come and go, the snowflakes fall, each one a gem. {William Hamilton Gibson}


there you have it.

it was not snowing outside. although my craft desk was a drifted pile of glitters. even my skin was "twinkly".


if you are still reading this crazy post...thank you! thanks for laughing along with me as i share stories of my messes, mistakes and small victories!