Funkie Junkie 12 Tags Number 2 - Brother and Sister

Hello there! Well Christmas is drawing ever nearer and I'm doing my best to complete the twelve tags of Christmas inspired by the very talented Linda Coughlin  at The Funkie Junkie Boutique! Please Click Here for details of the shop and Here for the Challenge and rules! It's a great way to gain inspiration for Christmas makes from Linda's lovely designs and there's still a chance to win a prize: you have until December 22nd, midnight, eastern time so do pop over and give it a look.
The tag I'd like to enter today is Number 2. Here is Linda's original. I'm so behind I'm not doing the tags in any order. I'm going with the ones that give me immediate inspiration. They're all so lovely I'm sure they all will in time! What I loved about Linda's tag was the beautiful golden deer. I loved it so much I bought the Tim Holtz die. Now I can't give you step by steps this time, I'm afraid, as my daughter had the camera all day to do a photo-shoot for college, but here is my deer and I will take the tag detail by detail and explore how I did it and what it means to me.

As soon as I saw Linda's tag, I was reminded of a fairy story I read to my children called 'Brother and Sister'. In it a pair of children of royal birth are abandoned in the woods by their wicked step-mother. They stop to drink by a brook, which sings to them, warning them that if they drink of it they will be turned into wild beasts. They resist for a while, but eventually the boy drinks and is turned into a deer. His sister protects him until he is wounded  by a prince hunting in the forest. Well, I expect you can guess how it all ends! Once again it is about the loyalty of a young girl just like Gerda in 'The Snow Queen' so females don't get an entirely bad press in fairy tales! I covered my die-cut deer in Versamark and then applied several coats of gold embossing powder. When they were melted I stamped with Music Stamp from the Paper Artsy Sarah Nauman, 007 Eclectica plate, making sure I covered it in Versamark first. Because the deer in the story is a prince in disguise I gave him a crown from some Dresden gold foil cut to size and a little gauze scarf with a green gem at the throat.

 I used a colour combo a bit out of my comfort zone in this one! I broke open the Frayed Burlap, which I don't often use! I swiped my tag, made from card and a Tim Holtz tag die, through Frayed Burlap Distress ink sprinkled with gold Perfect Pearls powder and spritzed with water, repeating the process until I had a look I liked. I don't have the AO Midwinter stamps that Linda used, which were perfect for her composition, so after drying with my heat gun, I stencilled the trees from my favourite Clear Snaps stencil in Paper Artsy Fresco, Nougat. I was pleased with the snowy, misty effect and the way the trees glimmered through in gold and frayed burlap.

I added a pediment die to the top and bottom of the tag and edged with Wendy Vecchi Potting Soil Archival ink. I added to the snowy effect with lots of dobs of Gesso, including on the gauze. In this photo you can see the Champagne Crushed Glass Glitter in the left corner. I didn't have any of the beautiful cheesecloth or Tim Holtz linen ribbon that Linda used so I substituted some gauze, which I dyed with Festive Berries Distress Ink and some copper Perfect Pearls. I painted the hemp thread with some Gesso too. It is difficult to see in the photos how the trees shimmer with gold and how the Shabby Rose Frantage glitters on the musical snowflakes!

I used the sentiment from the Artistic Outpost, Snowy Woods plate stamped with Potting Soil and clear embossed. The little snowflakes were stamped from an X-cut snowflake stamp and painted with Nougat before being stamped with the music from Eclectica.

Here is the finished tag. I attached my deer with little foam pads. They were slightly visible so I melted some Frantage around them and - hey presto - vanished! Thank you, Linda for your inspiration and thanks to my visitors and followers so much for stopping by and looking at another of my twelve tags with a Christmas story behind it! I have another one ready for tomorrow, so I would really appreciate it if you could drop by - I understand how pushed for time everyone must be, though, as the Festive Season gathers momentum.