Sparkly Gift Tags

I really enjoyed joining in on Simon Says All That Glitters is Gold Challenge so when I woke early this morning gathered together some supplies to get a start on Christmas gift tags for bottles.

Dies - Eliza & Kate Snowflakes (Simon Says Stamp), Fancy Cut Christmas (Hero Arts), Circle Nestabilites (Spellbinders) and Stitched Circles (Pink & Main)

I think shaker cards are so fun so made a shaker to go on my first tag. I adhered five glittery gold stars to the plain black background of the shaker element, added a mix of sequins and stars and used a gold frame over the acetate to trap all the shaker pieces inside. A pretty bow, not made by me but recycled from a box of chocolates, finished off the look I wanted.

I love the way my friend Linda used a die to emboss the background on her bicycle card here. So I did the same with the Eliza Snowflake die on this tag, added the Kate Snowflake cut from glittery card and a little gold gem to the centre of the snowflake.

When I was taking photos of the tags on the bottles who should come along with his own bottle of Buck's Fizz looking for a chase - Toby! I don't know if it was coincidental or if he recognised the similarities between what I had and one of his toys, but I had a good laugh when I saw him and managed to get him to pose for a few seconds after I chased him down the corridor.

Blog Title Christmas Challenge

It's Monday again so time to set my friend Linda a Christmas card challenge. This week's challenge is use your blog title as inspiration for your card. So Linda with Scrappin', Stampin' and Singin' you have lots of scope for some musical fun! I had to keep stamping and stitching in mind when making my card.

I started by die cutting a panel from kraft card using a die from Simon Says Stamp's Bundle of Stitched Shapes. After stitching the panel I added it to a white card base.

Stamp - Furry Christmas (Simon Says Stamp)
Dies - Bundle of Stitched Shapes (Simon Says Stamp) & Pierced Rectangle Frames (My Favorite Things)

Then I stamped the cute image and sentiment from Simon Says Stamp's Furry Christmas, coloured with Promarkers and added diamond stickles.

It's hard to see from the photos but the hat, scarf and taller dog's head have been cut again and adhered to the panel with foam pads for some extra dimension. After die cutting and adding the glittery frame I stamped and cut out another tail so it would curl out over the frame.

Here's the matching gift tag to go with my card.

Stamp - Furry Christmas (Simon Says Stamp)
Die - Bundle of Stitched Shapes (Simon Says Stamp)

I'm submitting these into Simon Says Stamp's 50th Flickr Challenge.

Linda has another fun challenge lined up for me this week. You can find it here on her blog.

Critter Christmas

Oh where did that weekend go?! Just before I head to work I want to set another Christmas card challenge for my friend Linda. This week I’m going with Critter\s Christmas so the card should have any type of animal\s on it.

For my card and tag I inked up a funny reindeer image from Art Impressions. As soon as I spotted the reindeer with the wobbly bottom I had to get it – I know some of my family and friends will get a laugh out of that fella when they see him on their Christmas cards.

Stamp – Jingle Set (Art Impressions)
Embossing Folder – Snowflake Scroll (Darice)

After stamping, colouring and cutting out the reindeer I adhered him to a card panel that had been embossed and stamped with the sentiment. Then I cut out and coloured an extra bottom which shakes as it’s been adhered to the larger image with an action wobble.

I had to add a little sparkle so out came diamond stickles to go on the bells.

Next up I made a matching tag. Even reindeer are taking selfies now:)

Stamp – Jingle Set (Art Impressions)
Dies - Film & Polaroid – (Greeting Farm) and Romantic Rectangles 2 (Spellbinders)

Linda has already set her challenge here - it's a good one and one of my favourite techniques!

Linda's One Layer Challenge

Earlier in the week my friend Linda set a challenge to make a one layer Christmas card. I rarely make one layer cards but it was fun, and I have to admit a little challenging, to give it a go. Midweek I was in the process of making a card and as there was a lot of colouring left to do on it I brought it into work on Friday to finish it at lunchtime. Then what did I do - left it in work by mistake! So this morning I started again from scratch using the same images but made a less "busy" card which I think I prefer to the one that's still sitting in my drawer in work.

