12 Tags of Christmas - #1

Once again Tim Holtz is doing his 12 Tags of Christmas and I'm attempting to play along this year.  The first tag was posted on Dec. 1st and it will continue every day until 12 are done.  You can see Tim's Day 1 tag here.

My tag is very similar but not the same as I didn't have all the supplies... which is fine... his tags are for inspiration and to try new techniques... doing them exactly is not required.  First off, I do not have that old rickety house die - yet - but after seeing the fabulous Christmas time house it made I've decided I should own it.  In the meantime I opted to make a more... different house.  I did the technique he share... which is WAY cool... but then I cut out one of the styled labels and then cut a key hole in it for the window (ya, I should have cut them at the same time but I wasn't thinking that far ahead, lol).  I cut a chimney afterwards from what was left after cutting out the label... cutting it exactly where I was going to place it on the label so the edges fit together... not that you can see them after adding the "snow".  My tree is a Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 stamp... stamped it with Archival jet black onto grungeboard, cut it out, inked it completely with peeled paint and then a bit with pine needles.  I then took Tim's small pine branch image and stamped it on the tree using pine needles to give the tree the look of pine tree texture.  For my wreath I punched a Martha Stewart pine branch several times from green cardstock, inked them just a bit with pine needles and stuck them together in a wreath shape.  The ticket looked way too big down by the house so I put it at the top of the tag.  I just had to add a little bird and it is also a Martha Stewart punch.