Thoughts and Tidings

Hello all, I'm sorry for the week-long absence.  As you might imagine - with having just moved to a new country and with Christmas right around the corner, plus trying to build new income streams - there's quite a lot going on.  So I'm just dropping in to share some pictures of a pair of tags which make me very happy.

When I have had a bit of spare time, I've been trying to spend it doing something constructive rather than internet-browsing... so I had a lovely time converting these Rustic Wilderness (the gorgeous new Distress green) backgrounds into this finished pair of tags.

This is the splotchy green and blue pair from the array of Rustic Wilderness backgrounds I shared recently...

I love what they've turned into thanks to the lovely pine and berry branches from the new Forest Floor stamp set.

For the berries, I stamped, added the white embossing powder and then used a brush to brush the powder away from the stems as much as possible before heating.  Then I used a brush pen in brown to give the stems a bit more presence.

I kept the embellishing very simple with some twine and wooden snowflakes...

... and the seasonal Clippings stickers provided the thoughts and tidings to go with them.

There's some background text stamping (because there has to be!) - the amazing advertisement stamp from the Professor #2 set.

And I doodled some borders with my dip pen and grey ink followed by white ink. 

I'm keeping things simple partly because I have no access to 95% of my crafting supplies (Box Mountain will stay Box Mountain until the flooring can be laid - which may well not be until the New Year)...

... but mostly because it didn't feel like they needed anything more.

The deep rich green of the Rustic Wilderness with the paler inky highlights of Speckled Egg and Broken China in the background...

... the beautiful detail of the stamps with those snowy berries and amazing pine needles...

... the simple wooden snowflakes and those Idea-ology Tokens dangling from the twine...

... seemed to me as though they were doing the job pretty well!  I hope they make you as happy as they do me.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I'll hope to see you over the festive period if not before.  Stay safe, stay well, stay cosy and creative.

No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.
Thomas Merton

I'd like to share these at Country View Challenges where the theme is Anything Christmas

And at Tag Tuesday they're playing Christmas or Anything Goes