Work in Progress

Hello... yup, me again.  If you're back for a second visit (having already seen What's On My Workdesk this Wednesday), then you're doubly welcome, but it's great to see you even if it's your first time today, or indeed ever!

I said this morning that I needed to do some catching up with the 12 Tags of Christmas being offered up by the amazing Funkie Junkie a.k.a. Linda Coughlin.  The challenge is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique.


Linda's offering weekly inspiration between now and (nearly) Christmas, and you can play along in whatever order and whenever suits you, as long as you get all 12 done by 17th December.  Here are all the details - and don't worry that you're behind... so am I!!  Linda's on number 6... this here's my second!

This is an Inspiration Challenge - so one of the great things is that you can spin off from Linda's tag in any direction, as long as you let her know what it is in her work that's kicked you off.

I'm still resisting Christmas crafting, I'm afraid.  Not that I'm trying to be a Scrooge about it, but I just can't get my head round Christmas in October... I don't think I'm ever going to be one of those crafters who makes every single Christmas card.  My nearest and dearest might get lucky, I suppose...

So my tag has taken inspiration from Linda's original in terms of the background and gears, but taken them elsewhere.  And I'll make no bones about it, this was another experiment for me (I was waffling on about experiments this morning) - and a slightly reluctant one at that.

I didn't do the faux riveted metal technique when Tim Holtz had it on his September tag; I didn't do it in the Studio L3's Compendium of Curiosities II week.


It didn't really seem like my thing, but I've seen it look great at lots of my favourite blogs (like here at the fabulous Inkypinkycraft), so I thought it was about time I gave it a whirl.


And you know what, in the end I had a lot of fun with it!

I didn't have the adhesive metal tape, but used some metal paper from PaperArtsy and some glue instead.  And, being me, I went with blue tones on the background, and on my gears.

The gears are cut and embossed using Spellbinders' Sprightly Sprockets dies.

The ones at the bottom are cut out of black card, and treated to another TH technique using Perfect Pearls Mist which I've used before, and really loved.

I was going to trim them to the tag edges, so that it would look like an On the Edge die, as Linda's used (though hers were snowflakes), but I decided I liked the circles sticking out.

The gears in the middle are cut out of an old Diet Coke tin (you can still see some red text if you look closely at the edges!), and given lots of lovely alcohol inks to drink.














Okay, and a slight concession to Christmas in the trimmings, I admit it!

The letters are cream cardstock - cut with a TH decorative strip die - with an edging of Chipped Sapphire, and then lots of Perfect Pearls Mist in Pearl and Pewter.  













And the sentiment is pretty clear I think, both in close-up and the wider frame... I'm on tag number 2 out of 12, and I'm on an incredible journey with this crafting lark!  It's all Work In Progress.









Thanks so much for joining me for part of the journey, and I hope to see you again soon, either here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland.

There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes.
Richard Buckminster Fuller

I'm entering this (pretty obviously!) as Tag 2 in the 12 tags of Christmas at the Funkie Junkie