Back to crafting!

Hello and good morning!

The Great Fall Garden Cleanup is finally over and I can get back to normal and back to crafting, especially playing in paper and glitter!  Yippee!  And no more worrying about the garden for at least 3 more months, though that doesn't include starting hundreds of annuals from seed in January.  That doesn't take days, though, so it doesn't count.

Today's card isn't a card at all, it's a gift tag.  There are challenges out in blogland which frequently feature tags as their theme - either gift tags themselves or tags on cards.  I've never really made a gift tag per se, and time was limited yesterday, so I decided to make a tag rather than a card since it was so late in the day, figuring I could knock a tag out in less than an hour.  NOT.  But it was still quicker than my typical cards, and very fun.  AND...if I choose to make any more like it, I'll know what I'm doing and they WILL go more quickly.  That being said, here 'tis.

It's a simple tag, really, but it still has layers and bling.  I made it out of two layers of cereal box die cut with a tag die, glued together, then painted with Ivory Creative Inspirations paints.  I discovered after the paint dried that dye ink doesn't really stick to it all that well.  The words kept smearing, so I used it to ink up the edges a little bit and then I watered some refill down and spattered it with a toothbrush.  The watered down ink dried and stayed.  Strange, right? 

I wound up heat embossing the words with my own mixture of brown and metallic gold embossing powders mixed with a little SU Iridescent Ice from a previous project.  You can see the glimmer a little bit in the picture, but it glimmers more IRL.  The little charm is of my own making, which I attached to the seam binding ribbon which I dyed with Evergreen CI paint.  The tiny little jingle bells even tinkle a little bit!

I made the flower with the two smallest SB Layered Poinsettia dies, painted them with Rustic Red CI paints and applied a bit of gold glitter to the petals once assembled.  I took a bit of botanical license with the leaves and used one of the SB Foliage dies, plus the MS pine branch punch.  I painted the larger leaves with CI Evergreen paints.  I do love the subtle shimmer that CI paints give.  The milliner's stamens are from my stash.

And lest you think I left the cereal box tag plain on the back side...

I did not.  As a good friend of mine often says, a lady must look as good leaving as she does coming.  So the back side was finished with dp, also cut with the tag die.

Thank you so much for visiting me today, and I hope you enjoyed today's project.  Until tomorrow, happy crafting!

Ingredients used:

Stamp: MFT Seasonal Sentiments
Ink: SU Soft Suede, Versamark
Paper: Cereal box, SU Garden Green, red from stash, KaiserCraft December 25th
Accessories: SB Foliage and Layered Poinsettia dies, Sissix Scalloped Tags 2 die, MS pine branch punch, custom charm, gold glitter, CI Paints (Ivory, Rustic Red, Evergreen), milliner's stamens, seam binding.

Challenges Entered:

Paper Playtime #89 - Anything Goes
The Pink Elephant TPE176 - Pretty Packaging (the tag is going ON a package to make it pretty - that counts, right?)
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday 197 - Gold or Silver
Tuesday Throwdown #125 - Lots of Layers
Anything Goes Challenge 81 - Tags
Creative Card Crew Challenge 24 - Anything Goes
Simon Says ...Anything Goes 
Divas By Design Challenge 63 - Glitter and Sparkle
Pause Dream Enjoy Challenge #47 - Anything Goes
Drunken Stampers Challenge #107 - Not Too Shabby
Allsorts Week 182 - Bring On the Bling 
My Sheri Crafts Challenge #99 - 'Tis the Season
CI Paints Inspired By...Anything Goes