2018 Twelve Tags of Christmas With Loll and Friends!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you enjoying the week! Yesterday was Veteran's Day: a wonderful day to reflect and thank all the men and women who have served the country during times of war and peace and to thank their families for all the sacrifices they have made. Thank you!

Today is my day to appear as a Guest Designer for my friend Lolly's inspiring annual Christmas tag event: Twelve Tags of Christmas With Loll and Friends. This will be the final year and I want to thank Lolly for putting this event together every year for five years! I have found lots of beautiful tag inspiration in the galleries over the years!

Here is my tag for Day Nine:

I actually made the tag background in May at our Vancouver retreat. Christine is lucky enough to live near a paper factory and we all reaped the benefits of that! There were a lot of tags for us to play with and we decided to slap them around in some spritzed Lindy Magicals. We were very pleased at how beautifully the non-watercolor paper tags soaked up the powdered ink!

To make my tag, I added two whimsical die-cut Christmas trees made from a "Small Snow Covered Tree" die by Dee's Distinctively Dies. I had to buy this die as soon as I saw it last summer on Bonnie's blog. I cut the trees from a schparkly snowy paper, but you'll have to take my word for that. Hammy inserted a foam dot between the layers to give them some dementia. The white heat-embossed Christmas sediment is from PTI and the shimmery fluffy bow is from a roll I've had since the twins were babies.

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Thank you, Lolly, for having me as one of your Guest Designers. It's been fun!

I hope you'll be able to join in the Twelve Tags of Christmas With Loll and Friends! There are prizes! Below is a recap of all the information you need!

 Challenges Dates:

• Inspiration Tags posted Nov. 5 - 16.
• Linky open for entries Nov. 5 - 23.
• Top Tags posted Nov. 30.

Rules: 

• Make a Mixed Media or CAS Mixed Media Christmas tag. (Include stamping plus two mixed media elements.)
• Include a link to Twelve Tags challenge in your write-up.
• Add your entry with the linky tool on Loll's blog.
• Enter as many times as you'd like, new entries only please.

Prizes:

• Winning Tag - $50 Gift Certificate for Simon Says Stamp.
• Random Draw + Top Three Tags: $25 Gift Certificate each 
  

  for Simon Says Stamp.

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Fires

It was a pleasure bringing you a cold and icy tag today to take my mind off the fact that so much of California is burning again. All these years of drought are really being felt as over 117,000 acres have burned in this latest fire which is only 30% contained. Over 7,000 structures have gone up in flames, most of them homes. An entire town of 26,000 people is in ashes. To date, 42 people have died, and over 200 are still missing. It's beyond sad, but it's also a miracle more people didn't die as the fire was traveling the length of a football field every three seconds! Horrifying!

Thank you to all the brave firefighters who are putting their lives on the line to save as many homes and as much property as they can. We pray for their safety as they work 24-hour shifts. Many of them have lost their own homes, but they work on, trying to save the homes of others.

We are five days into it and the smoke is still at an unhealthy level throughout the Bay Area (where we are), which is 180 miles away from the center of the inferno! And there are two other deadly fires currently raging near Los Angeles. It is all very scary and it reminds us once again how life can change in an instant. It reminds me to tell you how much I appreciate you! Mwah!

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!*

*Life is too short!

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