Thank You's are Important, Too

Thank you's are important, too!

During the holidays, there are two little words that mean so much, and are sometimes forgotten. "Thank You!" Thank you for the lovely dinner, thank you for inviting me, thank you for the wonderful gift, thank you for thinking of me. Sometimes we get so tied up in the moment, we forget to say these words out loud. That is when a beautiful card can really come in handy.  So while you are creating beautiful handmade cards to send to family and friends, be sure to also make several thank you cards, to keep on hand for the thank you's that are frequently forgotten.

The card I made today is an A2 size card that is very simple, yet beautiful. I started with the background pool colored layering paper from Hero Arts and added a printed scrap across the bottom, about halfway across. I then adheared a ribbon across and glued it to the back. I then shadow stamped a leaf design on the solid top with a gray Marvy marker inked directly onto the stamp. This technique is so vibrant on glossy surfaces, yet a soft matte finish on non-glossy papers. I also used this technique to stamp a thank you stamp on a precut chipboard label. It's finish was fairly glossy, so it turned out vibrant and strong. I just take the Marvy marker (light blue for example) and mark directly on the word thank on my rubber stamp.(Always use the lighter color first) Then with my grape colored purple marker, I rubbed it on the word "you" and across the bottom of the word "thank". It automatically blended the two colors where they overlapped. You can then "huff" or breathe heavily on your stamp and stamp it onto the smooth surface.  Your breath will re-moisten the inks just enough so they will stamp easily. Use foam dots to pop the label on the front of your card, and then adhear the front panel to the card front, and you are done!

Here are the last four tags from the Holiday Tag project I completed. This project was one of the most rewarding projects I have seen to fruition, so I guess that is why it means so much to me.  I hope you all enjoyed seeing the tags as much as I enjoyed making them. Several of you left me comments on the post, and I really appreciate your responses.

I hope you consider making a few tags this year for attaching to special gifts, or even attaching to the front of a greeting card.  They are fun and can be quick to make and they will be treasured by those receiving them. Have a grand week, and I will see you again soon.

Thankful for Tags on Tuesday!

Thank Goodness it's Tuesday! No more Black Friday, or Cyber Monday, just regular everyday Tuesday; just in time for more Tags!
Only one more post of Holiday Tag Project after this one. After making 25 for the Church Christmas tree, I was sure I was going to have nightmares of tags, but you know what, they were really fun.  My kind of project, simple, easy to make, doesn't take much time or supplies, and can have different designs and themes.

After they were all on the tree, I really kind of missed them. So much in fact that I came home and made some again for my personal gift giving. They are great for using up bits and pieces of papers, ribbons, punchings, odds and ends of ephemera, and practice coloring pieces of stamps and print images. As I was digging through my bits and left overs, I kept finding more and more colored images to put in my "scrap" book. It's not a typical scrapbook, with full page layouts with pictures and journaling. It's an actual scrappy little book, made from envelopes bound together in book form. Each envelope contains images of a theme, such as animals, flowers, words, people, art, and so on. It was pretty overstuffed before this tag project came along, I used a lot of the images.  But as I said, found more images as I dug through my boxes of scraps.

Looking through many blogs this weekend, I found where several artists were making their own advent calendars using decorated tags. This would be lots of fun with tags like these, and I may try one next year for a friend that still has small children. I guess it would even be fun for a "Luv Calendar" for your spouse or partner for Valentines Day or before an anniversary. You could put little love notes on each one, to remind them how special they are!  Hmmmmm! Valentine idea swirlling around in my head!  Let's write that one down!  

Enjoy your week, and come visit with me again soon.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving, to one and All!  Today is the day we congregate with family and friends to be thankful for everything we have been blessed with. Some celebrate with BIG meals, others watching the parades and sporting games.  Some even celebrate by shopping and fighting the unruly crowds at many an ungodly time! This year I am sleeping late, watching a little of the parade, and grabbing a "turkey snack". In the afternoon, instead of watching the games, I may visit some friends, then come home and work on my Christmas cards.

Since today is Thursday, here is another installment of the "Hope for the Holidays" tags I made.
Wednesday I delivered the tags I made, and we stuffed the gift cards inside them all, and hung them on the tree. Tomorrow the families will get to choose their tag after the meal.  I hope everyone involved in the project felt as blessed as I did, seeing all the tags together, they were so beautiful!

Happy Holidays to ALL!  Stay safe and celebrate responsibly this year!

More Tags for Tuesday!

Hello fellow paper artists!
More tags for Tuesday to be given away with a gift card for the church project I am working on.
For the past week, I have been telling you and showing you tags that I am making to decorate a Holiday Tree.

