An Early Christmas with Tim ... Holtz August Tag for 2015

First, I would like to say thank you for all of the wonderful comments and support I received on my last post, Time Mends Broken Hearts.  Art, indeed, is therapy :) And I'm so grateful that my crafty friends are here to walk the journey with me. Now ... I hope you all have had a great weekend.  I have!!  I managed to carve a little time to create my version(s) of Tim Holtz's August Tag for 2015.  Wow!! Tim seriously outdid himself this time.  I've been checking out everyone else's take on Tim's tag and they are really spectacular.  I won't go into all the details because Tim's tutorial is so great.  I sincerely suggest that you drop by and try to follow his step by step process.  His tutorial is an awesome way to utilize a variety of tools you may already have in your stash.

Since I am so terrible at getting Christmas cards and tags made, I decided to start early and Tim's August techniques really lend themselves well to holiday wishes.  I actually ended up making two tags again this time.  I thought the first one was a little too busy, so I create a second one and I really like it.  Above you can see my second tag.  I followed Tim's steps exactly with the exception of splattering with paint at the end.  I love the holiday "found relatives" too much to splatter them :). 
 

 The background is some of Tim's Christmas Ideology paper (with Christmas carol sheet music).  I used his Block Holiday Words Thinlits.  To color the die cut layer, I used Walnut Stain, Wild Honey and Peeled Paint.  I used a heavier bristled paint brush to apply the gesso and matte multi medium.  This gave me a little more texture to work with when I "grunged up" my tag at the end.





I grabbed a small clothespin adorened with a Christmas tree that I found in the dollar bins at Michaels for my "tag tie".  I decorated it with a remnant rub and used it to attach an Ideology charm and one of Tim's Holiday Greens die cuts to the tag.

 I had to end with a close-up of this little boy with Santa.  I was always afraid of going to see Santa at Christmas.  (Hence the "brave" charm on the tag!)  However, when I saw this found relative, I got the feeling that Santa had just told him that he had better straighten up his act and be good or else he may get coal in his stocking!

Here are a couple of other details to note. I used Tim's musical score stamp from  his Joyful Song set on the left of the tag.  I also fussy cut the "holiday lights" box front from some of Tim's Ideology holiday papers.

















I decided to include the first version of this tag.   I do like it, but I found the stamping and remnant rubs on the front were just a little too busy for me.  I loved using Tim's snowflake Movers and Shapers die to add the snowflake to the die cut overlay.  Snowflake pattern paper  was used as the background layer.  I went a bit lighter with the inks and "grunging" because it is a snow-themed tag.  I did use some silver acrylic paint for the "splatters here.  I didn't add any charms because it was so busy. 

 I will end this post with a pic of both tags side by side for comparison.  As usual, it was such a blast to create these.  Thanks Tim for a wonderful August inspiration tag and the time you took to share your creativity with us!  -- Mary Elizabeth