Stamped Smiles

February AJ Page-Relaxation

Hello friends! It seems like this month went by really fast! Hope you’re having a great and productive month! It’s now time for this month’s Art Journal page…really fun one today!

If you’re not familiar, I post an AJ page each month along with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), as we get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles! We use a prompt each month and post them. I know she will have some great inspiration, so please check out her blog for an AJ page too! Here’s my AJ page for this month with the “SMASH OUR STASH” February prompt of “Wooden Pieces/Chipboard” :

Do you have tons of chipboard pieces laying around? I have several stacks of them that have been around for quite a while and I thought that I would just pull them out to start using some up here with this month’s prompt. These are old Stampin’ Up! chipboard pieces that they used to sell and I was taught that you don’t throw any of them away…well I think they meant that you should use them, though!😆

For the background: I started with my usual 6″x9″ watercolor paper with the holes pre-punched at the top. I used some torn pieces of scraps and vellum that I had laying around and randomly covered the blank page using collage medium. I took the chipboard pieces and glued them in random areas too. I then covered it over with some white gesso paint that was slightly watered down so that some of the background elements still showed through.

The next step was to add some colors with some Finnebair Impasto paint in Mediterranean and Lemon Peel. When these two colors mix together, they make a beautiful green. They are actually really bright colors, so I toned it down a bit with more white paint until I got the look I wanted. I finished it with black paint splattering.

Here’s a closer view of the top of the page with the collage and chipboard texture. After painting up the background, I also took a few pieces of chipboard along with a wooden butterfly and painted those elements in red. I thought it would be fun to give the page a pop of bright red to contrast the muted background. The red painted elements were added after the background was finished.

The sentiment at the top was computer generated and sponged over with some Pumice Stone Distress Oxide ink and layered over a piece of black cardstock and then attached to the page.

Then here’s a closer view of the bottom of the page. The “Reserved” is from a Tim Holtz sticker book.

Behind the red chipboard ‘R’, I added some black string. You will also notice that I’ve used some Finnebair Aged Gold metallic wax to go around the edges of the raised up edges to give them a bit of dimension. I finished it up with a few red enamel dots.

I had fun with this one and I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well! Thanks for dropping in today!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Seeing Red
Country View – Sentiment/Inspiring Words
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
Try it On Tuesday – Let’s Get Messy (painting)
Arty Divas – Anything Goes

February 25, 2023February 24, 2023

*Vicki*28 Comments

New DT for Sparkles Monthly Challenge!

Hello friends! Hope that you’ve had a wonderful Valentine’s Day and a great start to this new week in February!

I’m really excited to share that I’ve just been invited as a new design team member over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge Blog! I really like the fact that it has fun monthly themes to get you thinking and also that I can use up my never-ending piles of my own craft stash! This fits perfectly well with me and something I can handle!😉 So I hope you’ll stop by and follow along to play with us each month! You can find a new one on the 15th of each month.

Today starts a new monthly challenge theme which is #161 “Men Only“…so anything masculine will do! With having sons in my family, I’m always in need of masculine style cards for sure! Here’s my card for this month’s challenge:

Oh yes…tools! This always seems to be a favorite in my craft supply when creating a masculine card for sure! I made this one for my husband who’s a very handy guy, and he likes the color blue. I always like to add lots of textures, distressing and layers when making a masculine card. This also helps for using more of those craft supplies!

I’ve had these stamps and dies from My Favorite Things for quite a while now and only used them a couple of times. I die cut the background panel in the pegboard cover die and stitched rectangle dies, plus, layered with a couple of different blue panels that were stapled together. A die cut circle in woodgrain and blue papers were attached and cut off at the edge before attaching to the top folding white A2 card base.

I’ve added the die cut tool elements over top of the circle using some silver mirror and blue colored cardstocks to cut them out. I added some sponged ink over some places and topped it with a ripped strip of silver embossed screw heads, a strip of dark blue and the stamped sentiment stapled together and placed it over top with a piece of “messy” thread. Lastly, I added the dark blue die cut hearts and covered them with a glitter brush pen.

