A Winter Woodland Wonderland

Hello all!  December?  Are you sure?  Well, okay then... time for some winter and Christmas crafting.  And what better way to kick off the month than with a post doing double duty?

There's a new challenge starting at A Vintage Journey, hosted by the lovely Sandy, and the theme is Winter Wonderland.

I wasn't scheduled to be joining in this month, but I've finally managed to get started with my Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas, and it so happens that Tag 1 fits perfectly into the Winter Wonderland theme, so I'm offering it up in both places!

Linda Coughlin - a.k.a. the Funkie Junkie - creates a tag a week from the end of September, providing festive inspiration for us to follow or adapt or just take an idea from and play. 











Regulars will know I find it very hard to get to any Christmas crafting before December, so instead of 12 weeks to make my tags, I usually end up with about 12 days to get them all done!

But it's the 1st of December today, and here's Tag 1, and I have until the deadline on 29th December so it really should be possible.

I can't quite decide between the indoor and outdoor photos of this, so you can take a look at both!

You can check out all the challenge details, as well as Linda's very funky Tag 1 here, and see all the entrants so far.  It's a lovely community.

As you can see, if you look at Linda's version, I've followed very closely in some ways and not at all in others!












I started with a very different background - some wood-look paper from Anna Marie Designs' Christmas Jingle collection.

I gave it a sweep of gesso to soften it even further, and added some snowy landscape shaping at the lower end.















I stamped the lovely Tim Holtz tall trees multiple times, creating some depth and distance.














And I also stamped Wendy Vecchi's splatter stamp in Picket Fence Distress Paint...

... before doing some actual splattering with Snowflake Fresco.













Then it was out with the delightful Thinlits deer.  This die set is actually called Winter Wonderland, so what could be better for the Vintage Journey theme?!














The little shy one is so sweet!  I added some extra thick snow under their feet so that they would be nicely grounded.













I loved Linda's spray of greenery in the top corner, so I echoed that, but added a couple of my much-loved pinecones (a fixture in Christmas crafting round here) as well as some frosted berries.














Nestling amongst the branches, you find my words - from the Tim Holtz Christmas Clippings stickers.












I do like the trees against the wooden background - there's something very earthy and pleasing about it to me.

Of course there's plenty of white spatter - both stamped and splattered - and some simple white twine finishes things off.

And that's my Winter Woodland Wonderland.  










I hope you'll have time to hop over to A Vintage Journey and visit the Winter Wonderland inspiration provided by my lovely team-mates.  There's a prize package from the fantabulous Andy Skinner this month for one randomly drawn winner, and you could get selected as one of our Pinworthies and invited to make a guest appearance somewhere down the road, so do come and join in.

I'll be back before you know it... Yes, it's a double-post day here at Words and Pictures.  You've probably just got time to open the first door on your Advent Calendars, and I'll be here again.  I'm looking forward to a bit of catching up around Craftyblogland soon too.  Happy December everybody!





Go to the winter woods: listen there, look, watch, and "the dead months" will give you a subtler secret than any you have yet found in the forest.
William Sharp

I'd like to enter this as Tag 1 in the Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas, sponsored by the Funkie Junkie Boutique