Gift tag of the year

Presenting this year's Christmas gift tag (I make an effort to make my own every year)!

Lawn fawn (I had to be careful inking since I combined 2 stamps to make my fairy wear a santa hat!) and All Night Media stamps (wow I think I've had this All Night Media set forever!), Versacolour stamp pad, my trusty colour pencils, cheap card stock and sequins chains from the local $2 store. I quite like the outcome! What d'yall think?

Crafting update

Have been busy at work (and hoping it pays off!) and have been trying my darndest to do bits of crafting here and there. Sadly not much time to tat (so for people looking for a tatting update, you can exit right about here).

 

I'm still one of those "old foggies" who like to have physical diaries... but this year I really couldn't find one that caught my eye... So I made my own with a S$1.90 dotted Muji notebook. Then made a fabric book cover (with extra pockets!) to "protect it" - first book cover I've made using the same concept of the card holders that I shared in a previous post.

Next on to Christmas!!!

This project was inspired by a Christmas gift that I'm going to share later in this post. What you're looking at is a S$3.00 A4 sized calico bag covered with dinosaur stamps (from lawn fawn) in black Versacraft ink. I love it! Have I mentioned I love dinosaurs... and I was inspired to do this because of this gift....

My boss's daughter appears to be a creative little gal... so I decided to put together a "decorate a bag" kit. With a budget of S$30.00 (about US$21.00) I put together a varied collection of items including 2 blank calico bags, fabric paint, fabric crayons, lace, fabric scraps, craft glue, cover buttons, buttons, sequins, plastic gems and more! And it all convenient comes in a plastic carrying case! I'm rather pleased with this gift idea - I think I got a lot of things in there in my budget and I managed to destash a little as well... When I compared this to US30.00 kits that I saw online for sale... I thought I did good! Hoping the little girl enjoys it (and just in case she wasn't sure what to do, I'm even including an idea sheet!).

 

On the topic of Christmas, I have a habit of trying to "personalize" my store bought cards - this year I'm going simple with sequins! Who can resist a little bling =).

After fiddling about and realizing some things didn't work too well I am quite pleased with the outcome.

Just a little bit more!

Thought of a way to incorporate some tatting!

Any guesses?

Slow but steady progress

Colouring in the additional bits...

Punching out gift tags and "texturing" them (so it doesn't look so plain...)!

Step 2! A leeeettle bit more!

Scrimped some time to work on my hopefully soon to be gift tags.

Added bits to make each robot different... and stamped a couple more bits to add on later.

And silly me, forgot to identify that the above are from Lawn Fawn's Beep Boop Birthday and Penny Black's Margaret Sherry Garden Critters [I love Margaret Sherry].

Still asking for good referral sites!

No time no time!

I haven't had much time to craft at all. In between work and the stuff I now do outside work, I haven't touched a shuttle (sadly) in ages!

I had a rough weekend and really needed to get in some crafting to settle frazzled and strained nerves. 

So I stamped and coloured (to make gift tags and cards for upcoming birthdays). 

My colouring skill aren't great and I read a few webbies yesterday about how to go about colouring in stamps. Save for one site that was giving pointed on shading and shadows I didn't really find anything instructive.

So. How do they look? Does anything have good websites to recommend about card and gift tag making using stamped images? Or colouring? Do share!

Hope be able to actually finish the tags and hopefully will update and or show the finished product. Wondering whether I will be able to sneak in some small tats in the tags...

Jazzing up my Christmas cards.

I like to "personalize" my Christmas cards. I feel odd just buying cards at the store and just writing "Dear xxx "preprinted Christmas greeting" from me"

I don't have time to make all my cards from scratch. So I like to add "extras". 

This is what my cards look like this year. 

Used foil leftover from my costume making (from my friend's wedding earlier this year) to make a windowed "snow bank" and added a stamped tree (there are 4 different trees). I like the effect :) 

An addict is born

I'm loving this stamping on fabric! I couldn't resist the temptation to stamp up the back of my calico bag!

I think I am officially an addict! 

Add a cat!

Loving the new addition to my library book bag. 

Can't decide whether to add more! And I still have the whole other side to work one! 

By the way does anyone know what I can use to replace the films on clear stamps? 

OMG

I discovered a new scrapbooking shop today.

While I am not a scrapbooker, I am a BIG Margaret Sherry fan! 

I'm so excited!!! 

Experimental project! (Again!)

Was inspired by the Teachers' Day gifts that a friend did for her children to give away to the teachers - personalized stamped calico bags.

I asked her about them and did some research on inks and... 

Did my own experiment. 

Managed to get my hands on some cheap calico bags, Versacraft ink pads (which as far as my research shows is the best for inking fabrics) and used some stamps I already had. 

Minor confession to make. I bought these alphabet clear stamps EONS ago :( but never got around to using them. I never got over the "fear" of using non-traditional stamps... I used to "blame" it on the fact that I didn't have an acrylic block (but I got acrylic block type things as a sale half an eon ago). It was just inertia I guess. 

I find rubber stamp convenient to place and easy to rearrange (at least I can see it on the block before I stamp it) but they are ao fiddly and so darned fiddly to peel stick unpeel restick to tiny pieces of film and keep. 

Wondering if I can just snip sheets of transparencies and stick them all there rather than on these stupid tiny pieces of film that I keep dropping :( 

All in all I do like the outcome (this one is plainer since it was an experiment). 

A great gift idea IMO! 

A year long WIP

I'm still the traditional sort that likes little planners.

I tried to shop for one for 2015 and ended up not liking anything that was available in stores. 

So I bought a blank one from a Japanese store, Muji (whose paper is awesome to write on, by the way) for $6.60. 

It has pages that look like this. 

I'm going to have at it with my collection of stuff (stickers, deco tape, stamps, colour pens...). I'm all excited!!! 

Here's a sneak peak...