I hope that you will stop by the Sparkles Monthly Challenge Blog to check out the challenge and inspiration from the creative design team! I look forward to seeing what everyone creates!

Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
Pearly Sparkles – Anything Goes
The Paper Funday – Anything Goes optional: Lots of Layers
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
Allsorts – Anything Goes optional: hearts
The Corrosive – Anything Goes

February 15, 2023February 12, 2023

*Vicki*26 Comments

Lots of Love and Commissioned Wolves

Happy weekend friends! It’s almost time for Valentine’s Day which means we share our appreciation to those that we love! I like to make cards that are great for any time of year and hearts are versatile enough to do this without being specifically Valentines. Here are a few cards that I’ve made with this in mind:

I actually participated in last week’s Craft Roulette #149 and the perimeters were: 1. tissue/vellum 2. collage 3. far away 4. three pops of red. So…while watching, I had decided that I was going for the Tim Holtz Postale Tissue Wrap that was already collaged with images. I decided because of the collage images, that I was going to find an airplane image to use with it and my thoughts turned to an older Simon Says Stamp card kit I had with the “Home Sweet Home” stamp set. I white heat embossed the airplane, the long building strip and the sentiment over black cardstock. It seemed to lend itself to a slimline card design, so that’s what I went with and used collage medium to attach the tissue to the background. Once it dried, I glued the die cut buildings strip and went around it with a Big Brush marker that I smudged to create the shadow effect.

I made a banner with the sentiment and attached a white string to the back and tied a bow with it to the airplane and popped up the plane with foam tape. The collage background panel was layered over a black piece that was attached to a standard slimline top folding card base.

Here’s a closer view of the details so that you can see them a bit better. My “three pops of red” came from 3 hearts that I cut out with red cardstock. The die was from the coordinating set with the stamps. I attached them around the airplane and covered them with a glitter brush pen.

If you’re interested in seeing what the Craft Roulette is all about, you can check them out live every Friday night around 6:00 pm CST. I will be doing this tonight as well! It’s just something fun to get your crafting thinking and I love that I can pull out my stash and use it up!

And of course I couldn’t help but follow along with the Lawn Fawn Create With Us “Wood You Be Mine?” class! There’s a little inside joke about Woodchucks chuckin’ wood with my son and I couldn’t resist sending him one of these cards. (CLICK ON THE PHOTOS ABOVE TO SEE THEM LARGER IF YOU’RE ON MY WEBSITE)

I just pretty much followed along with the same design as they shared in class with the exception of the background stencil. I didn’t have the same one they used, so I pulled out one from Taylored Expressions that is no longer available. but if you’d like to follow along with the class, you can check it out here.

And lastly, I wanted to share a commissioned card that I made for someone that requested a card to give to their partner. Not really too specific other than they liked wolves and the “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong lyrics somewhere displayed on the design. So here’s what I came up with:

I did not own any stamps with wolves on them, so I turned to my Cricut machine to cut out a silhouette wolf and then I flipped it to cut another one so that they faced each other. I wanted to give the appearance of the wolf couple howling together. LOL I also had some digital map paper that I could print out to use for the hearts as well as making an envelope with it too.

The background was ink blended with the center being lighter toned in blue and then I splattered some white over top for a night sky or an “outer space” looking sky…however you’d like to interpret it, I suppose. I cut a large heart with the map paper and arranged the two wolves over it so that, although it’s the same image flipped, I can make them look like different wolves and then cut off the bottom portions. I popped up the large heart with foam. I also used the same papers to cut smaller hearts above them and added some glitter and covered them with crystal effects to make them shinny. I printed out the lyrics on my computer and cut it out in a banner shape to attach below the wolves.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my “love” creations today and have been inspired in some way! Thanks for stopping by!

Challenges:

Sweet Stampin’– LOVE (Beavers)
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Love is in the Air (slimline)
Everybody Art – #529 Heart/Love
Cardz 4 Guyz – Valentine for a Guy (wolves)
Try it On Tuesday – All You Need is Love
Fab ‘N’ Funky – Valentines or Hearts
Little Red Wagon – Somebody to Love
The Sisterhood of Crafters – Hearts
Crafty Gals Corner – Add a Heart

February 10, 2023

*Vicki*32 Comments

Playing with Roulette and Colors

Hello friends! Hope your week is getting off to a great start. I can’t believe that January is over and we’re starting a new winter month already, but at the same time I’m already feeling like this cold weather can move along faster to Spring!

