Animal Tags

I have been in two minds about purchasing  these stamps and dies.
Today they arrived so playtime was declared.

I coloured the images with copic markers. As anyone that uses alcohol markers knows, the ink bleeds through  the card leaving the inside looking pretty awful.

 To hide this,  I used the  tag dies to cut out some blanks from light weight card, (the type of card used in photocopiers) anything thicker may cause an issue when folding the tags in half.

Ultra Quick Tags For All Those Christmas Presents.

 As promised here is my tutorial  on  making these ultra quick tags.

To make the Tags I cut strips of heavy white card stock into 2" wide strips. Then cut them  in  to 3 3/4 "  lengths.

 I used a label top punch from S.U to punch the tag tops.

Once all my tags were cut I was ready to decorate them. I had planned on sponging them, but realized I only had about half an hour before hubby got home from  and sponging would be too slow. So some experimentation was called for.

I took a baby wipe, really nice wet one
( If yours are not that wet, spritz them with a little water one or two squirts should be enough.)
I used Stampin' Up s dye based inks, but any  water/dye based ink will do.

I started at the top of the tag and gently stroked down the tag stopping  about 3/4" from the bottom.
 Try not to use more than 3 or 4 strokes  as you will run the risk of furring up your card stock.  If you're not getting good coverage spritz your wet wipe with a little  more water. But don't soak the tag.
Do the same to all your tags.  By the time you have done the last the first will be dry enough to work on the bottom.


Turn the tag sideways and stroke across the bottom of the tag with your second colour.
No more than 4 stroke . It doesn't matter if the effect is streaky as this only adds to the depth and gives the appearance of snow drifts.


Tip, if your card is too porous it will soak up the ink too quickly and give a patchy result. Use a heavy card that the ink takes longer to dry on.

Ink up your tree stamp with dark brown ink and stamp the images where you want them.

I used the trees from the Happy Scenes stamp set from last years S.U  winter catalogue. I have to say I cut this stamp down as I didn't like the extended lines below the trees .

Once I had stamped the images I took a Quicky glue pen the fine line one and drew thin lines of glue and spots of glue wherever I wanted to highlight the snow.

I can tell you, It has taken me considerably longer to type up this tutorial that it took me to make 24 tags.

I hope you will have a go at this technique.

I did get asked if using a baby wipe on your stamp pads ruined the pads. I can honestly say I don't really know.  But I seriously doubt it.  As  I only dabbed my baby wipe on one small corner of the ink pad, My ink pads are refillable so I really don't think think is going to cause a problem. If you are at all worried about ruining your pad. dab the ink pad onto an acrylic block and take the ink from the block. If you use S.U ink pads you should know that,  if you squeeze the lid down while  pad is closed some of the ink will transfer into the lid, so you could use the inside of the lid as your palette.

Christmas Tags.

I completed a project for  school last night and there were some scraps of gold card left, so this afternoon I thought I would get started on Making my Christmas  tags instead of leaving it to the last minute.
While making these little tags I discovered something I hadn't noticed or hadn't realized about  about Stampin' up's embossing folders and how they differ from  cuttlebug folders and the other brands.
 I am basically a lazy crafter and this  mini revelation has had me on cloud nine today, I could get all my Christmas tags embossed four times quicker than I thought.
I need to take some photos before I tell you anymore, that way you'll be able to see the difference for yourself.


Back to my Christmas tags ,  I made 24 of these today, Alan says they look posh and I am inclined to agree with him.  I love the  effect of the shiny gold on the matt gold.
I used gold card 12" X 4"  Scored down the whole length of the strip  folded it in half  and cut the folded strip into mini cards about 2  1/2 "  - 3" long .


 I then embossed the front half of each card using  a Stampin' up embossing folder.
I stamped a load of Merry Christmas greetings on Very Vanilla card stock and  punched them out using the word window punch.
 I  punched out some labels in gold,  deep red and black and some stars in gold and black added the greeting to either the label or the star and stuck in position on the front of the tag.
These are very simple and very cheap to make and I think quite stylish.
What I really like is the fact they are so easy and cheap it means  I won't be heartbroken when the person receiving the gift throws the packaging and tag away.