Although I spent most of my life in the UK living in a very large town I’m a country girl at heart. When we moved to Nova Scotia I really wanted to live in a rural area. We were fortunate to find a home with a view of the bay to the front, open fields to the side and woods at the back. The property had all the rustic charm I was looking for and I have not been disappointed. Every day there’s something new to see, from insects to birds to larger critters, and as I stand and watch them I know I am blessed. As the seasons change so do the visitors, making the most of the areas of our property that we’ve left to grow naturally.

We love to watch the deer, especially in the autumn when they venture close to the house. We have an old apple tree and when the fruit drops to the ground we know it won’t be long before the deer come in to eat. Sometimes it’s a solitary deer, or they come in groups. And while there’s been the occasional young buck with velvet covered antlers, we’ve yet to see an adult stag. We live in hope. This was my inspiration for today’s project.

SIMPLE BACKGROUND

It’s been a while since I’ve made a masculine birthday gift tag so that was my challenge for this morning. I wanted to keep the tag fairly simple, using stamped images and so that influenced my choice. After looking through my stamp sets I settled on Rustic Retreat.

For my colour scheme I went to an regular favourite, Seaside Spray and Pear Pizzazz. I’ve used this combination a lot for my scene projects, but when they work so well together it just seems to make sense.

I began by cutting a 2″ x 4-1/4″ piece of Thick Very Vanilla Card and shaped one end with the Scalloped Tag Topper Punch. Then using a Sponge Brayer I coloured the bottom 1/3 of the strip using Pear Pizzazz ink. With that done I changed to Seaside Spray and coloured the rest of the tag base.

RUSTIC RETREAT

Now I was ready to add images from the Rustic Retreat Stamp Set starting with the stag. Using Soft Suede ink I stamped the stag onto the tag so that his body lined up with where the ‘ground’ and ‘sky’ met. Next I stamped the body and head of the stag onto a Full-Adhesive Post-It® Note and cut it out with Paper Snips. Then I carefully placed the Post-It Note mask over the image stamped on the tag.

With that done I pulled out the tree line image from the Rustic Retreat Stamp Set. I lined up the image so that the bottom of the trees went over the stag’s body on the Post-It Note. Then using Old Olive ink I stamped the trees onto the tag. When I removed the mask the stag now looked like he was standing in a meadow with the line of trees in the background.

Now the images were complete I went back to the stamp set for the “Happy birthday” sentiment. Then using Soft Suede ink I stamped the sentiment in the open area above the stag.

Of course at this point the stag looked a little weird with green legs and a blue body. That was solved using Crumb Cake Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers. All I had to do was colour over the shaded areas of the image and antlers with the dark marker, then colour the rest with the light one. I also used the dark marker to colour in the open areas on the word ‘birthday’.

Finally I threaded a loop of 3/16″ Braided Linen Trim through the slot at the top, and passed the cut ends through the loop. Once I pulled the ends to tighten them, my gift tag was complete.

I must say that Rustic Retreat is a favourite stamp set for masculine / gender neutral projects. I also think it is a great partner for the new Campology Stamp Set too.

For more projects using the Rustic Retreat Stamp Set see these earlier blog posts:

• I don’t appreciate inky fingers
• One month to Christmas Eve
• A more masculine decorated notebook
• Don’t colour and image, fussy cut

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