A time of peace and gladness

Hello all!  I hope you've been enjoying fine food, fine company (or fine peace and quiet, according to taste!) and fine times.

I've had some of each, with more to come, but for now I'm here with my penultimate tag in the Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas.

I'm finding it tough to pick a favourite this year, but this gentle tag might just be the one.

I loved the broad ribbons wrapped around Linda's inspirational Tag 11, topped with a die-cut, so that was the starting point for mine.

I've been using the Anna Marie Designs Jingle Christmas pad as you know - in the 8x8 size.  So the tags which use that paper are 8x4 - just a single sheet cut in half vertically and mounted onto cardboard.  (And I've trimmed all the other tags to match in size.)











That meant that I always had a second "tag" left from each sheet, and I thought I might as well use them - so there are several pairs amongst the tags.

This one pairs with one of my other favourites, A Merry Little Christmas, which has the same fir tree and music background.












Linda's wide ribbon is actually cut from paper, but I decided to go with this lovely fine mesh ribbon from my stash.  I pleated it slightly and used my Tiny Attacher to staple the pleats in place.











Over that, I added some of my much-loved Idea-ology Linen Ribbon.  It's a subtle tonal and textural contrast, but it makes me very happy.













I thought the fir branch background would be a good setting for a deer as my central die-cut focal point, but couldn't decide at first between the leaping deer and the standing one from the TH Reindeer Flight Bigz die.

I went back and forth for a while, but in the end the leaper won out.








He's cut in textured brown card and inked with Black Soot Oxide, as are most of the die-cuts I've used across the whole set of tags (apart from the snowflakes, obviously!).

I had to trim padded tape to fit his slender legs and to go under his head.  With that and the pleated ribbon in the centre, he really does leap from the tag in a very satisfyingly dimensional way.










The topping is made with some of the punched fir branches leftover from the wreath you saw on Christmas Eve on my Christmas Bells Are Ringing tag.  I added a Muse Token and some of the large berries which have also put in an appearance before.












There are some more punched branches with some tiny berries tucked into the central ribbon feature.












And down at the foot of the tag, echoing Linda's medallion but in slightly different form, is a tag nestled into some more greenery.

And that tag carries the inevitable Christmas Clippings words.









These days after most of the Christmas festivities are accomplished are really my favourites.  The tree stays up until 12th Night (6th January), and this time of peace and gladness, spent with candlelight, music, and some good books to read, is a wonderful oasis in what is often a harum-scarum kind of existence. 

I hope you will also find time to indulge in your own favourite activities before the real world intrudes again.  Thanks so much for stopping by and I'll see you soon.

A pine needle fell in the forest.  The hawk saw it.  The deer heard it.  The white bear smelled it.
Edith Pattou



I'd like to share this as my Tag 11 in the Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas, sponsored by the Funkie Junkie Boutique