I started by heat embossing the sentiment in gold and then stamped a mix of images on part of the card. After that I used Promarkers to colour the flowers and pine cones. I wish I was brave enough to try a bit of splattering but after dropping an inky block and messing up what was my first attempt at this morning's card, I left the card as it was.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Color Layering Dimensional Bird, Very Merry Christmas and Build a Wreath by Lia

To finish I just added diamond stickles to the flower centres - hopefully it's okay to do that on one layer cards!

Next up was the matching tag which I think I'll redo as I wrinkled it a bit when trying to flatten it after it got a little warped from heat embossing. Lol it has been a day for stampy mishaps so I think I'll try my hand at something else today!

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Color Layering Dimensional Bird, Very Merry Christmas and Build a Wreath by Lia

Not a Christmas Image

It's time again to challenge my friend Linda to make a Christmas card and this time I'm going with the theme of making a card on which the main image is not a Christmas related one.

This week I've made a card for a friend who is mad into golf. I think she'd play golf on Christmas Day except for the fact that her club is closed! For my main image I used a fun golf martini stamp from a set Linda gave me recently - thanks again Linda! The image was coloured with Promarkers and I added a sprig of holly for a festive feel.

Stamps: Fore Retirement - Impression Obsession, Woodland Wreaths (sentiment) - WPlus9 & Christmas Characters (holly) - Inkadinkado
Die: Elegant Ovals (Spellbinders)

The top part of the glass and the flag are popped up on foam pads for extra dimension and I added a layer of Glossy Accents to the glass.

For a matching tag I treated the die cut golf ball as if it were a Christmas pudding by topping it with a sprig of holly.

Dies: Golf Ball and Tee - Taylored Expressions & Nesting Gift Tags (Docrafts Xcut)
Stamp: Christmas Characters (holly) - Inkadinkado

Linda has already set me a challenge for this week. You can see it here. Oh I think her challenge is the most difficult type of card for me to make - hope I can come up with something that's even semi okay!!

Linda's Snowflakes and Dry Embossing Challenge

As I'm off work for a few days I was able to get straight into making a Christmas card for the challenge set yesterday by my friend Linda - a card with snowflakes and dry embossing.

I started by applying distress inks (faded jeans, broken china & tumbled glass) to a piece of white card, spritzed it with water and then embossed it using a gorgeous folder that Linda gave me when we met on holidays recently - thanks again, Linda! The pretty snowflake dies Kristina Werner designed for Simon Says Stamp are my favourites so I just had to add one of them to my card too.

Embossing folder - Snowflake Scroll (Darice)
Die - Kate Snowflake (Simon Says Stamp)
Stamp - Very Merry Christmas (Hero Arts)

The snowflake was die cut from white card and a layer of diamond stickles and a gem applied for some sparkle.

Next up I made a matching gift tag with pretty much the same supplies.

Dies - Kate Snowflake (Simon Says Stamp) & Lacey Squares (Spellbinders)

It's great to have another card and tag to put into my bundle for Christmas. Linda, thanks again for the fun challenge and helping me be better prepared for Christmas this year!

Winter Cheer

Only 42 more days till Christmas so I'm going to have to speed up my Christmas card making! Today I used Hero Arts' pretty Winter Cheer tag set by Lia to make three cards like the one below.

Die & stamp set - Winter Cheer tag set by Lia (Hero Arts)
Embossing folder - Snowflake Trim (Darice)

I die cut the ornament from silver card and added gold sequins and stars as my shaker elements. The gold thread I used for the bauble has been in my wool stash well over twenty years, so long in fact I can't even remember what I originally used it for!

The sentiment panel was embossed in gold and added to the bauble with foam pads. One of my favourite Christmas embossing folders was used for the background.

