How’s your Christmas preparations coming? Mine are in full swing and I’ve already done the first of six craft fairs this year. It’s going to be a hectic couple of months but it’s also a lot of fun. To inspire you today I have an idea for a large gift tag featuring a sprig of mistletoe.

MUTED COLOURS

I decided to go with muted colours today that would work with a rustic Christmas theme. Keeping it simple I chose Sahara Sand, Mint Macaron and Shaded Spruce, alongside Whisper White.

The stamping came first, with Shaded Spruce ink on Whisper White Card using a sentiment from the Itty Bitty Christmas Stamp Set. Then I cut it out using the smallest plain-edged die from the Layering Ovals.

Next I cut out the Mint Macaron Card with the #6 plain-edged die (counting up from the smallest). Then from Sahara Sand Card I cut two pieces using the #2 and #7 scalloped edge oval dies.

All I had left was to cut out the Shaded Spruce Card with the mistletoe die from the Christmas Layers Dies.

At this point I remembered that if I was to use a 3D Embossing Folder that I’d need to get that done next. So I lightly dampened the Mint Macaron oval using clean water and a Stampin’ Spritzer. Then I placed the card inside the Corrugated 3D Embossing Folder and ran it forwards and backwards through my die-cutting machine. Finally I set the piece aside to dry while I carried on with the other parts of the tag.

MISTLETOE WITH BERRIES

Next on my list were the mistletoe berries. I could have simply covered the die cut piece with pearls or rhinestones but I had another idea in mind.

First I wiped the die cut mistletoe piece with an Embossing Buddy to remove any oils and static. Then I gently pressed each of the berries on the die-cut piece onto my VersaMark ink pad. Once that was done I sprinkled the sticky ink with White Stampin’ Emboss Powder and tapped off the excess. I removed a few stray specks and then melted the rest of the powder using my Heat Tool set on 2 (high).

LOTS OF LAYERS

Now I was ready to start putting everything together starting with the large Sahara Sand oval piece.

Before I could do anything else I first had to add a hole for the ribbon. I did this using the oval hole option on the Detailed Trio Punch. Once that was done I used Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to attach the corrugated oval.

Next I threaded a loop of 3/16″ Braided Linen Trim through the hole at the top of the tag. To secure it in place I passed the cut ends through the loop and tightened it. Now I could use liquid glue to attach the embossed mistletoe piece to the tag.

That just left the the sentiment that I glued to the remaining Sahara Sand die-cut oval. Then with Stampin’ Dimensionals I added the layered sentiment to the tag and I was done.

If you fancy a more traditional colour scheme, I made another “no peeking” gift tag back in August. You’ll find it in my blog post No Peeking, oh go on then.

PRODUCT LIST

UPDATE 2020: Sadly the Corrugated 3D Embossing Folder and Embossing Buddy have been retired and are no longer available from Stampin’ Up!