Learning New Tricks

Hello and good morning.

I will say right up front that yesterday, which started out with high hopes of playing in the craft room for most of the day, ended with very little playing at all.  I had a doctor's appointment, and in the attempt to make a story short, let's just say that age has finally started making his dastardly appearance in the area that I treasure the most - my HANDS.  I can deal with grey hair (that's what Ms. Clairol, or in my case, L'Oreal, is for), thinning hair (bangs to camouflage and lots of hairspray!), and weakening eyesight (contacts and glasses!), but when my hands started aching and the end knuckles became inflamed and swollen, well, it was time to see a doc.  Long story short, it's the beginnings of osteoarthritis and is manageable since I'm catching it early, but it can't be reversed as it's genetic and something that is inevitable with age in my family.  A couple of Aleeve a day and I'm good to go.

However, since I ALWAYS try to find the silver lining to every cloud, the doc told me that shoveling all that compost that I've been doing the past few days has got to stop.  Well, alrighty then!  Say no more!  Yahoo!  Guess I'll have to hire out that unpleasant aspect of gardening and thus save my hands for more important things.  Like crafting.  And crafting.  And more crafting.

All that being said, today's crafty offering is a single, simple tag.  

I've been wanting to make tags anyway, but I had planned to make another, more involved, card as well; however, I did at least get one started which I will post tomorrow.  That being said, here's my blue tag.  Simple design, a single stamp, some silver embossing, a little custom made charm, some ribbon (two at the top, a single piece below), and voila, a simple, yet still sparkly, tag.

I inked up the sides with the Versamark pad and embossed with Zing silver metallic embossing powder.  Same with the image.  I made the little charm, though unfortunately it doesn't show up as well as I'd hoped it would. 

Of course the back had to be finished, which is just as well as there was no room for the words, also heat embossed in silver, on the front.  This tag, by the way, was also two pieces of cereal box glued together.  I find that, combined with the two layers of designer paper, they make a nice, sturdy tag for much less than the price of readymade chipboard tags.

BTW, today's post title came about because I decided to play around with my new Photoshop software a bit  to try to add that little something extra to the photos, so I practiced with some of the photo effects.  Very fun, but I know I have much to learn.  You'll get to experience my progress.  :)

Thank you for joining me today and listening to me vent a little.  I am learning this much: Old(er) Age - it's not for the faint of heart.

Happy crafting!!

Ingredients:

Stamps: All That Glitters (Flourishes), Seasonal Sentiments (MFT)
Paper: SU Night of Navy, Regals DSP Stack
Ink: Versamark
Accessories: Ribbon, custom charm, Zing silver embossing powder, heat tool, Sissix Scallop Tags 2 die

Challenges Entered:

The Pink Elephant TPE 176 - Pretty Packaging (another tag to make a package pretty - hoping it still counts!)
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday 197 - Use gold or silver
Anything Goes Challenge 81 - Tags
Simon Says...Anything Goes!

Charisma Cardz Challenges #47 - Christmas w/a Twist (No green, gold or red)
Crafty Ribbons Challenge 33 - Use At Least Two Ribbons
Crazy 4 Challenges C4C164 - Put a Bow On It
Allsorts Week 182 - Bring On the Bling
My Sheri Crafts Challenge #99 - 'Tis the Season