Recently I also used the tag set to make a set of Christmas gift tags for a Scramble I hosted over in the Hero Arts Flickr group. The theme was to use recycled bits and pieces on Christmas tags. In this instance the ribbon on the gift tags came from a box of chocolates. The chocolates are all long gone at this stage and I'm glad to have finally used up all the ribbon too:)

Supplies (Hero Arts) - Winter Cheer Tag Set by Lia & Fancy Cut Christmas

I'm submitting the card into Hero Arts Holiday Cardmaking Challenge.

Felt Flower Card and Tag

I had a birthday card and gift tag to make for an upcoming birthday so thought I'd join in on a couple of challenges while I was making them - Hero Arts Tic Tac Toe Challenge and Simon Says Stamp Use Your Favourite Technique and/or Product.

In the Hero Arts Tic Tac Toe Challenge I picked the line with circles, birthday theme and your favourite colour. My favourite colour would be a toss up between blue and green and I love combining both colours with white. For the Simon Says Stamp Challenge I used a favourite technique, stitching, and favourite product is Hero Arts Stamp & Cut sets.

Stamp & Cuts sets (Hero Arts) - Butterfly and Flowers and Happy

I stamped the flowers and leaves on felt and, after the ink had dried, hand stitched the images and cut out. To finish I added buttons and sequins to the flower centres. The die cut sentiment on the card was cut from a scrapped watercolour background that I made ages ago and the "birthday" sentiment was stamped using faded jeans distress ink. To finish I added a sprinkling of sequins.

After die cutting the gift tag, I stamped the sentiment with faded jeans distress ink, added a flower and some sequins.

Butterfly and Flowers Stamp & Cuts set (Hero Arts), Birthday Messages (Hero Arts) and Pierced Circles Dies (Spellbinders)

Last of the Tags and Happy Christmas

This Christmas Eve has been very relaxed with no work and no major shopping left to do. So when my older son asked me to make some gift tags to put on his pressies for us, I made made them straight away, and since I had all the bits and pieces out, made ten more for next Christmas. Now hopefully in 12 months time I'll remember where I've put them!

Here are the first three tags I made today with a Docrafts die that I have used so many times this year in the lead up to Christmas - love it!

Die - Do Not Open Tag (Docrafts)

The tags were mainly made from card scraps. I used one of the new techniques that I came across and loved this year - inlay die cutting. I'm submitting these tags into Simon Says Stamp's Anything Goes Challenge.

Now I’m off to do a bit of preparation for tomorrow so I want to wish you a very Happy Christmas and hope that you will enjoy good health, happiness and lots of inky fun in 2015!

Snowman Shaker Tag

I want to make some more gift tags for Christmas and this time used the cute snowman from the Snowman and Snowflakes stamp by Hero Arts on my shaker tag. To start with I made the little shaker part by embossing snowflakes on white card, applying salty ocean distress ink and spritzing on some water. As I wanted my snowman to be on the outer part of the shaker I then trapped tiny beads and sequins between the background and acetate\die cut frame layer.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Snowman and Snowflakes, Christmas Reindeer (snowflakes) & Stamp and Cut Ornament (sentiment)

Then I stamped the snowman a number of times, cut him out and did my colouring with ProMarkers. After layering his hat and scarf I added some diamond stickes to the white parts of the scarf. Then the shaker part of the tag was added to the die cut backing piece and thread added to finish. I'm submitting this tag into Hero Arts' Holiday Challenge (Tag It category) and The Die Cut Diva's Any Holiday Challenge.

Sequin Ornaments and Gift Tags

This year I'm hoping to make more Christmas cards to send than I managed to make last year - hope you're not getting sick of all the Christmas stuff on my blog!

My friend Trinh sent me a gorgeous collection of sequins in a wonderful range of colours and I wanted to use some of them on my cards and gift tags.

Stamps & Die set - Hero Arts Stamp and Cut Ornament

To make the card I die cut ornaments windows in panel of kraft card, embossed it with Darice's Snowflake Trim folder and lightly inked the edges with white ink. The sentiment was embossed. I then cut ornaments from red glitter card, stuck sequins on the ornaments and popped them behind the windows in the kraft panel.

