HO HO HO ... A STAMPING WE WILL GO!

With just a little over a week away until Christmas and our last challenge of the year, I wanted to dedicate this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge of "STAMP OUT" to ... you guessed it ... another vintage Christmas project.

I started with a manila #10 tag and my new favorite brown permanent ink ... Wendy Vecchi's Potting Soil.  Such a lush, rich deep brown.  I had no clue what I was going to do other than create a collage of vintage Christmas stamps that I love on this tag.  

So, using only Potting Soil to stamp all of my images, I started with Mr. Snowman from Tim Holtz' Winter Wonder stamp set.  That is such a neat collage stamp in and of itself! I placed him in the lower right corner.  From there, I wanted to add the vintage Santa from Tim Holtz' new Old Fashioned Christmas stamp set on the opposite side of my tag to balance out the snowman image.  I masked part of the tag to leave off the bottom half of Santa's body and make room for more collaged stamps to come.

Next, I masked off Santa and added Tim's gorgeous collage stamp from Holidays Past.  This stamp has all sorts of vintage images from ornament boxes to tinsel icicles to holiday lights.  I love it and Santa looks wonderful encircles with those wonderful images.  Next I inked up one side of the same Holidays Past stamp and added it to the lower left side of my tag.  I finished off with some spruce branches from Tim Holtz' Letters To Santa stamps set along the upper right side of the tag and here and there to fill in black spots. 

This is the finished collaged tag before inking. Love the way it turned out!  I got so "involved" that I forgot to take photos as I was inking the tag! Since I love traditional red and green at Christmas, I used Fired Brick and Pine Needles to fill in the tag.  I masked off my Santa and Snowman because I thought it would look really neat for the manila tag to pop out those two characters among all of the red and green.  I really like the results!

I still didn't know where the tag was going from here but I knew that it needed some little accents here and there.  So, I colored in "Christmas SNOW" behind the snowman with my white Signo Pen to pop it a little.  Then I went over the letters with Stardust Stickles to resemble glistening freshly fallen snow.  I also added some Frosted Lace Stickles to the top of "SNOW" to look like snow resting on the letters.  I also added some Mercury Glass Stickles highlights to the tag, around Santa and along the sunlight ray lines around "PARAMOUNT".  

I liked the snow theme that was starting to take shape so I decided to die cut some Mini Snowflakes and Tim Holtz' On The Edge Winter Flurries out of Plain Grungeboard.  I added Picket Fence Distress Paint and then covered them with Wendy Vecchi's White Embossing Paste to add depth.  While the paste was still wet, I sprinkled Rock Candy Distress Glitter over the paste and let it dry.  

But then the top of the tag was going to look plain, so I added some more Embossing Paste to the top of the tag using a brush. I also added the Distress Glitter and let it dry.  When all of my "snow" pieces were dry, I lightly sprayed some Honey Stain over them to gently "age" them, adding a very light sepia tone to the snow. 

Hmm...what to do next?  It needed something with a little bit of dimension in the center of the tag.  I thought about adding something like a die cut label and stamp "Merry Christmas" on it but that would cover up a lot of the pretty collaged stamping.  

Then it hit me ... Tim's new Ice Skates die cut!  Let them just hang freely from the tag!  So, I die cut them from Plain Grungeboard and painted them with Picket Fence Distress Paint.  I added a metallic look to the skate blades by first covering them with Brushed Pewter Distress Stain and then wiping on some Tarnished Brass Distress Stain over it with my finger.  When dry, I added the brown distressing with a Q-Tip and Potting Soil Archival Ink.  LOVE THAT BROWN!!

I laced the skates with some Natural Hemp Twine.  Yes, you can lace the skates because the die cut actually has slits already in the die!  That Tim thinks of everything!!!  I started at the top of the skate and went in and out of each slit using the twine.  Then on the way back up the skate, I came back through the slit and went UNDER the lace that I added when coming down the skate and then took the twine behind the skate and came up through the hole from the back side.  That way, the laces cross.  When I reached the top, I just tied a bow on the skates.  So stinkin' cute!  

I added a piece of Tim's brown and white Paper String behind the top laces of each skate so that they could freely dangle as if being held by a strap. I sewed a couple of little jingle bells together and then sewed them onto the top lace of each skate.

I think they look really cool on top of the tag.  They are so vintage looking and added the dimension that the center of the tag needed.  But ....

they also swing freely, so as not to cover up the really cool vintage images underneath.  And the little swinging jingles bells add sound effects while they "jingle all the way!"  

To finish off my tag, I wrapped the Paper String tail left from the top of the skates through the hole and top of the tag a few times to secure it.  Then I added a small Paper String bow and sewed it to the wrapped string.  Finally, I hot glued a piece of vintage Melissa Frances tinsel garland to the bow.   

I HO HO HOPE that my vintage Christmas tag has inspired you to do some stamping ... any type of stamping and enter it into our challenge at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.  You could be the lucky winner of our 

$50.00 credit voucher drawing just for entering and following the challenge rules.

If your piece is extraordinary, you could be featured in our 

Quite a nice feature for those artists whose work goes above and beyond! 

So, join the fun and enter our challenge today!
Good luck!

Here is a list of all of the supplies available at Simon Says Stamp that were used in
creating this vintage Christmas tag:

Ranger #10 Manila Tag, Potting Soil Archival Ink, Pine Needles Distress Ink, Fired Brick Distress Ink, Gathered Twigs Distress Ink, Sizzix Skates, Snow Flurries On The Edge, Mini Snowflakes Movers and Shapers, Distress Rock Candy Glitter, Frosted Lace Stickles, Mercury Glass Stickles, Stardust Stickles, Letter To Santa, Winter Wonder, Old Fashioned Christmas, Holidays Past, White Embossing Paste, Gold Paint Dabber, Uni Ball Signo White Gel Pen, Brushed Pewter Distress Stain, Tarnished Brass Distress Stain, Hemptique Thick Natural Cord  Twine, Stripes Paper String, Picket Fence Distress Paint, Plain Grungeboard, Vagabond