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!

Essentials by Ellen Clear Stamps, Christmas Scribbles by Julie Ebersole

Essentials by Ellen Clear Stamps, Santa's Flight by Julie Ebersole

Essentials by Ellen Clear Stamps, Holly Jolly by Julie Ebersole

VersaFine Ink Pad, Onyx Black

Ranger Ink Blending Tool, 1 Inch Round

Stampendous Embossing Powder, Detail Gold

Ranger Super Fine Embossing Powder, Clear

Zig Wink of Stella Glitter Brush Tip Marker, Gold

Kuretake Gansai Tambi, 36 Color Set

Canson XL Watercolor Paper Pad 9x12