Tim's Tag Challenge--Tag No. 7

Here is my tag for Day 7 of Tim Holtz' 12 Tags of Christmas challenge. My tag was inspired by this tag of Tim's.

I have to say the part I worked on the hardest was the background. Tim used this woodgrain texture fade embossing folder, and I didn't have one. So I coated my tag with four layers of clear UTEE and one layer of glittery embossing powder, loaded VersaMark onto a woodgrain background stamp, heated the tag so the EP was warm, and pressed the stamp into the surface of the tag. Nothing. Tried it again. Nothing. The problem was the surface of the tag was so big that I couldn't get the entire thing hot enough at one time to take an impression from a rubber stamp.

So Bob and I went to dinner instead. I happened to pick a restaurant close to Archivers and we just happened to stop by there after dinner so I could buy: 1) the woodgrain texture fade embossing folder; 2) some rock candy distress stickles; and 3) some more clear UTEE because I had just used up my last bit putting four layers onto a tag.

Can you believe that Archivers didn't have ANY of these items tonight. I had to go home and rethink my plan.

I took the tag and a craft sheet and my heat gun into the kitchen and turned the stove burner on low. I have one of those electric flat-top stoves so I figured it would heat pretty evenly. I went ahead and re-melted the embossing powder with the heat gun, and the heat from the stove was keeping it warm, and I pressed my stamp hard onto the tag. I took the whole thing, craft mat and all off the stove and peeled the rubber away from the tag. VOILA! It worked like a charm! I took the tag back to the stamp room and rubbed brown StazOn ink over the whole thing, and it looked very much like sparkly wood.

Later I covered up almost all of the background, but if you were to come to my house and peel everything off that tag, you would be impressed.

I also didn't have Tim Holtz sticky-backed canvas, but I did have some neutral-colored fabric. I used a Humungo Killer Tape Sheet to stick the fabric to some colored art metal. Then I colored the fabric with some Radiant Rain paint and Glimmer Mists and dried them with my heat gun. I cut the fabric/metal with three sizes of Spellbinders' dahlia dies. Just like Tim instructed, I cut the flowers and flipped them around. Because my flower petals are backed with metal, they hold their shape even better than Tim's flowers do. I totally LOVE my giant poinsettia!