Here are three more, with 15 down and 10 more to go! Actually I have finished all the ones I was making and will deliver them Wednesday afternoon to church. I will show the rest in 3 tag increments for the next three Tuesday/Thursday bog posts. (since the word tag goes with Tuesday and Thursday)

I really had to push myself to complete them, between participating in the Clearsnap Handmade Holiday Blog Hop and finishing the tags. I hopped through and visited over 60 different web sites and blogs during that 3 day period, and got some wonderful ideas for gifts and projects for the holidays.  Of course, I had to leave a comment on each web site and blog to be eligible for the free merchandise drawings each one will have at the end of the month. If you are still interested in checking some of them out, there is still time. The drawings won't be held until November 27, 2012 at midnight.
You can start with the Clearsnap web site, click Here then click on top right corner= "check out our blog."
You can still leave comments and be eligible for the drawings.

I even got  a few ideas for Christmas cards that I will be starting probably Thursday.  Here's wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving, and Black Friday shopping day. Here in Texas, our theme is "Shop Small" this weekend. Shop and support the small businesses in your community this holiday season. Without your support, we wouldn't be here.  Happy Shopping!

Holiday Fun!

Are you in the Holiday spirit yet? If not, come join me in hopping along the holiday trail at the Clearsnap 2nd Annual Handmade for the Holidays Blog Hop, all weekend long, November 16- 18, 2012.

Start at the Clearsnap Blog: http://clearsnap.blogspot.com/ and you can hop around to various blogs where artists like us have showcased lots of holiday ideas for decorations and gifts.

I have gotten so many gift ideas, and things I want to make for myself, that my head is about to explode!

When you comment on each blog, you will be elligible to win prizes from the companies sponsoring the HOP, including Hampton Arts Stamps, Graphic 45 Papers, Fiskars Tools, Tombow Markers, and several other paper and stamp art companies. I have left so many comments on so many blogs, I hope I am blessed to win SOMETHING!  Just a little something would be fine with me. I know the idea of it all isn't only to win free stuff, but it doesn't hurt to try, especially with the economy the way it is.

So, have fun, and good luck to all!  Happy Blog Hopping, and Happy Thanksgiving to All!

More Tags on Thursday!

Hello everyone!
It must look like I am posting the same things over and over every day.  But I'm not! Here are three more tags for the Holiday Tree that I am helping to decorate.

I finally started playing
with my Christmas stamps, and hope to find a theme to use as my Christmas cards this year. Every year I play around with my stamps, weeks in advance, trying out different stamps and designs in effort to find something I can live with for the holidays on my cards.

I see so many different designs online from all the blogs I frequent, that I get so confused I don't know which ones I like the most.  This year since I will be making these tags in advance of the holidays, maybe I will find one grouping that I will love to send out as cards to my relatives and friends for the holidays. I have completed half of the tags needed from me, and hope I will be able to really buckle down this weekend to get the rest done, so I can deliver them early next week.

While looking through my millions of stamps today, I found many Christmas stamps I haven't stamped in ages, if ever!  You know they always say, ". . . the one with the most toys, wins!"  When it comes to stamps, "I WIN!"

Have a great day doing whatever your heart desires, and take time to stop and smell the Roses!

Tags on Tuesday!

Hello friends,
Three more tags for the Holiday Tree we are decorating.  I really am enjoying making these tags. I can try new techniques, and use a lot of my copic colored images that I have stamped out and colored. I have a whole booklet of images I have stamped and colored while learning to use the copic markers. I save them, and then when I need a small image to use in one of my art pieces, I can just add it in without a problem. Many of the images I color in different color schemes, that way I have a variety to choose from in my booklet.  As you can probably see, I love coloring roses of all shapes and sizes.
I love to practice the shading on the petals, and trying color combinations that might occur in real life gardens. The rose stamp on the first tag on the left, is my favorite rose stamp, and I don't know how many times I have stamped it out to color.

This is a great project to use my sample snippets on, I can combine several on a tag. I don't have too many Christmas samples in my book, but guess I will have to start stamping out a few so some of my tags will have a Christmas holiday theme.
There is not too much technique in putting together these tags, but if you have any questions, feel free to comment on this post, and I will get back to you as soon as possible with the answers.

Have a good week, and keep on stamping!

Holiday Tags

Hello fellow stampers,
It's already November, and I am trying to start a holiday decorating project with a friend.
We are decorating a holiday tree for a group of needy families in our area, and are using decorative hand-stamped tags as gift card holders to decorate the tree.

I wanted to share some of the tags with you that I have made. They are a small fun project that can be used for ornaments, place cards for Thanksgiving, tags for hand-delivered gifts, or regular old gift tags with presents.

I used 21/2" X 5" manila tags for these, and cut a heavy piece of scrapbook paper into 5" X 5" squares and scored them down the middle to make a gift card. Then when my tag was complete, I adhered it to the gift card to make it more sturdy. I will try to show several each day, I have 25 to make before Thanksgiving.

I hope you will all be able to try and design some tags of your own during this holiday season. They are just as much fun to make as cards are for me, and can be used for many different purposes.  Have a nice Veterans Day weekend, and thank a soldier for their service, it's the nicest thing you can do!