100 Tags

Yes, 100!  Tags are easiest when made in multiples... and this year I decided to make a bunch to give out as little gifts, added to a package of hot chocolate, or slipped inside Christmas cards.  Two years ago, I was lucky enough to win several Reverse Confetti stamp sets and their matching dies from Leigh Penner in the Season of Giving hop that happens on January 1st. 

 I set up my Misti with a bunch of the images (there are ornaments, mittens and Christmas lights), and stamped them in 5 different Distress Oxide inks.

 I die cut them all out, then using some basic Close To My Heart tag dies, I cut out white tags that I did an ombre ink blended effect from the top down.  For the mitts, I die cut out a second white mitt, so they would be a pair.

 I dug out my stash of Baker's twine, and tied them all together, adding one of the basic tags behind each stamped one (so there is a spot to write on).

I know... you're questioning the pink & blue?!?  I buy a lot of multi-coloured wrapping paper, and didn't want to just do the classic red and green... so there you are.  The colours of Distress Oxide inks are: Mermaid Lagoon, Picked Raspberry, Candied Apple, Twisted Citron & Mowed Lawn.

Ink blended tags

I have been working away on a huge stash of tags over the past week.  After enjoying all the inspiration on Tracey McNeeley's 25 Days of Christmas Tags, I got down to business with some simple white tag shapes, using colours of Distress Oxide inks to blend on a small portion of each.  Intending to do four tags originally, I sort of couldn't stop myself, and ended up with 48 tags total!

 Does anyone remember There She Goes stamps?  They closed shop a few years ago, but several years before that I won a set of sweet, tiny images.  I stamped a bunch of them and coloured them with Copic markers a week ago.  And yes, I fussy cut out 76 of these tiny images.

Here were the first four that I loved so much - I made four of each....

Then I did a circle version...

And finally a squarish tag, where I ink blended one of the corners.  I sorted through numerous stamp sets to come up with 12 different sentiments, and adhered some of the images with pop dots.

 Here are the tags from Tracey McNeeley on day 16 that made me want to try a little ink blending with black sentiments:

Tag It!

The current challenge on the Art Impressions blog is "Tag It!"  We want to see your tags - Christmas or otherwise... I am sharing "otherwise" today :o)  The Ai DT is helping to launch the Ai clear Christmas & Thanksgiving sets today - and I am featuring Full of Thanks set (Sku #4939):

 I pulled out my favourite Perfectly Plaid Fall papers from Lawn Fawn... and coloured up three of the images from this cute set (oh, that turkey!!).  There are fabulous sentiments included as well, so I picked three:

 You'll want to see what the rest of the Design Team is sharing today on the blog, and you can get a peek at the newest Ai Christmas stamps - now available in the Art Impressions store.  You can link up your own tags while you're there.  Happy stamping!

New Art Impressions Try-folds!

The Art Impressions Design Team are debuting four new Try-fold stamp sets today.  I have a wedding themed card with a matching gift bag and tag using Steeple TF Set (Sku #4578):

 Here is a photo of the card folded, and tied with organdy ribbon:

 When you untie the ribbon, both sides of the card fold out:

 I tried something new this time, I usually back the side pieces with white cardstock to hide the fact that the Copic markers bleed through the paper... but I used the patterned green paper that I mounted the base on - and I love the look!

 The stamp set comes with the three images and one sentiment "Blessings on this special day", and it includes all the instructions for you to stamp, fold and cut it accurately.  I also love that each of the images can be used individually, so I used the bench image to make a gift tag that I tied onto a matching bag made with my Gift Bag Punch Board:

Head on over to the Art Impressions blog to see what the other DT members have to share - and you can link up your creation for our challenge debuting today, called "Tie It Up" we want to see your creations that are tied up with ribbon or twine.

 Copics used: Greys are C7, C5, C3, C1, C00

Blues are B26, B24, B23, B21

Purples are V09, V06, V05, V04, V01

Pinks are R85, R83, R81

Greens are G46, G43, G40, YG03, YG01, YG67, YG63, YG61

Browns are E57, E55, E53, E51, E50

Coming up for air!