Today I have a couple of creations that I’ve made using those Inky Stamper products and playing a little “Craft Roulette” too! Chelsea was on Craft Roulette and if you’ve never seen it play out in action, take a look at the You Tube channel to see what it’s about! She was on episode #146 and here’s my card that I’ve made with her perimeters:

I had so much fun with this and I’ve never made a tag shaped accordion card before, but it was stuck in my head to give it a try and pull out the Inky Stamper Craft Room set to create it. The “Roulette Wheel” spun on: Double Tags, shelf/shelves, 2 shades of green and something in the background.

The two shades of green were easy with using the Doodlebug Paper Packs and adding in a few other greens to the coloring. I’ve also made two tags and placed them inside the pocket area in the middle of the accordion design. I used a stencil in the background of the other two panels and of course I added some crafty goodies to the shelves in Rosie’s craft room! The accordion card was easier than I had anticipated and just made a mini slim line size design by cutting off the edges to create the tag shape. The hole and reinforcers were made using punches and dies. You can see that I’ve colored up, cut out “Rosie” in her craft room where she is cutting her design going through her creative head!

When it’s all folded up and closed, this is what the card looks like. I could always add a sentiment on the back, but I thought this would be fun to send to a fellow crafter for sure! I just wish my shelves looked this organized! And I always try to use another thing from my stash as I pulled out lots of twine that gets thrown in a bin, so it was nice to use for the tops of each tag area. (Maybe on the back of the card, the crafter can add items to use up on their next project and display it! LOL)

And here’s another card that I’ve done for the January challenge on the Inky Stamper Inkspiration FB Group which was to use: Black, white plus one other color:

I decided to pull out the Grasshopper set and make everything in the background black and white, but just color the grasshopper in green. All of the elements including the sentiment came from the same stamp set. I splattered some black paint over the background and the images were colored with some cool gray Copic markers. I white heat embossed the sentiment over black and cut it out with a banner die.

Behind the white panel, I took a piece of the black floral paper from the Doodlebug Floral & Graph Paper Pad and attached that to a white top folding A2 card base. It was a fun and easy card to put together!

Thanks so much for “hopping” over here today! Hope you’ve been inspired or smiled!😊

Challenges:

Cardz 4 Galz – Shaped Card (top card-tag shaped)
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Passion for Markers – use die cuts (both cards use dies and are colored with Copics)
Creatalicious – Anything Goes optional love &/or hearts (top card has hearts)
Papercraft – Anything Goes
Sparkles Monthly – Friendship (both cards evoke friendship to me!)

February 1, 2023January 31, 2023

*Vicki*26 Comments

Jan 2023 Art Journal Page-TIME

Hello there friends! Hope that you’ve been having a great month so far to start off your year! I’m so relieved that I’ve gotten my sound up and running on the computer now! Also…today I’m very happy to be continuing on with making my monthly art journal pages (plus using my stash!) and to be continuing the partnership with my sweet crafty friend, Carol! I always love to see how each of us interprets the monthly stash themes.

If you’re not familiar, I post an AJ page each month along with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), as we get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles! We use a prompt each month and post them. I know she will have some great inspiration, so please check out her blog for an AJ page too! Here’s my first Art Journal inspiration for 2023 with the “SMASH OUR STASH” January prompt of “Sprays/Stains/Paints” :

So this one is a bit different for me, but I wanted to try out a “minimalistic” style and very soft with the colors that’s almost pale. Not sure I achieved what I was thinking, but fun to try anyway.

Background: With the prompt in mind, I had no problem pulling out a few Distress Spray Stains that I have so many of but hardly use. So I started the background with a stencil and added some texture paste to the two opposite corners over a gesso painted 6″x9″ 140# cold press paper pre-punched with holes for book. I then took the spray stains and went over the two opposite corners with them.