To complete the card I added thread and gems.

As I had two die cut ornaments left over from cutting out the windows on the card, I decided to use them to make a couple of gift tags to go on pressies. I have a huge roll of brown parcel paper (that seems endless!) so used some of this to wrap a present. To make the wrapping paper I embossed some snowflakes and added gems and baker's twine.

The first tag was made by embossing an ornament in white and adding a sequin and gem to the centre.

Hero Arts - Designer Snowflakes set & Stamp and Cut Ornament

The second tag is supposed to match the card so I again embossed an ornament on the die cut and cut out the centre piece. Another ornament was die cut from red glitter card and after I added sequins, I adhered the upper layer with some foam pads.

Hero Arts - Designer Snowflakes set & Stamp and Cut Ornament

I'm submitting these projects into Hero Arts' Holiday Challenge (Anything Goes & Tag It), Simon Says Stamp's Anything Goes Challenge, Die Cut Diva's Any Holiday Challenge and a2z Scrapbooking Anything Goes Challenge.

Hope you're enjoying the weekend. After two very wet and windy days it's wonderful to see the sun shining here again today!

Scrappy Snowflake Tags

The other day when I was making this card my first attempt at a watercolour background looked really hideous. When this happens I usually set the piece aside and see if I can come up with another use for it. Often the not so nice pieces are die cut into butterflies or flowers but in this case I die cut some snowflakes to make gift tags for Christmas. Sorry for the gloomy photos but it's a really dull day here today.

Dies - Simon Says Stamp (Eliza and Kate snowflake dies) & Spellbinders (Picot Edge Circles)

I used the inlaid die cutting technique, and between using the scrapped watercolour panel and scraps of white card left over from other projects, I was happy with the amount of scraps I used up.

To finish the tags I added some gems and baker's twine.

I'm not quite ready to wrap my Christmas pressies yet (in fact I haven't even bought one Christmas present yet!) but just wanted to see how the tags would work on a present simply wrapped with tissue paper and baker's twine.

I'm submitting these tags in Simon Says Stamp's Watercolour Challenge over on Flickr.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! It has been such a long time since I blogged, but between being busy with other things and wonderful weather which I've been sure to made the most of (never know when the rain will be back again!), I haven't been stamping much recently.

Anyway yesterday my friend Linda hosted a fun scramble over at the Hero Arts Flickr group. At the mention of the word scramble, I seem to turn into a complete butterfingers but had a great time with Linda's paper piecing theme. A little earlier in the day I had made some chocolate and cornflake Easter nests and added mini eggs, so I thought I'd bag a few and add a paper pieced tag.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - CL758 A Little & B3837 Bunny Basket

I pulled out some card in spring\Easter colours and embossed and paper pieced the various parts of the tag. Then I added a little bunny on foam pads and after punching a hole in the top of the tag added some fibres. I don't know what the fibres are but they feel similar to raffia and are in the shape of twine. I'm submitting this card into A Blog Named Hero Layer Cake Challenge and Simon Says Stamp's Animal Antics Challenge.

I'm not the only one enjoying the glorious sunshine here. The garden seems to be full of ladybirds this year



and the flowers and shrubs are showing signs of soaking up all the lovely sunshine too!







Hope you're enjoying lovely weather wherever you are:)

Sparkly Tree Tag Card

I've had great fun joining in on the current Hero Arts Challenge and this time I'm trying the Deck the Cards category for my little tag card.



Stamp (Hero Arts) - Shari's Tree No. 3

To start with I die cut the label twice to form the tag card and die cut a frame for the front. Then I punched a little hole at the top for the ribbon and string. I embossed a little hill and added the frame using foam pads. After stamping the tree I cut it out and then things went a little off plan! I wanted to make a sparkling silver\white tree with blue decorations but as you can see that didn't happen. I used my embossing pen to cover the areas I wanted to emboss and sprinkled on stardust embossing powder. Even though I knew my embossing pen had a blue hue I thought it would be concealed by the embossing powder, lol I was wrong about that.