Happy Holidays!  I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas, and some quality time with friends and family.  I didn't really intend to take things so slowly blog-wise over the last few weeks, but as with all of us, family and holiday commitments come first, and a computer in the shop for several weeks made the break happen whether I wanted it to or not!  I am excited to get back to crafting, trying out new things, and even getting going on next year's Christmas cards!  I still have all of my product sitting out in my craft room, and I intend to keep it going while I'm still in festive mode.  We have some wonderful colour stories coming up at Dynamic Duos... and of course the Close To My Heart spring 2013 catalogues should be in my hands shortly, so there are lots of fun things ahead.  If you like a good Boxing Day deal... surf the stamp and paper companies today - I've just placed a lovely Verve order, and may look at a few other products as well.  For now I have a couple of things to share... this was a Pinterest idea that I gave out to several friends, wonderful jars of a homemade hot chocolate mix.  They were very cute, and well received:

And here is another reason for my slow December blogging - my daughter, the Cupcake Diva had 3 fairly large orders this month (and I am her lovely assistant!) so we made over 350 mini cupcakes, and 3 dozen regular sized ones.  Needless to say, we're not looking to bake any more cupcakes in the near future.  Here is a chocolate fudge cupcake with a white chocolate buttercream icing done for a holiday baby shower:

Stay tuned for some serious papercrafting, I can hardly wait to get back into my room! 

Tags for Dynamic Duos #31

I think I'm pretty much done my Christmas cards for 2012... so I decided to take advantage of this week's Christmassy colour scheme at Dynamic Duos to get some tags made.  Our colours this week are Certainly Celery & Real Red, so I used Close To My Heart's Pear & Holiday Red.  I die cut all the bases in Kraft cardstock, then got busy stamping and die cutting snowflakes to embellish them.

Here are a few close-ups:

We would love to have you join us this week at Dynamic Duos!  You need to use just the two colours (or something similar) in your project - and the addition of neutrals like kraft, black, greys etc. are allowed.  Check out the rest of the design team's projects (links on my sidebar, or visit the DD blog!)  Not everyone went with a holiday theme - so there is plenty of inspiration.

 

Stamp sets are A Very Merry Christmas, & Perfect Fit Holiday, CTMH & Vintage Christmas, Waltzingmouse Stamps; Cardstock is Kraft, Holiday Red & White Daisy; Inks are Pear & Holiday Red; Spellbinders Vintage Ornament dies; Let it Snowflake dies, My Favorite Things; Cricut Artiste & Art Philosophy cartridges, CTMH; Hemp, buttons & sparkles, all CTMH.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle at H2H!

This week, on the Heart2Heart Challenge blog, we want you to use something on a card or project that you have reused, or repurposed from something that was either sitting around the house, or heading for the garbage.  Now if you're a crafter... you know that someone has given you a gift bag, where you've thought "oh, I could use that ribbon on something..." and you've started to look at doilies in a whole new way.... and you aren't sure that you should throw away the phone book... right?  Well, we'd like you to show us what you can come up with by reaching "beyond your craft room" to create something fabulous!  (Edited to add:) I am also entering this into the Gift Wrap Challenge on Moxie Fab World.  Here's what I started with:

A small shopping bag, a ribbon from a gift, and I tore the white rope handles off of several shopping bags before I put them in the recycyling bin.  I wanted to create a gift bag for my Mother-in-law's Mother's Day gift, so I covered up the printing on the bag with the Sophia polka dot paper, and then coiled the ropes into little white flowers, using the ribbon as the stems:

All supplies are CTMH: Cardstock is Hollyhock, Sky, Pear; Patterned paper is Sophia; Hollyhock buttons; Stamp set is Simple Pleasures; Ink is Desert Sand;

Tag Mania!

My posts will be few and far between this week... as I'm busy prepping for a craft show this coming weekend.  Today I was in assembly-line mode, making little gift tags to go in the goodie bags they're giving away to the first hundred people to come to the show.  If you're going to be close to Newmarket this weekend, send me an email, and I'll forward you the invite!  I had them all laid out on my table to do assembly-line stamping.  Here's what 90 tags look like:

I kept them pretty simple due to the volume.  They should be cute tied onto a kraft wine/gift bag with a red & silver Christmas tree.

Heart2Heart Challenge

I'm happy to be able to participate in another Heart2Heart Challenge this week!  We were asked to make anything using a tag... so I wanted to finally try making some paper flowers, and decided to grunge it up a bit:

All supplies are CTMH: Cardstock is White Daisy, Hollyhock, Creme Brulee, Blush & Sweet Leaf;  Stamp sets are For Every Occassion & Key To My Heart;  Inks are Creme Brulee & Desert Sand;  Ribbon & Button are Sweet Leaf Connections Club and Olive Organdy.