12 Tags of Christmas TAG 8

Just when I think Tim can't possibly outdo his tag from the day before, he goes and does it! Today's tag is Tim Holtz all the way. Steampunk meets Christmas in this awesome creation by the master himself...

Holy cow, am I right? He's amazing. I love this! 

Be sure to go to Tim's blog post today and check out all the steps and techniques to make this tag.

Here's how Tim's tag inspired me...

I knew there would be times when the shape of my ornament tags would come back to haunt me. Sometimes it's a bit tricky to adapt Tim's creation to the shorter and wider shape I'm using. Case in point: (and this is a nit-picky artist thing, I know) I didn't have the room to shift the gear on the right up a little higher. (see Tim's). At least I wasn't paying attention when I glued them; let's say that. 

So when I took a final look, I realized that my ticket and my gears are straight across from each other. A graphic design no-no. But hey, those suckers were well-glued by the time I realized it, so I "kept calm and carried on" and did what I could. To try and offset things a little, I added a piece of green twine to the pointing finger on the left, as well as some punched green holly leaves (Thanks Lisa). This sort of tricks the eye a bit forcing it to see the green ribbon on the right and the greenery on the left as diagonally opposing items. It works a lot better when the photo is not taken on a dark green background. 

(You're just gonna have to trust me on this.)

I didn't have the Weathered Clock die, so I used this giant Sizzix snowflake die. As for the Snow Cap White background image, even after a very long drying time, the inks did not resist when rubbed over the white. Sort of muddied up. But hey, it's grungy, so I'm fine with it. Here I used Grunge Cirque and School Desk stamps by Stamper's Anonymous.

Don't you love these sprockets and the spinner all piled up on the two grungeboard gears? Very cool.

I have used these great alpha parts before but never tried Glossy Accents over them. Wow is this ever a cool transformation!

The steampunk guys from the Curious Possibility stamp set are great, but just a bit long for my tag, so I snipped them apart and raised up the middle guy and scooted the other two behind him a bit. I love how this looks. Now I just need to add some holly and berries.

I didn't have any tiny holly leaves so I fudged it with some Christmas Red and Peeled Paint Stickles. (You'll have to click on the photo to see that detail.) Even though this tag has a lot going on and looks really busy on my tree, I absolutely loved making it and am pleased with how it turned out.

Thanks for checking me out. Have a great day!