I found a cool photo online of the eye with the clock. The outside of the eye has repetitive “tick tock” wording over it. Before attaching this photo and the wording elements, I stamped a very large pocket watch image (Whimsy Stamps retired) with Speckled Egg Distress Oxide ink. Since the sprays and ink are water based media, I covered the page with Distress Micro Glaze to make it permanent before adding some collage medium to attach the other elements. I also used a Big Brush marker to go around the edges for shadows. The pocket watch detail is a laser cut chipboard that was sprayed with black distress spray.

I took some more paint to add to the colored sprayed edges along with some black and white paints to randomly splatter over the entire page. Lastly I took some silver metallic rub to go over the raised areas and make them stand out a bit. The page has a sheen to it because I went over it with a coat of collage medium.

I hope you’ve gotten some inspiration today and thank you for stopping in!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Use a photo (eyeball)
More Than Words – It’s About Time
Country View – Time
Love to Craft – Anything Goes
Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
Arty Divas – Anything Goes

January 28, 2023January 27, 2023

*Vicki*21 Comments

Warm Wishes & Christmas too!

Hello friends! Gosh, it’s been a few minutes since my last posting, but I’ve not been with a computer for a while and I haven’t been able to post or see what’s been going on in blog world. I’m still without sound, but hopefully I’ll be fixed with that soon as well. After you get used to a computer, it’s time consuming trying to set everything back up on a new one and make sure you have all of your stored photos/files too! I’m getting there though!

Everything was a bit busy at the end of last year and I was not able to get around to participating in some classes that I’ve been wanting to do. Unfortunately with no sound, I couldn’t hear the videos, but I managed to easily figure things out anyway along with an instruction print out. So I was happy to get these Christmas/Winter cards finished:

I absolutely fell in love with the Lawn Fawn Ugly and Bright stamp set and I wanted to play with it and participate in their “Create with Us” class using it. I colored the stamped pieces similar to the class, but I didn’t have the same snowflake stencil for the background, so I pulled out my Taylored Expressions Let it Snow stencil (retired) to use for it.

The critters as well as the letters were popped up with foam tape and I’ve added some loose glitter to the speech bubbles, and hats. I used some LF chunky glitter to the bottom section of the letters. The letters were die cut from the LF Henry’s ABCs and colored with Copic markers.

And this one was also from the class using the same products as above, except the large sentiment came from the LF Giant Merry Christmas die and this time it was ink blended and sprayed with a shimmer spray. This was also popped up with foam tape along with the speech bubble and Santa hat. I was happy about the colors on this one and thought it was fun to put together and color.

For this last card, it was not apart of the class above, but I still wanted to play a bit more with the set and I had an extra deer critter cut out and colored and ready to be clothed! For this one I decided to keep it as just a wintry theme so it could be used for Christmas OR non-Holiday-ish. I pulled out the Lawn Fawn Snow Flurries Backdrop die to cut out a frame over top of a piece of the LF Knit Picky Winter Paper Pack that was ink blended along the edges and attached to an A2 top folding card base.

Thought that the deer looked a bit plain with no “grounding”, so I die cut a piece from some silver cardstock for him to stand on. (retired MFT die set) Added some glitter to his hat and sweater and popped him up with foam tape. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to add some sequins, dots or other snowflakes to it, so I left for now.

Really sorry if you’re over with anything Christmas, but I am just happy to have finished the class and hopefully it won’t take me as long to get to the next one…which has already been out and I haven’t gotten to yet!🤨

Thanks so much for stopping in today and hope that you’ve been inspired in some way! I will be doing my monthly AJ page Saturday, so I hope you’ll come back to see this month’s inspiration.

Challenges:

NBUS – #46 New LF! Yay!
Merry Little Christmas – Anything Goes Christmas
Christmas Kickstart – Masks and Stencils
Once Upon a Time – Snowy Day (third card)
613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes optional winter theme
The Corrosive – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes

January 25, 2023

*Vicki*23 Comments

It’s 2023! Commissioned Calendars and More Calendars to Start the Year!

