Tag #1 of the Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas - Midnight Mass

Welcome to Magpieheaven where I'm slowly making my way through Linda Couglin's wonderfully inspiring '12 Tags of Christmas'. This is an amazing challenge offered by the Funkie Junkie boutique, which also supplies all kinds of great craft materials. There's still time to enter: you have until December 22 and the opportunity to win a great prize, so click HERE for all the information you need. For this tag, I was inspired by Linda's Tag 1, which you can see if you click HERE. This is my third tag, as I'm not working to any particular order. When I first saw Linda's I thought I would never be able to create a tag like that! I loved the effect she created with her stunning contrasts of black and white and the chalkboard technique, but I'm not a black and white person at all. I then turned to my Fresco paints and sought out the darkest blue I have: Baltic Blue. I've not used it very much, as I realized I tend to shy away from very dark colours. However, once I'd covered my tag with a nice smooth coating of this deep, midnight blue I was happy!

I wish I could have photographed the plain, dark blue tag, but the camera was in use by daughter again, so little peeks of the finished tag will have to do. Anyway, what I thought immediately was - Midnight Mass! I remember when I moved to a country town from London as a young girl, I started to attend a Church School and it was there I first heard about this special service held the night before Christmas. I still recall the magical feeling of coming home from the service after midnight with my new school friends, our footsteps ringing in the quiet streets; a scattering of stars and the moon glittering on the frost. Linda's amazing tag was entirely white and black except for a little 'pop' of red, which looked great. I decided, though to stick with my blue and white combo, as this best tied in with my Midnight Mass theme. I am always tempted to play with blending and adding colours, but this time I kept my Baltic Blue as a straightforward, solid background. I did add a scattering of white embossing powder to suggest snow or maybe a myriad stars in the wintry night sky.

I added the book-plate from the tag die, Crackle glazed, Snowflake over Baltic Blue and added two little diamond studs. The Christmas message is from Artistic Outpost's Snowy Woods plate. I embossed the snowflakes from Snowy Woods, using Versamark and Wow, white embossing powder. I also dug out my Tim Holtz die of little houses. I love this die and I have used it in lots of different ways since I bought it. I painted my card die-cut with Fresco Snowflake and added Shabby Blue Frantage. The snowflakes standing out in this image are punched from card or die-cut from a Movers and Shapers die and covered with melted white embossing powder.

I am working with Tim Holtz die-cut tags, which are not 'jumbo' sized so I have to think carefully about not crowding too much onto them. For this reason I have been playing with the idea of adding borders to the tags. On this one I added the swirly 'On the Edge' TH die, which I painted with Snowflake and edged with Shabby Blue Frantage. The paper lace is punched from a Christmas Book, explaining the origins of the Midnight Mass and I gave it a thin coat of Snowflake.

A piece of seam-binding dyed with Broken China distress ink and my third tag, Tag #1 - if that's not too confusing - was finished! I am entering it for the Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas Challenge. Thank you so much for stopping by today, as I know how the Christmas frenzy is taking hold at this point! Good luck with all you are creating and planning!