Funkie Junkie 12 Tags - Tag number 5, Saint Nicholas.

Hello, visitors to Magpieheaven and welcome! It's been such a beautiful sunny Advent day and I've managed another tag towards the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Challenge - yippee! As I used exclusively Artistic Outpost Snowy Woods stamps on this tag, I should also like to enter this for the Artistic Outpost December Anything Goes Referrral Here. Please click HERE if you would like to find out about Linda Coughlin's challenge. You have until December 22 to create 12 tags inspired by her wonderful designs. The Funkie Junkie Boutique, which offers lots of crafting goodies can be found here. This is the tag that inspired my make this evening. It is Linda's fifth tag and my fourth, as I'm not completing the tags in any particular order. My inspiration for this tag was Linda's beautiful Santa image and the warm, vintage tones on the tag. I am using the Tim Holtz tag die and cutting my tags from card myself, so I have to be careful not to attempt to crowd too much onto these fairly small tags. I tried to get around this this time by creating two tags in one! I'll show you what I mean.

I cut two tags, one plan and the other with the Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers snowflakes cut out of it. I then ran this one through an embossing folder after which I sponged it with Vintage Photo and Evergreen Bough and applied a little Green Amber and Spanish Topaz Treasure Gold. I spritzed the plain tag and swiped it through Festive Berries Distress Ink sprinkled with Perfect Pearls Gold powder. I had some seam binding scrunched up and stamped with Festive Berries and Vintage Photo and some tea-dyed lace.

I attached both tags together with a pine-cone brad and some seam-binding after embossing the Festive Berries tag with the fir bough stamp from Artistic Outpost 'Snowy Woods', stamped with Wendy Vecchi Fern Green Archival and then clear embossed. I stamped and clear-embossed the wreath from Snowy Woods, but it is only just visible under the little punched out leaves, which I painted with Paper Artsy Hey Pesto, a stroke of Glossy Accents and some Dry Distress Glitter and little red pearls.

Linda had a large Santa in the centre of her tag, but as my tag is smaller than hers this would have taken up the whole tag, so I used the book plate from the TH die as a frame and decided to create a little miniature of Saint Nicholas. I added some Hey Pesto Fresco to some Grunge Paste and squeezed this through a swirly Crafters' Workshop stencil before painting the whole frame with Hey Pesto and applying Green Amber Treasure Gold when the GP was dry.. I used just a small section of the image from Snowy Woods and it is exactly as I imagine the original Saint Nicholas to have looked. I stamped with Potting Soil, Wendy Vecchi Archival onto some card painted with a blend of Nougat and Cinnamon Frescos. There are so many amazing stories about the kindly Saint, how he resurrected three boys killed by a wicked butcher who stored them ready to make into pies and the poor man whose daughters had no dowries and would have had to make their living as 'ladies of the night' had Saint Nicholas not lobbed three bags of gold coins through their window, keeping his identity a secret. Is this the reason for those gold corn choccies we get in our stockings?

Here is one view of my Saint Nicholas tag. I added some punched out lace with text from the story of the Saint on it over the tea-dyed lace.

The tag can be moved to display the evergreens beneath.

If you get them in the right position, you can see the red gems at the centre of the snowflakes. As always, if you would like more detail, please click on the images. Thank you Funkie Junkie for creating such an inspiring challenge. I should like to enter this tag for Linda's Tag #5 and many thanks and Advent Wishes to  my kind and creative Visitors and Followers.