Things are starting to look up...thank goodness!  And thank you all for your comments, thoughts and prayers.  I think some of them have been answered and I am so very thankful.  It has been a rough few weeks and things are not totally over with the stress, but at least I am starting to see a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Today, I spent my afternoon relaxing.  For me that was doing some scrapping that was not an assignment.  I have taken a break from some of my DT stuff just to give myself a little time to deal with things.  Sometimes we just need a break...
So what did I do? I played along with Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas.  This is my first time to do this, and I must say, I really enjoyed the process.  I learned some fun new techniques and really tried to take to heart his encouragement to use what I had on hand.  I would LOVE to have all of his products, but I don't.  The only thing I did break down and purchase was the Archival Ink.  It just does things that my other inks don't do, so I had to have it.  I am also quite certain that I am going to have to get one of those craft mats as well.  Maybe that would be a good Christmas gift!!!
When all was said and done, I ended up creating 3 tags.  The first two are rather small tags, but the third one is larger.  I wish I had done the first two the same size as the last one, but I was just playing around when I started this today.  The first one is based off of his Tag #5.  I don't have any of those super cool Reflections stamps, so I just choose some images that I had that would be OK to be reversed.  I used a piece of clear plastic from some of my Cricut cartridges.  I just layered it onto cardstock to make it thicker and a bit more sturdy.


The next one I created used the same alcohol ink on clear plastic, but then I used the Crackle paint fun from Tag #4. The crackle was done on the snowflake image that I cut with my Cricut. I just don't have any Distress Stain, so I used my Distress Inks and "pushed" the ink into the cracks using a sponger dauber.


The final tag I made was inspired by Tag #6. This one was super fun.  And...I did not use the Metallic foil stuff.  I used what I had on hand, and that was heavy duty aluminum foil.  I just wrapped a piece of it around a tag, glued it in place with some glossy accents and then embossed it.  The painting, took some time, but the final outcome was definitely worth it.  It has such a fun distressed feel!