I played around with Tim Holtz's "12 Days of Christmas" tag tutorials today and this is what I accomplished. I love the look of alcohol inks. They are so vibrant.

Allyson just celebrated a big milestone! her 10th birthday. She's an awesome kid and if you are able to get her autograph now, you should--she will certainly be the next Mia Hamm!!

Here is Ashley with her awesome Volleyball Team!! They ROCK!! They don't call them the HOT TAMALES for nothin'!!

My granddaughter had a "Dickens of a Party" at her middle school. The kids were assigned names and occupations of that era and were to dress in Victorian style. They had to learn the waltz and present themselves with their name and occupation to "Scrooge"!! Caitlin was awarded the prize for the MOST FASHIONABLE, and rightly so since she was a haberdasher in the Victorian Era. According to Wikipedia a Haberdasher is:

A person who sells small, commonly used items in clothing via retail. This can include ribbons and buttons, or completed accessories, such as hats or gloves. A haberdasher's shop or the items sold therein are called haberdashery.

I had fun making this 12 x 12 hanging art for one of my granddaughters friends for Christmas. I used black foam poster board and stamped with white acrylic paint with a stamp by Club Scrap. It was a quick and easy project.

The next technique was called the dry brush technique. I used a very small amount of gesso on a cheap brush and then brushed most of if off on a paper towel. I just started brushing on the tags until I had the desired effect. They were a muted version and turned out very nice. After the Christmas Holidays we are going to be making a tag booklet with these tags, embellishing and altering them for our heart's desire!!....Once again cheaper than a shrink!!

Next step was called dye inks. I used the T!m Holtz Distressed ink pads and just smeared all over the front and back of the tags.

Then came the fun messy step! We used shaving cream and I used a few drops of alcohol ink to color the shaving cream. Then I "smooshed" the tags in the shaving cream and let them dry. They are starting to look kinda cool!

After the second coat of coffee they were looking a little rough and I thought --what a mess these are!! The third step was called acrylic wash. I took some blue acrylic and watered it down and then brushed over tags. Here is the result of that.

The second step was to layer on another stain of coffee and then let dry. Here is the second coat of coffee.

I belong to a Yahoo Group called "The Artist's Circle" and we are doing a project of altering shipping tags. We have experimented with many techniques so far in the progess. We atarted out with 12 plain shipping tags and our first step was to stain them with coffee.

Another attempt at the 12 Tags of Christmas. This was fun too. I used the Peace on Earth stamp from Club Scrap and the rest of the embellishments were from my stash. The lighting wasn't the greatest and this tag looks a whole lot better in person than this photo depicts.

Recently T!m Holtz had some awesome classes on his blog called "The 12 Tags of Christmas". He is the master of distress and all of his work ROCKS!! Here is my attempt to follow his example of the tags. Some turned out nice, but nothing compared to his!! It was fun to do and definitely.....cheaper than a shrink!!