Fun, Shabby Gift Tags

From Adriel:

Aren't these fun? Kind of loud, with a bit of a grunge look... very shabby! I intend on using black ribbon with white polka dots for stringing these tags... that will be the icing on the cake! =)

The DS paper was from last year's Spring/Summer Stampin' Up! catalog... had a few pieces left that worked great for the flowers. The tutorial for these flowers will be in our June Stamping newsletter... out in a couple of days. I saw this idea on YouTube and made some minor changes, but not significant. If you can't wait for the newsletter and want to try your hand at these flowers right now, click HERE to view video.

Thanks for stopping by and for your comments! Have a great day!

Flower Tags

From Adriel:

I don't know what it is about gift tags, but they are almost instantly gratifying. They don't require an enormous amount of time to make. You can make them in all kinds of shapes and sizes. You can make a bunch in a decent amount of time. I think part of the fun of creating these is seeing how much detail you can cram on a small piece of card stock!




We recently bought the tag corner punch from Stampin' Up! and our tag horizon just broadened! =)

Thanks for looking and thanks for your comments! =)

Summer Bloom

From Adriel:

I made this card awhile back and submitted it to a card magazine. I think I've given them enough time to get back to me about it... so now I'm going to share it with you! =)


I don't know how I came up with this color combo, but I love it! SU! colors: Taken with Teal, Cameo Coral, Old Olive, Whisper White. The theme I was submitting for was summer flowers, so hence, the bloom. I used my scallop circle punch in a couple of different ways and layering to create the bloom. I broke into our new textured cardstock for this card!! I love the little bit of "extra" that textured paper adds. =)


Anyway, I had fun and enjoyed myself while making this card and wanted to share. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by! We enjoy all your comments and the time you take to leave them. =)

Color Inspiration Challenge #50

From Adriel:

Kristina Werner is having her 50th Color Inspiration challenge this week! She's giving away some nice prizes for her 50th. I HAD to play along!! I don't participate very often and thought the 50th deserved my attention. =)

I had a BLAST with this color combo! The SU! colors I chose to work with: Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood Red, Summer Sun, and Tempting Turquoise. I enjoy doing these color combos because they stretch my creativity and get me out of my comfort zone. These challenges do exactly what they're supposed to do: INSPIRE! So, thank you, Kristina, for another inspiring challenge!

BTW, got the idea for the vase from Mary. Cute idea! Also, I used my new Big Shot for the "hi"!=)

Flower Pot Card

From Adriel:

Is this a cute card or what?!?! I've seen some samples of these cards on SplitCoastStampers recently and found an awesome tutorial on how to make this card on Stephanie Luman's blog. You can find the tutorial by clicking HERE. The flowers slide out to reveal a place to write some thoughts on.

I don't have the sizzix dies that the tutorial calls for, so I made my own flowers with punches. I also wanted my card to stand up on it's own, so I attached a little "stand" to the back and I like it better that way. It was a little tricky making sure the whole thing fit in an A2 size envelope, but what I did was I laid the card on top of the envelope while attaching the flowers to make sure I got the flowers right where they needed to be. That worked well for me. Anyway, this was my first attempt at this card and wanted to share with you all because I think it is so clever!

Have a great weekend! =)

Beautiful Blooms

From Adriel:

Look what I was surprised with!!!

I planted iris bulbs a few years ago and one of them popped up again this year with a bloom! What a nice surprise!! I just love flowers... here's a couple more.

This is a blossom on my lemon tree. My brother got this tree for me on my last birthday (last May) and I have been waiting and waiting and now there's tiny little baby lemons all over it! =) (And yes, I realize the blossom itself is not the baby lemon... this is just one of the blossoms left over that didn't actually get pollinated and did not become a baby lemon. *grin*)

Another flower from my potted aptenia (I guess I'm spelling that right).

I just love that bright pink!

