The 12 Tags of Christmas 2011 - Day One

Well, here we are on the first of December, and one of the pleasures of the run up to Christmas is the chance to join in with Tim Holtz' 12 Tags of Christmas project. A tag from Tim each day from 1 to 12 December. Last year I managed to complete them all and hope to do the same this year although various commitments may mean that I will lag a bit behind, but I will try to do the full set this year too. Tim's 2011 tags can be seen on his blog together with full instructions. My approach is to use these as an inspiration, and to enjoy new and old ideas and techniques. I suppose I tend to end up doing a fairly similar version, but not always; and of course there is always a fair degree of improvisation required when I don't have the suggested tools and materials.

So for tag number one I had the foliage die and the Iced Spruce ink and a similar embossing folder and the rest was improvisation ! I have discovered that I can probably make quite a respectable pine cone using my Sizzix rose die - two die cuts joined together and with lots of extra indentations cut into the petals; but for this tag I really wanted to use the lovely little cones that I picked up on a walk in the woods last winter and squirrelled away in the Christmas embellishments box. I discovered that I have nearly run out of Rock Candy Stickles (Ranger, please pack this in half pint bottles !), so I have used Frosted Lace.

Would have produced a better photo if I had waited till morning, but by then I hope to be concentrating on Tag Number 2. Now I'm off to hoover up the glitter which I have managed to spread everywhere !