Valentines Tags

Happy Valentines Day!

Well almost anyway.

I wanted to go through a step by step showing you how I create tags. If you read my previous post about tags, then you know I love them and they can be as fancy or as plain as you would like them to be. The tags I have created here today are in between, a little bit of bling and a whole lotta LOVE!

There are many fun ways you can use tags! Here are some ideas for using these tags:

Do a sweet one and put it in your child's lunch box
Send some love to a friend of relative
Make a racy one and give it to your lover
Create a scavenger hunt with clues on the tags that leads to a sweet treat

 I hope you enjoy these creations and find some inspiration for the loves in your life this Valentines Day.


First things, first, I had to decide which die I wanted to use to cut my tag. Both of these are Tim Holtz Alterations by Sizzix. Of course you can just cut rectangles in any size you like if you don't have these products. If you are not familiar with dies, the foam one is called a steel rule die and the thin ones are framelits.

 

As you can see there is not much

 difference in the size of the two. Framelit in red and steel rule in white.

However, in this picture, you can see that the cuts made with the framelits warped the paper! I tried a few different weights of paper to see if that would make a difference and it did not. So I used the steel rule and got beautiful results. I am using watercolor paper here for my tags.

 Here are my tags, ready to go.

 To create the background, I used these two inks, again by Tim Holtz ( I might have a small craft crush on this guy, he puts out some amazing products!) The technique used for this is best shown on a video. I have created a quick video for you but there is so much more out there on YouTube.

 This is a pack of stickers that I had in my stash, I originally found these at a thrift store. Unfortunately, they are no longer made. But I have a solution for this!  Before you cut this page of stickers apart, scan it to your computer and print it out on sticker paper! Of course it is for your use only because selling it would probably violate tons of copyright laws. And you can still find them here and there on Etsy or amazon.

 This is the sticker paper I used.

















Now back to the tags!  So here I cut apart the stickers and I buffed some colors onto them. I have another short video for you demonstrating this technique. Again, more in depth videos are available on YouTube.

These pictures show the products I used to create the backgrounds for my tags.

Stamp and Ink

Stamp and Ink

Embossing

Stamp, Ink and Embossing

More stamps and Ink

Stamp, Ink, Emboss and BLING!

This paper came from a magazine (back)

Front of magazine "free paper"

 The thing with watercolor paper is that because it is textured, it doesn't take to stamping very well.   When things like this happen, well it's time for a DESIGN CHANGE!

This is the updated tag with a piece of paper (again, from a magazine) placed over the botched lip prints.

I added some bling and found a perfect little number 14!

Small steel rule die

This die came in a grab bag from SimonSaysStamp

There's those lips in a better spot

I had to get some heat embossing in here

And here are the finished tags!

With Love in Christ,

Jennifer

Tag Love

Creating Tags is my latest obsession. You may recall seeing a few if you read the sermon journal post. These are some tags that I've made and I will be making some more step-by-step with you this week and hope you have fun with it!  Be thinking of some ideas you would like for your own work of art!





This first set of tags were done and placed into a booklet.

These tags were just done as individuals, some are flat and some are dimensional

What I love about tags is that they are a quick little project that lets you play when you are squeezed for time. You can also make them very involved if you have an afternoon to create. Tags are awesome!

 

And these last few are pictures of a tag hubby created. He enjoyed sharing in my play and learning a little bit about the things I like to do. And there are a few pics of the really awesome texture in some of the Embossing powders I have from Emerald Creek created by Seth Apter.

Front

Texture

Back

Texture