Tag.... you're it!

Hi all! Julie here! And.... welcome to another Friday Flourishes Focus! This time, instead of sharing a technique or highlighting a fun product, I thought I'd just throw a whole bunch of ideas your way to get you ready for holiday gift giving.

I absolutely love using bags to "wrap" my gifts. Why? Because you don't have to wrap! ;-) I am an awful gift wrapper. What's funny is -I was trained to be a professional gift wrapper at a department store while I was in high school. I never made it.

So, what I do now instead is, I buy bags! When I see a cute one, I pick it up knowing I can deck it out with a fun tag or some fabulous ribbon!

I gathered up some of my favorite Flourishes holiday stamps and went to town!


And, see what you can create? I picked up this plain brown bag for 50 cents. Add some fun holiday ribbon by running it through your Xyron and attach it to the front of your bag for a dash of holiday color!

Both of the tags above were created literally in minutes thanks to a little prep work! I decided that I would stamp off some images on some marbled ivory/tan paper that I got for free from my brother-in-law (works to have family in the printing business -- you get free paper sometimes!)

Using Vivid Red, Green and Taupe inks I stamped the poinsettia from Poinsettia and Boxwood, the Christmas Music background, the Santa from Santa, I Believe, and the Holly Background. Some of these I didn't use, mind you, but I have them now on standby!

Using these fun shipping tags I picked up for .50 cents, I started my journey!

I covered the front of my tag with a portion of the stamped off poinsettias and then used a scrap of that same paper to stamp not only some fun brackets from the Fancy Labels set but a great sentiment from the Holiday Greetings set! Add some rhinestones, mat it up using the Labels 4 Nestabilities die, punch a hole and add some ribbon and... done!

The santa tag was done by coloring with chalks, and then just matting it up with part of my Holly background and then some fun decorative paper. Again, punch a hole and add some ribbon and... voila!

Another thing I love to do is color! I will stamp off some images just to have on hand so that when the moment hits and I need a coloring break, I have something that I can color up easily. I always give my images some space because I have no idea when I stamp them what I will use them for.

So, I took the stacked cups from Christmas Tea and colored it up! The image was accented by a little bit of chalk. To color my image, I used Copics - R24, R27, and R29; Y03 and y63; B000 and B00; and E33. These are markers in the Poppy, Spring Greens, Pastel, Flesh Tones 2 and Sky Copic Collections.

I love the little tag with the fun sentiment... also from the Christmas Tea set!

Isn't it fun when you can find a bag that matches your stamp set? Look at this fun bag I picked up at the dollar store! It just is a perfect match to the Christmas Borders set! I colored up the candy using the Poppy, Spring Greens, Daffodil, Meadow and Holly collections. I did use the lightest shade too from the Dahlia collection. Use some Distress inks in Tea Dye and Antique Linen to antique it. Add fun Christmas ribbon and some stitching and you're almost done....

I added some faux sugar (it's a chunk glitter that is actually called faux snow -- but looks more like sugar!) to my gum drops! The "dots" of antique ink were created by a really old stamp that is just that... dots! Sometimes I turn to it to just create some extra "texture" on my image.

This next one was super fun! I wanted my drummer from the Drummer Boy set to have a monochromatic look. So, I stamped him in Memento Tuxedo Black and colored him up with Copics! I edged my drummer with chalk, masked him and then stamped over top of him with the Christmas Music background stamp. I added some silver stitching, a tab, a fun glittered button and silver cording to attach my tag and... done!

This last tag is really pretty in real life but didn't photograph all that well. I took some of the 7 Gypsies paper and stamped the angel from the Rejoice set over top with Versamark and silver detail embossing powder. Add some rhinestones and some fun sheer ribbon and silver cording and that's it! I did line the edge of my decorative paper with some silver leaf pen. I also added a punched snowflake and a larger rhinestone for a little something extra.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing how I like to deck out my holiday packages! For those packages that "have" to be wrapped, I love getting a simple silver or gold wrapping and letting my ribbon and tags do the talking! I am glad I have some tags ready in my holiday gift wrapping arsenal -- ready to go for Black Friday! :-)


Be sure to stop by to see what some of the other members of our fine and fabulous DT have created to help get you in the spirit!!


Latisha
Christine
Laura
Stacy
Leslie

See you back here soon!

~Julie