We’ve made it to 2023!🎉 Congratulations and a huge welcome! I’m so thrilled to have you with me for another crafty year and honored to be apart of your creative journey in some way.

Towards the end of last year…which was a few months ago…I was asked to create a set of those calendar cards that I had made last January which you can view in my previous post HERE. If you look at the calendars at the bottom of the post, it explains the details. In sharing those, someone asked me to create a set with a particular theme in mind for giving as Christmas gifts.

I was given instructions to use a sheep image for their card/game group that call themselves “Sheeples”.😄 The first one that came to my mind was this adorable little die cut set from Taylored Expressions called Spring Squad Die & Clear Stamp Combo. I love the added stamp set to create the details of the characters! And of course I’ve also used the TE Mini Tear-Off Calendars.

For the background, I wanted to incorporate some game theme items with this cutie, so I pulled out the fun stamp set from Inky Stamper called Game Night, of course! I ink blended the background panel with some reds and black/gray Oxide Ink colors and spritzed it with water for some texture. Once dried, I added the different “suit” images in the corresponding colors of the suits. I also stamped a sentiment from this same stamp set and die cut a banner with it to pop up under the sheep. Lastly, I’ve added a few Playing Card Shaker Elements and rhinestones.

In total, I needed to create 8 of these calendars and I think they turned out really cute and fun! I didn’t know if there were any masculine members of the group, so I wanted to keep it for use either way and I’m glad I did as it was needed. So these are each A2 size that can fold flat and fit inside A2 envelopes for mailing if you needed. Then the recipient can stand them up to remind them of their next game night fun throughout the year! She seemed pretty pleased with them, so that was great too! And of course she received them in plenty of time for Christmas giving, but I’m just now getting them posted.

I enjoy creating a new calendar for my craft room every year and there is a fun 2023 Calendar Kit from Inky Stamper that I completed.

Every year Inky Stamper comes out with these calendars that comes with all of the calendar month cards plus pre-stamped and cut images along with a sentiment strip and papers for each month. It also includes some sort of stand to display them on. (I like to use the previous year calendar to make cards with too!)

I was able to get them all colored and assembled for this year and have it displayed on a shelf next to my computer so that I can flip through each month and enjoy. I enjoy taking the time to sit and color especially with it being cold and snowy again over my way.

And since this post is all about calendars, I thought I’d take the time to complete TWO Perpetual Occasions Calendars from Taylored Expressions that I had gotten sometime last year for gifts and never got around to finishing them up.

I’ve just turned it to January to show, but you can see the other pages of the calendar on the bottom corner that were all stenciled up similarly. The link above takes you to the class kit which includes the TE Perpetual Occasions Calendar, the TE Calendar Coil plus the video class instructions from Taylor on how to put everything together. You can also get the TE Floral Vines Layering Stencils that work with this calendar which I’ve used with these that I made.

And of course you can also use these same stencils to make a pretty card too! I’ve taken the same stencils that I’ve used on my calendar and made a birthday card. I took the instruction from Taylor’s class and applied it similar to my own card using the TE Diagonal Stitch Rectangle die to partially cut one side of the stenciled panel. I also pulled out the TE On Occasion stamps & dies to white heat emboss over black and cut out over the front of the card.

And then after creating two sets of the perpetual calendars and birthday cards to match, I’ve added a rainbow pen that I had previously purchased from Taylored Expressions (no longer in the store) and placed them all inside these TE 5×8 Clear Calendar Boxes. I pulled out some ribbon in my stash and wrapped it around the boxes. I now have two completed birthday gifts with cards this year! Yay! I feel like I’ve accomplished something ahead of time for a change!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my New Year calendar post today and have been inspired to start getting crafty! Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Creatalicious – Anything Goes optional something new (new calendar kit for 2023)
Love to Craft – Anything Goes
Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal (top and middle projects)
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes with paper
Paper a la Mode – Let’s Get Started (no cards)

January 6, 2023January 12, 2023

*Vicki*21 Comments

End of the Year-Dec AJ Page-SNOW+Book

It is here! The end of 2022 has arrived weather you are ready for it or not! I know as I’ve gotten older the time seems to pass more and more quickly. Each year I usually go through all of the things that I didn’t have time to do. This year I’m going to look at all of things that I DID do instead! I look forward to a wonderful year ahead and I hope you are as well!

