Hello old friends and new followers! Today is an exciting day here at The Funkie Junkie blog. For the last three years, I have hosted a Christmas tag challenge that runs for 12 weeks. We've had great fun with this challenge and I'm hoping you will play along this year. Each week, I will share a tag that I made and challenge YOU to be inspired by some aspect of that tag. You can join the challenge by linking your creation up to my weekly post.
Here's how the challenge works. Each Monday for the next 12 weeks, I will post a Christmas tag. If you wish to play along, you can make any sort of Christmas or winter themed DIY project. It can be a tag, but doesn't have to be. It can be a Christmas card, a holiday decoration, a scrapbook layout, a tree ornament, a banner, whatever you want but it does have to be inspired by my tag and must be Christmas or winter themed. For those of you who chose to make a Christmas card, this challenge will help you complete at least 12 handmade cards.
Sound like fun? Here are the challenge requirements, which must be adhered to in order to be eligible for the prize drawing at the end:
- This is an inspiration challenge. Each week, I will post my tag and you will use it to be inspired to make something. You can enter any sort of craft. It can be a tag, a card, a home decor project, a scrapbook layout - your choice but please make it winter or Christmas related.
- You must take inspiration from something on my tag and tell us in your post what inspired you. You don't have to use my style, my layout, my colors, my theme or anything except be inspired by something on my sample. Your make can be shabby, it can be grungy or it can be clean and simple. I don't mind if you CASE my work, but if you do, please give me credit.
- We will have 12 weekly challenges beginning today, Monday, September 29. You can link your project using the linky provided at the very bottom of the post.
- To be eligible for the drawing at the end of the 12 weeks, you must: 1) enter all 12 challenges, 2) provide a link back to this challenge and mention that it is sponsored by my store The Funkie Junkie Boutique, with a link to the boutique www.thefunkiejunkie.com.
- You do have to have a blog (or some other way to provide the required links and inspiration information).
- All 12 challenges will remain open until midnight Eastern time on December 21, 2014. You can play any of the 12 challenges up through that date in any order. To be eligible for the prize drawing, you must have submitted an entry into all 12 of these challenges by midnight Eastern time December 21st.
- On December 22nd, from the pool of players who participated in every single challenge and provided a link to the challenge and a link to my store on their post, I will draw three winners. There will be one $50 grand prize gift certificate to The Funkie Junkie Boutique given out plus two runner up prizes of $25 gift certificates.
- Additionally, everyone who participated in all the challenges and met the requirements will receive a 10% off coupon good for their entire order at The Funkie Junkie Boutique during the month of January 2015.
- Here is the blog publication schedule for my 12 inspiration tags: Week 1 - September 29, Week 2 - October 6, Week 3 - October 13, Week 4 - October 20, Week 5 - October 27, Week 6 - November 3, Week 7 - November 10, Week 8 - November 17, Week 9 - November 24, Week 10 - December 1, Week 11 - December 8, Week 12 - December 15, December 21st- challenge closes.
A small tag was cut using the Tiny Tags and Tabs die, stamped with the Christmas Carol stamp from Tim's Mini Holidays 3 set, then the snowflakes from the Mini Holidays set were clear embossed over the music. Then the tag was sponged with Vintage Photo DI. A piece of twine was used to create the bow and I added two tiny silver jingle bells surrounding a Christmas tree charm. (The tiny safety pins, the Christmas charms and the tiny jingle bells are all sold in The Funkie Junkie Boutique - see the thumbnail links below.) The tag was finished off with a pretty crinkle ribbon dyed with Pine Needles distress ink and a couple of pieces of ephemera from Tim Holtz's new Chrismas ephemera pack.
That's it for the 2014 Tag #1. Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope to see you playing along. Please link up using the link at the very bottom of this post.
The products below were used to make this tag and are available at The Funkie Junkie Boutique where Ranger/Tim Holtz and most other name brand products are always 20% below MSRP.
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The flower was made with two layers of die cuts from the Jumbo Tattered Florals die and the rest of the layers were cut with the Tattered Flowers decorative strip die. I stamped the white CS with the Apothecary script stamp in Jet Black Archival, then sponged them with Vintage Photo and edged them with Black Soot DI. I didn't have any Brushed Pewter distress stain so I mixed a bit of Pewter Perfect Pearls and water in a Mini Mister and lightly misted the flower layers before assembling. While they were wet, I scrunched them and dried them like that. Once dry, I gently unfurled them and glued the layers together. The leaves were cut from white CS with the Tattered Flowers die, colored with black distress paint, dried, coated with Glossy Accents and had Black Soot distress glitter applied. 
