Ultimate Yankee Swap Gift

Here's the ultimate Yankee Swap gift...do people do Yankee Swaps else where or is it only us New England Yankees who do them? What a hoot! The perfect re-gift I guess. Dave got this the other night at my department Christmas get-together.

So this is the first morning in 12 days I don't have Tim Holtz's Christmas tags to check out. Kind of having withdrawels...not that I really made any of the tags, but I did use some of his techniques to make some tags. I actually wish I had time to play along with this on a daily basis. But I love to see what that man comes up with. I liked some better than others...but he has really clever ideas. That's what was so fascinating. Now we'll just have to see what goodies he releases at the next CHA in January.

And last night we finished the mini-series on tv-Pillars of the Earth-so now that evening routine (of a week) is over too! And the Amazing Race ended on Sunday...getting to the end of Project Accessory...

But enough of the blues...

A couple of holiday journal pages...

This page I started with some older white and blue snowflake paper and I inked it with some Adirondack Juniper pigment ink. I attached it to watercolor paper which is the base for all my scrap journal pages. I ripped the yop-just like the look of ripped paper. Then I added a strip of Martha Stewart holiday paper tape that I picked up last year. I added the photo and used this new Sizzix die I bought. I just love this die. I cut it in bright green and then rubbed darker green over it to highlight. I used some red Viva dimensional paints to accent the dots on the tree and some silver Viva d.p. to highlight the star. I used the same red Viva dp above the top left corner of the photo.

On the top of the page is part of a tag from the oposite side. You can see the string hanging down. I added some tape to it, along with a holiday ticket (Unity Stamps), a die cut flower and small chipboard ring. Inside the flower is chipboard dot and I distress the whole thing with red ink.

This page is deceptively simple. I started with a square of plaid holiday paper and the photo. Then I die cut the tree (Sizzix) on green sparklely paper. I used red waxed thread on each end of the paper which was stapled in place. Then I stamped the words (Technique Tuesday/Allie Edwards). Finally I used a die cut star and covered it in Viva gold dimenional paints-several layers, and over that a few layers of gold Stickles. It took a bit t put this together, with all the layers on the star to finally look right, but it has a clean and simple look.

Works for me.

Have a great day!

I am off to get ready for work!