For this entire year, I’ve had such a wonderful time creating my AJ pages at the end of each month with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! Thanks SO MUCH to her for the wonderful inspiration and joining in the venture with me! I know she’ll have something wonderful, so please check out her blog for an AJ page too! We’ve gotten creative by using up our never-ending stash piles! (I look forward to doing this for another year each month in 2023 and I’ll hope you’ll be here too!) Here’s my final Art Journal inspiration for 2022 with the “SMASH OUR STASH” December prompt of “Oldest Stash” :

It’s a bit challenging for me to FIND my “oldest stash” as I’ve been a bit of a collector over the years. So I’ve pulled out a very old, but favorite stamp set of mine from Stampin’ Up! called “Lovely as a Tree” from 2001. The container broke when I opened it up to take a stamp out! LOL I’ve also pulled out my Pearl Ex powders and some gilding flakes from my older media stash. It’s a good thing that powders don’t go bad otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to use them!🙄

For the Background – I’ve used some mix of paints and splattered some white paint over it for the snow. The trees at the bottom were stamped over vellum and then I cut it out and attached that to the bottom of the page so that they were a nice vibrant black as I didn’t think they would stamp over the paint very well. I did take a snowflake stamp (not too old) and stamped a few randomly over the background in teal ink. (water-proof)

For the Pearl Ex Powders – I mixed some Misty Lavender Pearl Ex with embossing paste and used a snowflake stencil to randomly add this to the background.

For the Gilding Flakes – I die cut some snowflakes with double sided adhesive sheets will make the front sticky. This made it so I could rub in the gilding flakes over them. They did turn out very pretty!

The “SNOW” letters were die cut and I found a neat winter clipping from my sentiment stash to add below it after I sponged some teal ink around it. I also die cut another tiny snowflake in the center of the ‘O’ with glitter cardstock and attached a tiny teal rhinestone in the center of it. I rubbed some silver wax around the letters and around the edges of the page. Lastly, I’ve added some star sequins and filled the centers of those and the gilded snowflakes with some silver Stickles. I covered the bottom of the page under the trees with glue and covered it with sparkly glitter.

So I thought that since I’ve done an AJ page every month this year that not only did I need to close up the year, but I also needed to close the book to all the AJ pages I made from 2022 by finally finishing up a book to put them all in!

I made the covers with some chipboard along with some “old” chipboard pieces from my stash and did some painting with a bit of mixed media gold wax and stenciling. I wanted to be sure to add the year to the front and a little quote from my sticker book that says: “happy in her heart where only the imagination can go”

I fit all of the AJ pages completed this year along with a few extras that were created from before with unknown dates, added the front and back covers and used my Zutter Bind-it-All machine to add the spiral wire for a book. (This was the reason all of my pages had the pre-punched holes in them when I posted each month.)

That finishes up the 2022 year on my blog. I hope you’ve enjoyed my posts weather it’s for inspiration or just a smile. Either way, I’m so thankful that you have joined me this past year and your friendships. I look forward to a productive and crafty year ahead in 2023!

Have a safe, happy and healthy New Year!🎊

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Snowy Winter
Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
Creative Knockouts – Anything Goes

December 31, 2022December 30, 2022

*Vicki*19 Comments

Merry Christmas!🎄

Just wanted to share some Christmas cards I made this year and wish each and everyone a peaceful, loving and joyful season!

Made with the Taylored Expressions Woodland Reindeer Silhouettes stamps & dies and the Woodland Reindeer Deco Foil Transfer Sheets. The sentiments were foiled from the TE Simple Strips in Reverse Christmas Panels. The shaded oval panel was blended on by using the TE Oval Masking Stencils and I splattered the background with white paint.

This card was made using a TE freebie (not available for purchase) and created in the same way with the card on top except this one has the sentiment in the center rather than the reindeer. I also foiled a couple of the snowflake/stars randomly over it and rounded the corners.