Anyway I liked the end result so went ahead and decorated the tree with gems and pearls from three different packets of Hero Arts gems/pearls (sea mixed accents, light blue gemstones & spring mixed gemstones). I'm also submitting this into the Die Cut Divas Let's Celebrate Challenge.

All wrapped up - well first one anyway!

I have to admit I have barely started my Christmas shopping, yet here I am thinking about how I'm going to wrap and tag pressies!

The other day I used Spellbinders' picot edge circles as the base for my tags and as I love the pretty edging, I took them out again for my next set of gift tags.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Designer Snowflakes, Christmas Ornament set & Christmas Tags set

This time I also went with a white/kraft colour combination but threw in some red too. I die cut the various layers and stamped the sentiments and snowflakes using barn door distress ink. After that I put the tags together using foam pads for some dimension and added some embroidery floss.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Designer Snowflakes, Christmas Ornament set & Christmas Tags set

When it came to taking photos of the tags they were slipping and sliding all over the place. But then I spotted these little guys who made the perfect props to keep my tags upright!



I made quite a few of these tags in no time at all, and with a slight change in colour used one on a pressie I was wrapping.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Designer Snowflakes & Christmas Tags set

To make the wrapping paper I stamped a number of snowflakes (again using barn door distress ink) over a piece of paper taken from a plain roll of parcel paper. After adding ribbon I topped the present off with a tag. I can't believe I have my first Christmas present wrapped already - lol I'm never that organised!! I'm submitting these into the current Hero Arts Challenge (A Few of My Favorite Things category as I stamped sentiment frames and also made my own wrapping paper by stamping on plain parcel wrap) as well as the Die Cut Divas' Let's Celebrate Challenge.

Hope you have a fun and inky weekend:)

Snowflake Gift Tags

After making my last card I still had kraft card on my table, so when I wanted to make some snowflake gift tags this morning, I went with a kraft and white colour combination. I love the very pretty snowflakes from Hero Arts' Designer Snowflakes set and used these on all of the tags.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Designer Snowflakes & Very Merry Christmas

I started by die cutting the tag bases and added some string. Then I die cut some kraft card, embossed the snowflakes & sentiment and added gems. To try to add an even more snowy look to the tags I inked the edges with white ink. The snowflake pieces were added to the bases using foam pads. These tags are so easy and simple to make and put together, I think I'll make a batch of them over the weekend.



I'm submitting these tags into the current Hero Arts challenge (A Few of my Favourite Things category, as I used one of my favourite stamping techniques - stamping and embossing) as well as the Die Cut Divas' Let's Celebrate challenge.

Nativity Gift Tags

Today I'm playing along with two challenges, the Holiday Gift Tag Challenge in the Moxie Fab World and Hero Arts' Stamp Your Story Inspiration Challenge.

Well the sun may be splitting the stones outside but with the release of Holiday Cards and More I'm already thinking of Christmas, and a good thing too as I'm usually rushing at the last minute with Christmassy bits and pieces! I love the cover on the magazine and can't wait to get my hands on it so I can see what else is inside!

I'm thinking of wrapping some Christmas presents in plain white paper embossed with snowflake and for a few will steer away from the usual Christmas colours. So going away from traditional colours, I made some gift tags that were inspired by this gorgeous and fun Halloween card created by Kelly Rasmussen. I just love the fabulous sky Kelly created as well as the colour combination and silhouettes against the sky.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Special Delivery & Greatest Gift

I wanted the tags to have a similar shape to The Stations of The Cross in our local church, so to start with I die cut the windows using Spellbinders Window One die, and cut off the pieces in the middle that I didn't want. Then I applied distress inks (mustard seed, dried marigold, spiced marmalade and barn door) to cream card and sprinkled some water on it. Once dry I cut out panels, stamped the scenes and adhered the panels behind the windows. To finish I just added a tiny star rhinestone to the centre tag and added string to them all.