Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas 2010

Warning: very image heavy
...... and long!

So I'm going to say something that pretty much everyone in the scrapping world knows........ Tim Holtz is a genius! And I particularly love this time of year when he does his 12 Tags of Christmas.

I followed along last year for the first time (see my efforts here) and so I knew what a treat I was in for this year.

 As usual, there were some of my tags I was quite happy with, and some..... not so much! All of Tims were amazing of course :-)

But as Tim says... he doesn't expect you to copy his tags directly, but more just to gain inspiration from, or to learn new techniques. Because not only does he make wonderful tags, but he gives outstanding tutorials which make it incredibly easy to learn from.

Let's have a look at them one by one shall we?
In each of these, I have posted Tim's tag first, followed by my own attempt (but I'm sure you'll be able to tell!!) and I'll link you up to Tim's blog post/tutorial.

Tag One

Not having the rickety house die, I took my inspiration from the method he used of layering paper strips (or grungeboard in his case) before cutting it into the shape he wanted. I simplified it quite a bit!

Tag Two

Again, not having the right materials to make my own ink-pad I settled for just taking my inspiration from the design.

Tag Three

This one was a bit easier to emulate :-) I liked the idea of covering chipboard with tissue-tape (something I hadn't thought of previously) and used some 7 Gypsies tape instead.

Tag Four

This was the one I had the hardest time with. Despite Tim's tag looking a-mazing, I just couldn't get happy with mine, even after a second attempt.

Tag Five

I found this one a bunch of fun. I don't think I use my stamps nearly as much during the year as I do for Tim's tags!

Tag Six

This was my absolute favourite from Tim's tags. Maybe because I have a real deer infatuation at Christmas time. But I think the colours are just lovely. And I adored the technique he used for the background. It had never crossed my mind to stamp onto my embossing folders.

Tag Seven

I think this was the tag that I got closest to as far as imitating it directly. I love this one too.

Tag Eight

I used the double-stenciling trick he taught us here, but used butterflies instead. Are butterflies Christmassy?!!!

Tag Nine

This was another easier one to copy, so I just put my spin on it. I realised at this point how many of my tags were heading down the turquoise/red path.... but it's just a pretty combination don't you think?

Tag Ten

What a fantastic idea.... to emboss your plastic packaging! I told you this man was a genius!

Tag Eleven

I used the stamping on my embossing folders technique from tag 6 for the background of this instead of the clear embossing that he taught in this tutorial. But kept the trees, and the book plate.

Tag Twelve

Lucky last. I just went with having a big bauble as my focus and ignored the rest really!

Well that's it for another year.

Did you make it this far to the end of my post?!