Thanks so much for your continued support my friends!!!

Challenges:

Fab ‘N’ Funky – Last minute Christmas
The Sisterhood of Crafters – Traditional Christmas Colors
Crafty Gals Corner – ‘Tis the Season
Creative Moments – Christmas/Winter Celebrations
Creative Knockouts – ‘Tis the Season
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Pammies Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes

December 22, 2022December 19, 2022

*Vicki*23 Comments

It’s Time For Tags!

Hello friends! I thought I’d take some time for making up some tags which is something that I really enjoy doing, but don’t do it very often. They’re so nice to have a batch made up ahead of time so that you can pull one out as you need it instead of trying to hurry through making something. It’s always better to have fun instead of rushing!

This trio of tags was a bit time consuming, but it was nice to finally pull out some things that I’ve been wanting to play with and use without being in a hurry. The characters are from the Taylored Expressions Holiday Squad die set. The tags themselves were cut from the TE Pierced Stacklets dies, the TE Tag Stacklets 2 dies and the TE Tag Reinforcements dies. The background for the tags was made with the TE Foil It-Plaid Layering Panels that I foiled in gold along with the stenciling from the TE Plaid Layering Stencil set. The sentiments were white heat embossed from the TE Just Saying-Christmas stamps. I’ve used various colors of Taylored Expressions papers and inks and then finished the embellishments for the “holly berries” using the red from TE Tiny Diamonds-Bold set and then I also used the TE Gold Drip Drops in the background. The ribbon and twine from my stash at the top.

My next trio of tags here was really fun with these adorable penguins from Taylored Expressions Dancing Through the Snow stamp set and dies. I placed them over top of the transparency that was used to create a shaker tag behind the penguins. I used the TE Tag Stacklets 3 dies and also used some pink polka dotted papers from a free paper pad I received with an order. The bright shinny purple paper came from my stash I’ve had for quite a while and thought it would be a fun non-traditional color to use with these. I filled the shaker tags with the TE Bits & Pieces-Snowflakes and the TE Bits & Pieces-Sparkly Stars.

And these tags were a little hard to photograph with all of that cording in the way! (pardon my photograph skills! LOL) They’re smaller than the tags above, but they work great for different packaging sizes! These were easy and fun as I’ve done mostly foiling with these using the Taylored Expressions Foil It-Simple Tags Holidays panels and the stencil to go with it. I cut them all out at the same time with the coordinating dies. The tags with the black cording are the negatives from foiling the toffee colored tags and are mostly completely foiled. I just used different colored Stickles glitter to create the Christmas lights on those. (Really been having fun with the foiling this year!)

And lastly I wanted to share a set of tags that I’ve made using various Inky Stamper sets! I decided to go through all of the different Christmas sets that I have from them and pull out the ones that I either haven’t used or barely used to play with them. The tag at the top was made with the Inky Stamper Fox set that I really enjoyed coloring. The presents at the bottom and the Santa hat were colored and fussy cut from the same stamp set. I made the background of that one with the Falling Snowflake Stencil with white ink and heat embossing over it with sparkly white embossing powder.

The tag on the bottom left is another fun shaker tag! I pulled out the Inky Stamper Nutcracker set to color him up and cut out with the coordinating die. He was placed over the acetate on the shaker tag. I used a scallop circle tag die with gold foil cardstock that I cut out the center with a circle die, added some papers for the background from the Doodlebug Buffalo Check/Woodgrain paper pack. The shaker bits inside are the Shaker Garnish which is really lightweight and still make a great shaker sound too!

The bottom right tag was cut from an Infinity Tree die set. I sponged the edges with some white ink and punched a hole at the top to make it a tag. That cute little truck is from the Inky Stamper Vintage Truck set that I colored and cut out with the coordinating dies. I used a fun Lawn Fawn road die to place him over and then stamped the sentiment from the stamp set with white ink. I also added some snowflake sequins above him with the Icicles sequins mix. And both blue and red Doodlebug Twine was used for two of the tags. The other ribbons/cord from my stash.