Hello friends, and Happy Thursday!
After a day of heavy rain yesterday it was a bit of a surprise to wake up to zero degrees and frost, but then we live in Scotland and I really don’t know why I am still constantly surprised by the ever-changing weather! Today’s post is pulling triple duty as I am trying not to post more than once a day this month. So apologies in advance for any confusion but I have tried to make it as clear as possible and there is an overall theme which links it all today and that will become apparent hopefully. So first off, here is today’s art which is a festive tag made especially for some December challenges… (challenge links at the end of the post)
today’s art for December Challenges . . .
Today I am sharing this festive tag I was working on last night and this morning. It has a fabric base that has this cute gingerbread man (person?) on it and a few other festive icons – Christmas tree, candy canes etc. I adhered the fabric to a tag base cut from an old amazon box with a layer of this Gina K teal cardstock in between. I added gold acrylic ink to the edges of the tag and then added some Prima snowflake texture paste on to the tag itself. Does the snow look realistic? At that point I had to leave it to dry overnight while I got on with some other things.
I had some leftover greenery from another project so I decided to add that to the top of the tag. It is of course the Tim Holtz Holiday Greens die set and since these are leftovers, they are are coloured in different ways – watercolour, Pitt artist pens, and some on green metallic cardstock. I wrapped them all together using some thread and then attached this red satin bow. At the same time I punched a hole in the tag and threaded through this red tartan ribbon. I also added some red stickles to all the red berries on the tag.
As there is a gingerbread theme to this post, I knew I had some gingerbread men buttons somewhere and so began the long search for them last night (see above where I said I was doing other things while the tag dried, well this was what I was doing!) I was really on the verge of giving up on finding them but I thought I would try one last possible place where they might be and I found them! Seriously I dream of the day when I can have all my arty crafty stuff in one room, catalogued, labelled and easily accessible!
I sewed two of the little gingerbread men buttons on to the bottom of the tag to join the adult gingerbread person using some DMC embroidery floss. Then I used these Prima stickers for the words I wanted. I was looking for words that started with the first letter of my name, and these work brilliantly for the theme and the tag – I couldn’t find an “enjoy” so I had to chop up some other words to make it lol. Maybe you want to eat, embrace, enjoy the holidays or maybe just those gingerbread people!
Rain’s Thursday Art Date . . .
This week’s theme is Gingerbread (in case you couldn’t guess by what I’ve done so far 🙂 So in addition to the tag above I wanted to show some other gingerbread themed projects. I would dearly have loved to make some gingerbread but I am on a bit of a health kick at the moment so baking is not on the agenda!
From the post
Tis the Season – Christmas ornaments are these little felt ornaments featuring gingerbread men.
From the post Tis the Season to wear ugly sweaters is this card featuring ugly Christmas jumpers as we call them here, and one has a gingerbread man on it.
And finally we have these stuffed gingerbread men from this post. They are die cut using a Sizzix die, stuffed and filled with gingerbread scent!
This post will be my Second on the Second for this month, find out more below…
Second on the Second . . .
Bleubeard and Elizabeth’s Second on the Second asks that you bring back a post that you’re proud of or an old one that was shared before anyone knew of your blog. This is not particularly one I am proud of but i wanted to share it because 1. it has the gingerbread theme, and 2 it is a previous December post. I am editing this post to make the photos smaller and therefore make this whole post a bit shorter. You can read the original post from 16th December 2017 here.
The photo above shows the contents of one of the Secret Santa boxes but I have blurred out the name on the envelope so no spoilers! The box contains the little gingerbread man, some hand blended teas, Scottish tablet, and some hand blended pot pourri, plus some other non-handmade things as shown.
Here’s a close up of the little gingerbread men I decided to make using this Sizzix bigz die.
Here they are stuffed and scented with Gingerbread fragrance – you’ll just have to take my word for it but they smell lovely!
So that’s it for today, I need to go clean up my studio and then think about making something warming for dinner as it’s so cold outside today. Let me know what you think in the comments. As always, thanks for reading!
Ingredients
Today’s art: fabric, amazon box, Gina K cardstock, Prima snowflake paste, red stickles, tartan ribbon, red ribbon bow, Prima stickers, black pen, amazon box, glue, TH Sizzix Holiday Greens dies, cardboard, Pitt Artist pens, watercolour, metallic cardstock, DMC embroidery floss,
Challenges
Altered Book Lover – Second on the Second – Secret Santa Gifts post from December 2017
Tag Tuesday – Use the first letter of your first name – 30th November Challenge – E stands for eat, embrace, enjoy (and more evergreens!)
Rain’s Thursday Art Date – December Holidays – Gingerbread – December 2nd
SSS Monday Challenge – Sparkle Mode – 29th November Challenge – gold acrylic paint, red stickles, snowflake paste, gold thread in the fabric itself,
Funkie Junkie – Yuletide Delights – 1st December Challenge – snow, candy canes, gingerbread men/people, festive greenery
Country View Challenges – Christmas Anything Goes
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Supercute tag – so many details!- thanks for joining us at Countryview Challenges and good luck in the draw! Hugs Rachel xx
Elle I love everything about this festive tag from the beautiful patchwork style background, the fabulous gingerbread people and your choice of bright colours. Thank you for joining in with our challenge at The Funkie Junkie Boutique blog x
Fabulously festive tag! Thank you for joining us at The Funkie Junkie Boutique!
What a sweet piece of fabric. Love the accents and how sweet this is! Thanks for playing along in the Yuletide Delights challenge at the Funkie Junkie Boutique blog!
I absolutely love the colours in this one, so gorgeous! Thanks for sharing with us at Tag Tuesday.
Pinky
My Goodness, your cleverness abounds … you really did get everyone into your post seamlessly 🙂 A wonderful post … I truly enjoyed all of your efforts and I especially know the frustration of looking for something and finding it or not finding it as the case may be. You were lucky enough to find your buttons. Fun post … hope you are finding time to enjoy the holidays …
Andrea @ From the Sol
Ohhh this is so pretty. Have a nice day.
Wow, love your Tag, so happy you have joined us at Tag Tuesday x
Oh I love this tag Elle. It is full of whimsy. And nice use of E words. I may end of stealing one of those since obviously I need E words too. Smile. I like your second look too. Those tags are fun too. I hope December is going well. Hugs-Erika
What a cute follower with the gingerbread men and the other creative gingerbread men!
Have a good week, hugs Elke