I’ve got a few tiny gift tags to share with you today, using the adorable Giggling Snowman from Mo’s Digital Pencil. I printed him really tiny, he’s about an inch and a half tall. Not wanting to waste my blending card, I put three of him on a quarter sheet of X-Press It. All three versions are colored with Copics, and I turned my gift tags into shakers.
I used a die set from Lawn Fawn for the tags and the speech bubbles, and found some scraps of patterned paper from Maja Design that I put to good use on these.
I added distress glitter in the shaker area, giving the feel of snow. The sentiment reads “Don’t peek! To be opened on Christmas Eve!” The speech bubble was just big enough for it to fit. I added a few snowflakes diecut with a Marianne Design die before gluing a Kort & Godt pearl in the center of each.
I’ve always loved this little snowman. I’ve always thought he looks kind of shy, but with the distress glitter working as snow in the shaker, it looks like he’s blowing hot air on his hands to try to stay warm – probably not the best thing for a snowman to do 😉
Since they’re gift tags, they need To and From on the back. I’ve stamped a few different Norsk Stempelblad AS ones with different colored inks, each to sort of match the rest of the tag and the snowman on front.
I fussy cut my little snowman and stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment on a diecut banner. I’ve dry embossed the bacground using a cover plate die from Neat and Tangled.
I’ve added a few Papirdesign dots, mounted my dry embossed panel on foam tape and added a diagonally striped patterned paper from Papirdesign behind it. That’s it. Very clean and simple, and this time even fairly quick to make. My cards tend to be clean and time consuming, but this was clean and simple, it took me less than two hours from start to finish, including coloring.
Marika’s cards are always very simple, keeping the focus on her gorgeous coloring. I’ve tried doing the same, but I’ve got a long way to go before I’m able to keep up with her level. I still had fun, though.
I printed my image with a very low opacity setting in Photoshop onto a piece of 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″ X-Press It blending card. I diecut the center of my image with a stitched reclangle die from My Favorite Things before I started coloring.
I colored the center panel with Copics before going over it with Derwent Artists colored pencils for details. The combination of Copics and pencils is a really fun one, even though I still need heaps of practice.
I stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment over the vase and mounted my panel with a lot of foam tape for dimension. And that finishes the card. Simple, keeping all the focus on the coloring.
Esken var overraskende enkel å lage. Jeg valgte ikke å ta mønsterark på de korte endene, men det kan du selvsagt gjøre.
Jeg har brukt ark fra Vintage Baby-serien til Maja Design for denne esken. Vimplene med sømkant er stanset ut med en die fra Rayher, og jeg har tegnet rundt kanten av dieen på den hvite kartongen jeg har brukt som matte bak vimplene og skjært til for hånd med en liten tapetkniv. Teksten kommer fra 
Jeg har ikke pyntet voldsomt mye. Jeg startet med en minikakeserviett fra Doodlebug og har limt blomster fra North Star Design, Wild Orchid Crafts og kort & Godt oppå. Pyntegrenene og de små blå diamantene kommer også fra Kort & Godt.
Jeg har laget et OLC denne gangen, eller one layer card, som det heter på godt norsk. Jeg stemplet først motivene mine fra Altenew med blekkfarger som ville forsvinne når fargeleggingen kom over. Jeg brukte Memento Angel Pink for blomstene, og annengenerasjonsstempling med Memento Bamboo Leaves for det grønne.
Det neste trinnet mitt var å fargelegge med Copics. Jeg brukte tre tusjer for det rosa, tre for det grønne og tre for det gule. For meg er ni tusjer på et motiv veldig lite, men det skulle bare være underlaget til blyantene jeg skulle bruke over.
Jeg brukte ikke mange fargeblyanter heller, men det tok litt tid. Jeg hadde ikke brukt fargeblyanter over Copic-tusjer før, så jeg lærte underveis. Det siste jeg gjorde var å stemple en tekst fra Gratulerer-platen til Norsk Stempelblad AS med svart blekk og lime på tre hvite halvperler fra Papirdesign, og det er hele kortet. Enkelt i utseende, men tidkrevende å fargelegge, så det er ikke masseproduksjonsvennlig akkurat, men det er vanligvis ikke kortene mine likevel, det er ikke noe mål.
