Let It Snow!

Hello all... it never rains but it pours, they say, and after a long period of drought, it's pouring posts here at Words and Pictures at the moment.  I'd rather have snow than rain though, so let's say it's a blizzard of posts, shall we?

I'm on day 4 and Tag 4 of the Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas.  The challenge actually started back in September, but I've left myself 12 days rather than 12 weeks before the deadline, so we're really full steam ahead at the moment.

For Tag 4, I've followed Linda's inspiration tag fairly closely except for the fact that I've gone with snowflakes rather than poinsettias.

I'm not much for poinsettias, so I don't have much in the way of poinsettia-making crafty stuff, but I thought the snowflakes made a suitably shaped substitute.













And I've continued to eschew the reds (hence the ambivalence about poinsettias, though I do like the white ones), sticking instead to my favoured colour zones.

Those colours and the simple twine topping tie us back in to the previous three tags, continuing the set.












To start with, I wrinkle-free-distressed a tag with Stormy Sky and Chipped Sapphire.

For the cut through, I used the Paper Snowflakes thinlits (not the Minis, but the smaller two from the larger set - I have the Minis on the way though) but, of course, cutting them only gave me the outline.








I wanted more detail so I kept the tiny pressed out parts and stuck them down in the appropriate positions to keep the more detailed design.

I stamped the delicate snowflake pattern from Tim's Christmas Nostalgia set over the top tag in Stormy Sky.













The snowflake centres were fiddly, but definitely worth the trouble, I think.  (The very tiny central dots are done with white pen... there are limits to my patience!)















The actual snowflakes also got pressed into service, of course, in place of Linda's fabulous dimensional flower heads.  They've just had a very light inking around the edges with Stormy Sky for an icy blueness.












They're layered over some Holiday Greens, but mine are done in soft frosted green rather than the gilded version of the original.

The greenery is cut from some more wrinkle-free-distressed cardstock, this time smooshed with Iced Spruce and Evergreen Bough. 









I followed Linda in creating a krafty sentiment label, but since I'm working with smaller tags I had to go with a smaller sentiment too - the Handwritten Holiday stamps came to the rescue with a simple but heartfelt plea... Let it snow!













A little bit of inking around the edges ties in with the colour of the label and the natural twine topping.












We spend a lot of time here in the south east of the UK dreaming of a white Christmas.  Some parts get snow, and I know it's terrible for travel, and for the aged or isolated, but I would still love the magic of waking up to a hushed and sparkling world on Christmas morning.  Apparently it is a possibility this year, even in the south east... but I'm not holding my breath!

So that's another one down, and I'm still on course for 19th December... I hope I'll see you again tomorrow with the next tag.

When snow falls, nature listens.
Antoinette van Kleef

I'd like to enter this as Tag 4 in the Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas, sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique