Snow much fun tags {Streamside Studios}

Hi, there. I’m sharing a couple more gift tags I’ve created with the Snow Much Fun digi stamp set from Streamside Studios. These snowmen really are cute, and I shrunk them down a bit before printing, making them tiny and even cuter. In the post at the start of the week (right here) I shared about the process of creating these tags, which was so much fun.

For these tags, I chose red instead of green. I planned ahead and colored some of the snowmen with green accessories, and some with red. For one of these tags I used the Falling Stars stencil from Simon Says Stamp, and I thought it was fitting to add the snowman with the star for that particular tag.

A lot of elements are the same on these two tags as the first two; patterned paper from Pion Design die cut using the Happy Days Ticket Stubs die from XCut. I also used the same die from Altenew that I used with the green cardstock on this one, and it’s a nice added element that doesn’t have the perpendicular angles than many of the other layers do, so it breaks up the monotony a little and adds interest. For the tag with the stars, I used the word JUL from the Gledelig jul die from Kort & Godt, and for the tag with the Christmas present, I used the word klem from the Juleklem die, also from Kort & Godt. I added red paper doilies from Papirdesign to the base of these tags, it’s a nice foundation to put everything else on top of.

The backs of these are pretty similar to the backs of the green tags I made. I used the same 24.12 stamp from Inkido and the same stamps from the Distressed Patterns stamp set from My Favorite Things, but changed the ink color to Pure Poppy ink from Papertrey Ink.

Gift tags with snowmen {Streamside Studios}

Hi, crafty friends! Brace yourselves for a text heavy post. Every year, I seem to make more than enough Christmas cards to send out, but I always scramble last minute to get gift tags done. Not this year, I’ve made quite a few, and here are a couple more, featuring snowmen from the Snow Much Fun digi stamp set from Streamside Studios.

For these tags (I’ll have more to share later), I did compartmental crafting. Tim Holtz always raves about this, but I usually sit down and create my cards from start to finish in one sitting. Actually, that’s not entirely true, I do prefer coloring one day and making the rest of the card another day. Coloring takes a while, and once I’m done with that, I’m not really in actual making and assembly mode.

For these tags I did things a little differently. I colored lots of snowmen at once using my Prismacolor Premier pencils. I usually use my Copics, they’re so much faster, but for this I wanted a less bright look, and printed my snowmen onto Rustic White cardstock from Papertrey Ink. In another crafty session, I used various stencils with different pastes to create textured backgrounds, which I later cut down to tags. For these two I used the Falling Snow slimline stencil from Simon Says Stamp and the Snowflakes stencil from Ciao Bella, both using Light & Fluffy Modeling Paste from The Crafter’s Workshop onto Classic Kraft cardstock from Papertrey Ink. Both of these stencils are fairly large, so I got several tags out of each of the backgrounds I created.

In yet another crafty session I stamped and heat embossed a bunch of different small sentiments from Norsk Stempelblad AS, as well as a god jul seal from Poppydesign, the seals in Gilded embossing powder from Brutus Monroe and the sentiments in White super fine detail embossing powder from Ranger. I used green cardstock from the Christmas in Norway collection from Pion Design, which is an older collection, and it was a great opportunity to shrink my pile of scraps a little bit. Most of the patterned paper pieces I’ve used for these tags are from the same collection, with a few being even older. I used my Happy Days Ticket Stubs die from XCut to create the small pieces that I clustered together. This is the same die I pretty much always use for my clusters on my cards. It’s one die that cuts out nine tickets, and it’s my favorite die to use for my scraps. They don’t look like scraps when they’re die cut. I also just cut some strips using my trimmer and tore the edges for an uneven look, and used a die from Altenew to create small die cut pieces of solid color to tuck behind my other elements to break up all the perpendicular angles a bit.

I used foam tape on some of my elements, but not all, and die cut a reinforcer from green cardstock using a die from My Favorite Things. To finish off I tied May Arts natural twine through the holes and added a charm to each of the tags.

For the back of the tags I used a tag die from My Favorite Things to die cut from more of that Classic Kraft cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I die cut a bunch of tags in one session, so I’d have many to do at once when I did the actual assembly. I stamped an older Inkido stamp using Jalapeño Popper ink from My Favorite Things, and even did some second generation stamping. I also used a couple of stamps from the Distressed Patterns stamp set from MFT to add additional spatter beyond the 24.12 stamp. I used more of the scraps I die cut and cut with my trimmer, and stamped a to/from stamp from Inkido onto scraps of Pion Design patterned paper using Dark Chocolate ink from Papertrey Ink. First generation stamping on one, second generation on the other for a softer look. It was fun to break out acrylic blocks to use with my stamps again, I use my Misti for pretty much everything, but this didn’t have to be perfect or straight, so I just played and had fun!

Christmas wishes {Lili of the Valley}

Hi! I’m sharing a wintry Christmas card today featuring this Wrapped Up Warm image from Lili of the Valley. I opted for an unusual color combination of blue and bright pink, which I thought was fun.

I cut down my panel of X-Press It blending card significantly when my coloring was done, and mounted it on foam tape onto the cardbase, which I’d covered with a scrap piece of patterned paper from the Hjem til jul collection from Papirdesign.

I added a small cluster towards the top right corner of the card, using a mini doily from Doodlebug, as well as some die cut scraps of patterned paper from Maja Design and Sunny Studio. I stamped a sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS using Dark Chocolate ink from Papertrey Ink onto Classic Kraft cardstock, also from Papertrey Ink. The dies I used in my cluster are a combination of My Favorite Things (Fishtail Flag Frames and Itty Bitty Strips) and X-Cut (Happy Days Ticket Stubs). I also used the Hero Arts Snowflake Confetti fancy die to die cut snowflakes that I scattered across the card, and I put a white pearl from Kort & Godt in the center of each snowflake to finish the card.

This color combination of blue and bright pink sure was fun, and these are brighter blues than the ones I normally use. I also used a ton of colors for the snow in this little scene. I just can’t help myself.

Small gift tag {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

Hi, there! Today I’m sharing with you a gift tag for Christmas in a somewhat unusual color combination. It’s also somewhat of an unusual image for me. If you’ve been here before, you might know that I don’t like gnomes. At. All. I did, however, color up two gnomes for Mo’s Digital Pencil last year, for her to use as examples in the store. Evidently, I colored this gnome wrong, the jacket I’ve colored is supposedly a beard. I just don’t see a beard. I’ve even seen it colored like a beard, and I still don’t see a beard. Needless to say my jacket didn’t wind up as the colored example in the store, but it’s finally made its way to a gift tag.

I colored the gnome (his name’s Alf, you can find him here) with my Copics and used the Fold-up Tags die set from My Favorite Things to turn him into a quick gift tag. I die cut the reinforcer from green patterned paper from an old collection from Pion Design, and used a piece of cardstock from the same collection to stamp and white heat emboss a sentiment onto.

I added a scrap of a paper doily from Doodlebug to the bottom left corner, put my sentiment strip on 1 mm foam squares and added a couple of sequins from the White Orchid Sequin mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. I put some natural twine from May Arts through the hole at the top of the tag, added a charm and stapled the ends of the twine to the tag using a mini stapler.

On the back of the tag I stamped a to/from image from Norsk Stempelblad AS using Jalapeño Popper ink from My Favorite Things.

For such a small image, I used quite a few colors.

Gledelig jul {Rachelle Anne Miller Creative Studios}

Hi, there! I’m sharing a mini slimline Christmas card today, featuring some cute birds from Rachelle Anne Miller. This image is aptly named Holiday Birds, and will be available for purchase later this week.

I printed the image on a piece of X-Press It blending card and colored my birds with Copics in colors that match the Cool Collab paper pad from My Favorite Things, because I really wanted to use it. Red and teal is a color combo I really like, and this paper pad has lots of it. Once my coloring was complete I did some partial die cutting using the largest die in the Slimline Double Stitched Rectangle STAX die set, also from My Favorite Things. It gave me a nice double stitched edge around my colored image.

I adhered my panel to a card base I covered with one of the papers in the pad, which gave me a nice frame. I also die cut the word gledelig from another piece of paper in the pad, with three white die cuts behind for dimension. I stamped the word jul (stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS) below it using a combination of Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide ink and Caribbean Sea ink from My Favorite Things to get the perfect color. To finish off the card I added a few heart droplets from the Crystal Collection Glass mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

Simple color palette for this one.

No peeking! {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

Hi, there! Quick post today, but I’m sharing a simple gift tag featuring a gnome from Mo’s Digital Pencil. I can’t find this specific gnome in Mo’s store right now, but if you type “gnome” in the search bar in the store, you’ll find lots of other gnomes.

I colored the gnome with Copics, before die cutting it using a die in the Classic Snow Globe die set from My Favorite Things. I die cut the base from patterned paper from Maja Design, and matted everything on a circle die cut I created from another scrap of Maja Design paper. Using a couple of different stamp sets from Norsk Stempelblad AS, I stamped the sentiments using Jalapeño Popper ink from My Favorite Things.

On the back I stamped another Norsk Stempelblad AS stamp using Jalapeño Popper ink onto another die cut circle I created from Maja Design patterned paper. I used three different Christmas collections from Maja Design for this small gift tag. I love their older patterned paper collections. The colors often match between collections, which makes mixing them a breeze.

 

 

Merry Christmas to the entire family {Lili of the Valley}

Hi! I’m back today with another red Christmas card. For someone who claims not to like red cards for Christmas, I’ve sure made a lot of them this year. I might need an intervention.

I colored up these Christmas Kids from Lili of the Valley with my Copics, and used the largest die from the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX dies from My Favorite Things to turn it into a panel with nice faux stitching around the edge. I sprinkled on chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous, before heating the panel from the back to melt the granules. I adhered my panel to a top fold card base I made from Red Hot cardstock from My Favorite Things.

I’m usually good at using scraps of patterned paper and rarely use a brand new sheet. Today was the day, though. I thought this patterned paper from the I wish collection from Maja Design went really well with my coloring, and I didn’t have a single scrap of this particular paper. Using the same die that I used on the white panel, I die cut my patterned paper before cutting up my die cut into pieces I could use on my card. I added two layers of cardstock behind both pieces and glued them to my card. I now have a continuous stitched border, even though some of it is my colored panel and some is patterned paper. I love little details like that. I die cut three of the god jul die from Papirdesign from red cardstock and glued them together for a stacked look. I glued my die cut to the center of the wide patterned paper before adding a sub sentiment. The sub sentiment is from Norsk Stempelblad AS, white heat embossed on the same color red cardstock and cut down to a strip, with two additional pieces of cardstock behind it to make it flush with the die cut. I added three snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to the patterned paper, and my card was finished.

Not a whole lot of colors for this one. Soft colors too (except for the darkest green, I wanted a little bit of contrast there), which is rare for me.

Hooray {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

Hi. I’m back with another Mo Manning creation. This time I colored up Tall Cake using my Prismacolor pencils and created a fairly simple birthday card. This is one of my most used images from Mo. It’s so fun with those cake layers and it’s easy and pretty quick to color, even for a slow colorer like me.

I actually colored this in May last year. I keep my colored image in stamp storage sleeves from Tim Holtz. They’re super sturdy and you can put a lot of colored images in one pocket. They come five in a pack, which is perfect for me, that way I can dedicate each sleeve to one design team, since I’m currently on five design teams. Sometimes, I just want to color without having to turn it into a card right away, and sometimes I just want to make a card, but don’t feel like coloring, or simply don’t have time to do both. Compartmental crafting for the win.

Onto a piece of Blueberry Sky cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I stamped the Happy Birthday Background stamp from My Favorite Things using VersaMark ink and dusted it with Perfect Pearls powder, before misting it with water to fix the powder to the cardstock. It doesn’t really show in the photos, but it has a wonderful shine when you tilt it in the light. I used a double stitch rectangle die from My Favorite Things to turn it into a nice panel and adhered it onto a cardbase made from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I mounted my colored panel using foam tape and adhered it to the center of the card. I felt like it was missing something and needed a little bit extra. Mini paper doilies from Doodlebug Design to the rescue. I love these mini doilies, I use them often. And you don’t need the whole doily, either, I just used two small pieces for this card, and there are 75 doilies in one pack, they last forever. Onto a piece of Blue Breeze cardstock from MFT I stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment using Blueberry Sky ink from Papertrey Ink. I cut it down to a 1″ circle using a circle punch from EK Success, added it to my card using foam tape and finished the card with a few pink enamel dots from Papirdesign.

Fill the season with joy {Lili of the Valley}

Hi! I’m sharing another red Christmas card today. I’ve been sharing a lot of red Christmas cards recently, I’m hoping to go back to normal colors soon 😉 I created a shaker card, focusing on the Snow Folk image from the Christmas 2021 release from Lili of the Valley. This digi set actually comes with two images. There’s one with a frame and a few additional stars and extra greenery and this pared back version that I used.

I printed the image on a 4 1/4 x 4 1/4″ piece of X-Press It blending card and colored in my scene using Copics. I don’t always color the sky behind my images, but for this one I knew I wanted to create a framed shaker card, and I colored the sky with a single marker, making sure it was nice and juicy before starting.

Using a couple of dies in a set of nesting squares from Lifestyle Crafts, I created a frame to go around my image. I taped the two squares together, so I could run them through my die cutting machine several times and be sure that the size of the frame would be the same with each pass through the machine. I die cut 8 of these frames, I wanted a very dimensional shaker card. I stacked 7 of them, glued them to my colored piece, added lots of sequins from the Icicle sequin mix from Hero Arts and glued the last die cut frame on top.

That’s when I ran into trouble. I wasn’t able to glue the frame onto the acetate so that it lined up with the others. I’d adhered it with score tape, so there was no way to remove it without ruining it. My solution was to die cut a new, larger frame with a slightly smaller window. I went one die larger for the outside and one die smaller for the inside for this frame, and adhered it directly onto the ones that were already there. It was a happy accident, because I’m really happy with the chunkier frame.

I added the shaker to a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2″ card base I created from Wild Cherry cardstock from My Favorite Things, before stamping and white heat embossing a se23ntiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS to a separate piece of the same color cardstock, which I then die cut using a die from the Gemini Extra Deep Loving Tags die set from Crafter’s Companion. I adhered it directly to the inside top right corner of my shaker frame, and my card was finished.

Not a whole lot of colors for this card, in spite of all those stripes on the snowmen’s accessories.

Merry Christmouse {Lili of the Valley}

Hi! I have a fun Christmas card to share today, featuring one of the brand new images from Lili of the Valley. It’s called Mouse with Bauble, and the best thing is that you can choose to purchase the digital stamp (which is what I’ve used) OR the photopolymer stamp. That’s right, Lili of the Valley is reintroducing physical stamps. Some of my oldest and most cherished rubber stamps are from Lili of the Valley, and I think it’s awesome that they’re going back to having physical product.

Enough blabbing. I printed the cute mouse onto a 1/4 sheet of X-Press It blending card, which is my favorite for Copic coloring. Using a stencil from My Favorite Things and Iceberg ink from Altenew, I did some very light ink blending around the image for a little bit of added interest before I started coloring.

Onto the “white” stripes on the bauble, I used my quickie glue pen from Sakura and sprinkled on Rock Candy Distress Glitter for a little bit of sparkle. You can kind of see it in this photo, but it’s more noticeable in real life.

I cut my panel down, added lots of foam tape to the back and added it to a top fold A2 note card that I created from Blueberry cardstock from My Favorite Things. Sadly, this is one of their discontinued colors, but I have a pack of this cardstock that I absolutely love, and this color is just beautiful. It’s dark blue, but not too dark, and it’s just the right tone of blue.

I stamped a sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS using Blue Yonder ink from My Favorite Things. I don’t have ink in the discontinued Blueberry color, and I didn’t want to use too dark of a blue ink, so I triple stamped using the Blue Yonder instead. It matches the robe pretty well.

I added a few sequins from the White Orchid sequin mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards, and the card was done. Super simple.

Super simple color palette, too.