St. Nicholas Day: December 6

Did you find sweet treats or coins in your shoes this morning?

This is a special project for the Design Team Gingers at Gingersnap Creations.  We were challenged to create something for St. Nicholas Day.  I hope you click on the link to visit the post where you can read more about St. Nicholas and view the other Gingers' art created for today.

Nikolaos of Myra was a saint and Greek Bishop who performed many miracles during his lifetime (270 A.D. - Dec. 6, 347 A.D.)  He was the role model for the modern day Santa Claus.  Many around the world leave their shoes outside their bedroom doors on the night of December 5, hoping to wake up on December 6th to shoes filled with treats.

He is the patron saint of many, including children and sailors.The Graphics Fairy had the perfect image for this. I incorporated this very old Woolson Spice Co. advertising card, showing Santa hanging stockings on the moon and looking at an ocean scene below. I found it here on a blog post from The Graphics Fairy .

Wikipedia provided some details to help with my art interpretation.

roses: it is said the relics of St. Nicholas exude manna (or myrrh) which smells like rose water believed by the faithful to contain the power of miracles

If in the recesses of your mind you're thinking there's something familiar about this tag----it's because it's Tim Holtz' Tag #4.  You have your Santa, pearls, and fragment.  However, if you also are a member of the Everything Wendy Vecchi group, then you see something else that's familiar.  Our EWV group has been challenged to make Tim's tags Wendy style.  I have a trifecta here:  GC design team project, Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas tag #4 design, and EWV Wendy-style tag.  

Wendy is all about flowers.  Most famous is her grungepaper rose.  This rose is a perfect symbol for St. Nicholas' rose scented myrrh.  So first on the agenda was a rose stamped and then distressed with Broken China ink.  The leaves are distressed with Shabby Shutters ink.  I inked the tag with Spiced Marmalade and Vintage Photo distress inks.  On the tag, I had to fill in above and below the GF image, so I used Wendy's Merry Christmas background stamp on top, stamped in Broken China distress ink, to match the color of the sky in the graphic.  On the bottom, I used Wendy's scallop stamp stamped in Faded Jeans distress ink to match the water (for a few extra waves).  I stamped that on a scrap of another tag, then cut it to fit perfectly across.  Wendy uses Stickles.  I used Frosted Lace on the icicles and Rock Candy on the white caps in the water.  I used one of Tim's fragment ornaments and a second printed image to capture the ship.  I read somewhere that St. Nicholas rescued sailors from a capsized boat.  So up they go to hang on the moon with the stockings.  (kinda like a ship in a bottle) I topped the ornament with a bit of foil scrap (my version of Wendy's use of metal embellishments).  I couldn't believe that I didn't have the believe stamp!.  But I found a couple of stickers in the new Websters Pages Holiday pack.  So there you have it..  A design team challenge, inspiration from Tim, and Wendy's stamps = one St. Nicholas tag.

And it can't get much better than this because I can also enter my tag in:
Tuesday Taggers challenge: Jolly Old St. Nick.  I was fortunate to recently have won their drawing and got some scrummy stamps from the Craft Barn as well as a spot on their blog as a guest designer.
And I'll post this in the Graphics Fairy Brag Monday blog since I couldn't have made this tag without her image.