Oh Deer!

Hello all!  Tag 2 today, so I'm still on course for 12 Tags of Christmas in 12 days, courtesy of the inspiration challenge set by the Funkie Junkie, Linda Coughlin.

The prizes and discount vouchers sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique are of course great, but for me they're secondary to getting my crafting back up and running.

Since there's time pressure, I'm keeping things pretty straightforward, and I'm actually enjoying creating slightly simpler projects than usual.  It also makes for shorter blogposts, of course!

As with yesterday's Bare Branches tag, I've kept many of Linda's elements but with alterations of different kinds.

If you take a look at Linda's lovely inspiration Tag 2, you'll see that I've pretty much cased the overall design and layout.













I've got the same gesso'd background - love the brushwork texture it gives.















I don't have the dimensional Idea-ology deer, so I've used the adorable Movers and Shapers fawn die-cut instead.














He's cut out of kraft card, inked with Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso, and then I've added some white penwork detailing.










It takes a lot to get me to go for red (the occasional holly berry makes it through sometimes), so I've stuck with my comfort zone colour tones (a phrase which pleases me with its alliteration, assonance and rhymes) and altered my stencilling to blue at the top and bottom of the tag.

I don't have the Thinlits word set Linda used (yet!), so I deployed the Handwritten Wish instead, cut and inked as the deer was.  I really like the informal look of it which I feel works with the fresh feeling of this tag.














I enjoyed adding the rub-ons - I always forget about them.













My polka dots are stamped rather than stencilled, using a much-loved and long-neglected Artistic Stamper background stamp.

One of the many reasons I love Linda's tag challenge is it always gets me to make use of long-hoarded stash contents - it was great to play with both the dots and the rub-ons for this tag. 













Where would we be without the Idea-ology Small Talk phrases for a quick word fix?!

This was a first outing for the Woodland stencil, which I ordered from The Funkie Junkie Boutique while I was in Ohio recently.  It certainly won't be the last.  It's been inked in a combination of Olive Archival and Forest Moss Distress Inks. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  All being well, I'll be back tomorrow with Tag 3 - that and Tag 4 are already made, I've just got to get the posts written.  Onwards and upwards...

I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls.  They always say because it's such a beautiful animal.  There you go.  I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.
Ellen de Generes

I'd like to enter this as Tag 2 in the Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas, sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique