Today was another one of those morning were I had just a vague idea of what I wanted to make. Quite simply I wanted a birthday gift tag using an older, but still available stamp set. Recently I’ve been having fun with Darling Donkeys, Hey Chick and Hey Birthday Chick, so another animal set appealed. I reached for Way To Goat, and with a surprising variety of scraps ended up with this fun tag.
SO MANY SCRAPS
After choosing my image from the Way To Goat Stamp Set I began looking for some card and paper for the tag. I was hoping to give it a masculine / gender neutral feel so was leaning towards shades of blue.
Then I remembered some scraps of paper from the Hydrangea Hill 12″ x 12″ Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack. There’s a design in there that has a large floral border at the top and bottom of the sheet. I’ve used the border pieces on a couple of projects that I’m working on so you haven’t seen these yet. But this left me with the plain Seaside Spray central portion of the sheet as scraps. This is a really subtle background, and I found a 2″ x 3″ scrap that would be perfect.
Next I went looking for some card for the actual tag base. Seaside Spray Card lacked contrast, while Night of Navy Card was too dark. So I grabbed my pack of Misty Moonlight scraps instead, and this was where once again fate played a part.
Usually if I die-cut a piece but don’t use it, I put it into the case with the dies. That way next time I pull out those dies I may find the ideal piece already cut. For some reason though instead of putting this die-cut piece in the case, I’d swept it up with the other scraps of Misty Moonlight Card. When I looked on the back of the die-cut piece I’d written “Stitched Rectangles #C4”. That meant I could immediately identify what I’d originally used to create it (counting from the smallest up as always).
It was the perfect size for my scrap of DSP, all I needed to do to turn the die-cut rectangle into a tag was add a hole at the top. For this I used the oval hole option on the Detailed Trio Punch. Then I threaded some Night Of Navy Baker’s Twine (from the Well Suited Twine Combo Pack) through the hole and tied it in a a simple knot.
To finish my tag preparation I cut a 2″ x 3″ scrap of Whisper White Card. Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I attached it onto the back of the tag base.
WAY TO GOAT
Now I was ready to get to work on the front of the tag.
From the Way To Goat Stamp Set I chose the rounded goat image and the “Happy birthday you old goat” sentiment.
Then turning to my 2″ x 3″ scrap of Hydrangea Hill DSP I stamped the goat towards the bottom using Basic Gray ink. To colour the image I chose Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers. First I used the dark Smoky Slate marker to colour the goat’s legs and horns. Next I scribbled a little over the tufts on his coat, and along the top part of his ears. Finally I coloured the rest of his coat using the light Smoky Slate marker.
After that I changed to a light Misty Moonlight Stampin’ Blends and used this to colour in his eyelids. It was a subtle detail but definitely added something to the image.
With that done I went back to the light Smoky Slate Stampin’ Blends and added a few horizontal lines around his feet. Now he no longer looked like he was floating in midair. Finally I used liquid glue to mount the completed piece onto the front of the gift tag.
That just left the sentiment which I stamped onto a scrap of Thick Whisper White Card using Misty Moonlight ink. My original plan was to simply trim it using my Paper Trimmer, but to be honest I hated how it looked. So instead I went looking for a small die.
In fact I ended up with one large die, very large in fact, the new Messages Die. I discovered that my chosen sentiment fitted perfectly inside the scalloped oval shape. So I placed the sentiment under that part of the die and ran it through the Cut & Emboss Machine. Perfect!
To finish, all I had to do was put a couple of Stampin’ Dimensionals on the back of the sentiment and then add it to the tag. Job done.
Oh my goodness I love how this tag turned out. The combination of blues and greys work so well together don’t you think?
For some more projects featuring the Way To Goat Stamp Set, see these earlier blog posts:
Leave a Reply