Home Sweet Home

Hello all, and welcome to Words and Pictures!  I hope you're having a restful and restorative weekend...


I've another tag to share with you today that's been inspired by the Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas, sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique.  This is my version of Tag 7 (nope, still no number 4 - stuck on that so far)... and, as regular followers will note, I'm still resisting Christmas!


You can take your inspiration from Linda's weekly tags in any direction you like, as long as you let her know what's sparked your imagination.


In her original this week I really enjoyed the green background full of trees (plants in my case); the gorgeous stamped cottage backed onto fabulously altered corrugated cardboard; the lovely mesh ribbon; and for the word-minded amongst you, her Happy Holidays (with its alliterative Hs) has become my Home sweet Home (spot the connection!).


I had a lovely time doing this - and I'm very taken with the final result...  That may be partly because we're in the throes of getting ready to depart from the family home of 40 years, so it gave me a chance to visualize an ideal alternative "home, sweet home" in the countryside somewhere...

The background gives me great pleasure... I used the Tim Holtz marbled stains technique, with Bundled Sage, Peeled Paint and Picket Fence distress stains.  And, for the first time, I was using a "crafting" tag as opposed to one of my cheap luggage label ones... and, botheration, I have to say it makes a real difference to how the ink moves on the surface.



I then used Forest Moss DI to stamp some of my new Artemio hedgerow stamps, bought with some recent winnings (I do like crafty shopping without a bill at the end of it).  I'm very in love with them!



The edges of the tag have had an encounter with the TH paper distresser.  The paper distresser had the best of it...

Rather than the snowy cottage which Linda used, I pulled out one of my other favourite Artistic Outpost images, the Old Grist Mill.  I stamped it in a mixture of Sepia and Coffee Archival inks, tore off the edges of the image, and edged it with Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs.


It's mounted onto corrugated card which has had some UTEE, some copper embossing powder and some Vintage Photo distress embossing powder added to define its ridges.  I love the rugged, rustic look the corrugated card gives to a project, and the dimensionality.







The fence is one of a dozen die-cuts I got on ebay, as I don't own the die itself.  I embossed it in the TH wood grain folder, and gave it a good inking with the various brown DIs until I liked the look of it.  At the foot, it's mounted on another ridge of corrugated cardboard, to get it to the right height.  

I love the fence against the meadow flowers (that's how it sat on my desk for a day or so, waiting for further inspiration) - it makes little phrases of Peter and the Wolf run through my head!

The sentiment is stamped with my trusty £1 alphabet, and glossed with UTEE, while the mesh ribbon is folded and then tied with jute twine - which I've also added to the top of the card.  


The button isn't really sewn on; I just threaded a bit of the trimmed off ribbon through the hole and glued the whole thing on with Glossy Accents!

If you haven't started playing the 12 Tags yet, there's still time to join in... you have until December 17th to complete all 12 to enter the draw - or you can just play along with the odd one or two simply for fun.  All the details are here.


But for now, I'd just like to say thank you for taking the time to stop by, and I'll see you again soon, either here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland!




I'm entering this as Tag 7 in the Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas
And in the Artistic Outpost November challenge, Anything Goes with an AO stamp

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.
Maya Angelou

Peace - that was the other name for home.
Kathleen Norris

Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.
Robert Frost