I’ve colored her up before. A couple of years ago I colored her with reds and turned her into a Christmas card. This time, though, I just had to go for the blues. I love blue for Christmas. Well, I love blue all year, but especially at Christmas time. There’s just something about it that screams Christmas to me, way more than red ever will.
I wanted to make her hair golden blonde. Well, this is more in the area of light redish brown, but she’s so darn cute, I really don’t mind. The bench, her pants, and her little winter boots are actually all colored with the same color family, I just didn’t use the lighter ones for the bench, and similarly, I didn’t use the dark ones for her boots. Skipped both the lightest and the darkest for her pants. I did the same thing with my blues, I went very light with the scarf, and darker on everything else.
I found a tiny little gingerbread man in my stash, I just had to include him. I used some lacy ribbon from Papirdesign in the perfect blue color to match my coloring, and tied the gingerbread man to the ribbon with some warp thread from my grandmother’s loom stash. Added a tiny bit of strong liquid glue to my knot, so that it wouldn’t come undone.
The sentiment is made from two stamps from the B04 stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS. I stamped Nisseklem first, in Enchanted Evening ink from Papertrey Ink, then the smaller bit right below using the same ink. I wanted the two lines to be fairly close together, otherwise I would have stamped them both at the same time.
On the back I used another Norsk Stempelblad AS stamp, stamped it in the same blue color, then started on my background. I started with my tree and the little kid tobogganing by stamping them both in white hybrid ink from Papertrey Ink. I did this in my Misti, making sure I got good coverage over the entire surface of both stamps. I then went in with an acrylic block and a tiny snowflake stamp from the same stamp set, rotating between each stamping to create a random snowflake border along the top. When I was sure my hybrid ink was dry (I used a heat tool to help speed up the drying process), I went in with a mini ink blending tool and blue inks (Spring Rain and Blueberry Sky from Papertrey Ink), trying to make an even blend across the rest of the background. The hybrid ink somewhat resists anything you put on top, but not completely, resulting in a much softer look than if I were to heat emboss the images, then ink blend on top. I really like this soft look, it won’t distract from the names I’m putting on my gift tag, and everyone will be able to read it on Christmas Eve when it’s time to open presents, even with dim lights.
Jeg printet ut et blomstermotiv fra Make It Crafty to ganger, en gang i full styrke på X-Press It blending card, og en gang med svakere strek på gul kartong fra Papertrey Ink. Jeg fargela fullstyrkeversjonen med Copics og stanset ut et rimelig stort sirkelhull fra midten av motivet. Jeg gjorde det samme på den gule kartongen. Dermed kunne jeg bruke en bit av hver på hvert kort.
Jeg limte på det ferdig fargelagte panelet mitt på en gul kortbase med 3D-teip på hele baksiden, så det skulle få litt dimensjon. Den utstansede gule sirkelen ble limt rett på kortbasen og danner resten av motivet, selv om det ikke er fargelagt. Jeg stanset ut bokstavene til ordet takk med et Tim Holtz-alfabet fra Sizzix, fire ganger i hvit kartong og ett lag øverst i X-Press It, som jeg fargela med den samme rosakombinasjonen av Copics som jeg brukte på motivet. Jeg limte alle lagene til bokstavene oppå hverandre og limte dem fast midt i sirkelen.
Jeg brukte to plater fra Norsk Stempelblad AS til å lage tekstremsen som er på den svarte kartongen. “du er den du er” kommer fra 
Jeg stemplet blomsten min på Strathmore Bristol Smooth-ark med blekk fra Papertrey Ink i fargen 
Jeg stanset ut en sirkel av det grå panelet mitt (
Jeg fargela i utgangspunktet to blomster. Jeg hadde aldri prøvd Zig-tusjene på Bristol Smooth før, så jeg trengte en prøverunde. Den første blomsten jeg fargela delte jeg i tre og satte på innsidene av kortet. Det er litt mer farge – og sånn sett også litt mer liv – på denne, men jeg ville ha et veldig dust uttrykk på forsiden av kortet, derfor havnet den lyse varianten på fronten.
Papirmølla 