Monday, December 7, 2015

12 Tags of Christmas with a Feminine Twist



Hey everyone!  I'm thrilled to be participating in Ellen Hutson's 12 Tags of Christmas with a Feminine Twist event as a guest designer.

I just love the Essentials by Ellen line and was lucky enough to be paired with Julie Ebersole herself today.  We were tasked with creating tags with a Santa theme.

Santa projects are often whimsical, cute, and fun, but I wanted to create a very sophisticated and elegant Santa tag.  Here's what I came up with:





I started by cutting a tag from watercolor paper.  Then I added some light, and pretty dry gold watercolor brushstrokes using my Kuretake Gansai watercolors.




I knew that I wanted the center of the tag to have a bit of a glow to it, so I darkened the edges of the tag a bit with some inking.



 Next I stamped the evergreen branches using Versafine and then clear embossed them.




 I slightly curved the stamp of Santa's sled/reindeer, and then stamped and clear embossed that as well.



Again using my Kuretake Gansai watercolors, I started adding green to the pine boughs.



I then went in with a gold Wink of Stella pen to add gold highlights to the boughs.



The sentiment was then stamped and embossed in gold and I went back in with my watercolors to pump up the colors a bit more.  I wanted it to be a bit brighter, so I added more greens and golds both to the greenery as well as to the areas just around the greenery.

 

For a bit more gold, I squeezed a bit of the gold Wink of Stella onto my ghetto craft mat which is really just a flexible cutting mat (sorry about the harsh color).  Then I used my paint brush to splatter the liquid onto the tag.



After that it was just a matter of finishing it up.  I added a thin strip of gold cardstock to the top and bottom of the tag, punched a hole, added the twine and voila!

Please stop by the Ellen Hutson blog to see Julie's tag and to leave a comment to win a $25 store credit.  While you're there you will want to check out the rest of the 12 tags posts, there is a giveaway on each one.  There's also a chance to win a $150 store credit!  All you have to do is create a tag inspired by on of the tags in the series and link it up.

Thanks for stopping by, hope your week is off to a great start!


28 comments:

  1. Miriam, this is absolutely gorgeous.

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  2. Wow wow wow!! This is gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  3. Beautiful tag :) Love that you used minimal gold watercolour with the gold sentiment it looks fantastic.
    Kate xx

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  4. totally gorgeous.. i love how you added the color for the background.. fabulous designing

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  5. Beautiful!! Great description of the steps too!

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  6. Wow, this is gorgeous! I love it! Thanks so much for the tutorial!

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  7. I love this tag so much! Thank you for tutorial, terrific pics :)

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  8. I really love how your tag turned out! The layers of painting and inking and stamping make for one fabulous tag!

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  9. Love this tag with the brushstrokes and the great framing of the image and sentiment using the pine needles.

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  10. You blew me away with this tag!! The way you sued the gold, the inking, the framing-stunning design!!

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  11. Miriam you truly have created a gorgeous, very sophisticated tag!!! What fun to get to play with Julie... I think she was just as lucky to play with YOU!
    :)

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  12. Beautiful! I love the gorgeous gold you added...

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  13. I love this tag! Thanks for the great tutorial.

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  14. Oh my! This is simply incredible Miriam!!
    A true work of art! I've got my eyes on the stamps and that paint!!

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  15. ABSOLUTELY gorgeous tag Miriam and congrats for being a part of this wonderful Xmas tags series!

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  16. Brilliant! Love this tall card with all the details. Thansk for sharing your creative process! (At least you have a working ghetto craft mat...I have none!)

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  17. Just gorgeous, Miriam ... the framing for that gold sentiment is fabulous ... great detailing! Hugs, Anita :)

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  18. What a neat idea to curve the santa stamp. Thanks for sharing your inspiring tag!

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  19. Fabulous card Miriam! I love your technique.

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  20. Great tutorial, Miriam! This is stunning! Such elegance, too!

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