I would have had another photo to show you, but as I went over the shoot a picture of another flower, I heard some buzzing (somewhat loud), which sounded like several bees and then I saw something flying close by and I got scared and ran inside. Now stop chuckling... I thought I was being attacked by a swarm of bees!!! So alas, didn't get the fourth pic. But that's okay, because I don't even know the name of the plant and then I would have had to look like a dummy... LOL!

Well, enjoy the pictures and savor them, because flowers don't last long! =(

Gift Tags Galore!!

From Adriel:

Hope you all had a great weekend! What can I say? It went by way too fast... =(

We're looking forward to stamping with some of you this week at our SAS! The sponging technique is a great way to add more interest to your projects. I think you'll like the cards we'll be making and you're going to fall in love with the Sixth Avenue Floral set!

In the meantime, here's some gift tags to inspire you that we've made for spring and for our Etsy shop.


This set of tags is very simple and made with soft earth tones. We used the Sale-a-Bration set "Botanical Blooms" and the scallop edge punch as well as the eyelet border punch. The rounded corners add to the softness. Hemp cord finishes off these tags for an added earthiness!

This set of tags is made with bright pastels and the hostess set, "A Little Somethin'", which works great with various punches. By using the Stampin' Write markers, you can get a multi-colored image! Layered with other punched shapes and some marigold yellow ribbon, they make super cute tags!

This set of tags is sweet and girly, using primarily the curly label punch and the Boho Blossoms punch. The Boho Blossoms are the main focal point of the tag and rhinestones added to the centers make them extra special! White satin ribbon finishes them off for added girly-ness! =)

I hope we gave you some fresh ideas for making your own gift tags! Dress up those gifts you plan on giving or even your baked goods with a beautiful tag! =)

Little Easter Cards

From Heidi...
Here's some little 3x3 Easter notecards I made last week. I used the "Live Like You Mean It" and "All Holidays" stamp sets; CS - Kiwi Kiss, Perfect Plum, Barely Banana; Ink - Pale Plum, Certainly Celery, and Perfect Plum; Punches - Scallop Edge, Boho Blossom, 1-3/8" square punch; Ribbon, brad and paper piercing. Enjoy!

Easter Card

From Adriel:

Before I share the Easter card, I just want to remind our readers that we have a giveaway going on right now through March 6th HERE. Simply follow the link and leave a comment and you're entered in the giveaway! I just want to make sure you all get a chance to enter, because it is a great giveaway!! =)

Okay, now on to the Easter card! I really wanted to use a new set we recently received called "Fifth Avenue Floral". I wanted to also use a new technique with embossing powder that I noticed on the front of the new Stampin' Up! Idea Book/Catalog, so that's how this card got started. In addition, I had to use the new eyelet border punch and I fell in love with it! It's so delicate and makes a lovely addition to the card! So here's my card:

Okay, so what was the new embossing technique I wanted to try? Well, on the front cover of the new catalog, they took white CS and embossed it with white embossing powder and then added color to fill in the flowers. I just loved the effect! So I wanted to do that as well, but I was using Vanilla CS and I didn't have Vanilla embossing powder. No problem! I had Versamark and clear embossing powder. It worked beautifully! So then I wasn't sure what kind of color they applied. So on one flower, I tried water coloring with the blender pens and ink... that worked okay. On the other flower, I used a sponge and added color that way, very carefully. I love how that one turned out!

The flowers, of course, are the focal point of the card, but I still needed to add some more to it before it was officially "done". I used very soft earthy colors and distressed the edges with a sponge and some Sahara Sand ink. If you're looking for a good color to distress with, I would highly recommend Sahara Sand. It's great! =) As I mentioned before, I had to try out our new eyelet border punch and I'm glad I used it on this card. It added the right amount of delicateness to it. I had some Kraft tafetta ribbon on hand and used that, which added a touch of elegance. I also had some adhesive half-pearls that worked beautifully in the corners! And BTW, did you know you can make those cute little bracket thingys with your curly label punch? Yes! It's true! Maybe we will do a little tutorial on that sometime! =D

All in all, it took me a good part of my afternoon, but it was worth it! =D