Christmas Tags Galore!

One of my favorite quick and simple gifts is a matching set of gift tags. These cute but useful gifts are great for the person in your life who has everything, since they are beautiful, personal, and totally consumable!

I created several sets of tags as little gifts for teachers, co-workers, and friends. Tuck tags in with a bar of scented soap, some Christmas goodies, or another small gift for a last minute Christmas surprise!

I created this set of adorable schnauzer tags for my boss, who is the owner of three adorable pups she loves! These open up to reveal space to write inside. She has two white dogs and one tan and white, so there are a few images for each pup!

For the next set, I created a watercolor wash with Distress ink and layered on some hand cut hearts. These turned out so cute!

I broke out my City Scenes stamp set from Papertrey Ink for this set of scene tags. The background on these was created with watercolor paper and Distress Ink. 

Tag sets are so simple and fun to create! I hope you find some inspiration for your gift giving here! 

Merry Christmas!

Watercolor Christmas with Purple Onion Designs

I absolutely ADORE the Stacy Yacula unmounted rubber stamps I ordered last year from Purple Onion Designs. I love creating miniature worlds on my cards, and Stacey's designs offer a thousand adorable combinations for scene building. Her designs are great for Christmas and beyond! I encourage you to check out the Purple Onion website here!

Now, sometimes you win in photography, and sometimes you lose big time. Sometimes you don't realized you've lost until you've already mailed the card you're photographing, and that was definitely the case this time. This picture is absolutely atrocious, and I'm only sharing it here because this is my first real attempt at creating a watercolor background. I loved how the original turned out!

I created the background on this card by stamping the house and tree image in Staz-On ink on watercolor paper. I painted the image, sky, and snow banks with my Gansai Tambi watercolors, and then I stamped my focal image on a second piece of watercolor paper, painted it, and cut it out. I popped the focal point up just a little with some dimensional adhesive and then covered the whole scene in snow with a white gel pen. (Remember, snow falls in the foreground and background!)

I finished this project off with a dark blue card base and a heat embossed greeting on a strip of vellum. Then off to Canada in time for Christmas! 

I had a blast creating this card, and I have tons of other design ideas using all of my Stacey Yacula stamps! Thanks for stopping by today, and thanks for tolerating this shaky photo!

Clean and Simple Santa

I do my very best to send handmade cards to everyone on my list at Christmas. After all, what could be sillier for an avid card maker than sending commercially printed Christmas cards? I finally tallied up my list of recipients, and I have about half of what I need. I tend to make pretty involved projects, so I needed a clean and simple card that will be quick to reproduce for the other half of my mailing list. Pinterest to the rescue!

I found a basic layout I liked and then set about adapting it with supplies I have on hand. I like how this quick and easy project turned out!

I stamped this vintage Santa image from Tim Holtz in Versamark ink and then heat embossed in detail black embossing powder. Using a Tim Holtz stencil, I created the plaid pattern over the top by sponging Barn Door and Mowed Lawn Distress Inks over part of the image. A sheet music paper envelope finished this 5 minute project off.

Thanks for stopping by today!