25 Days of Christmas Tags

Hey all!  I'm participating in Tracey's McNeeley's 25 Days of Christmas Tags event today.  Not coincidentally, today's featured sponsor is Neat & Tangled.

I wanted to try something a little different this year - creating a tag from felt.

I used the Build A Tag dies as well as the Gift Card Box Additions dies, and felt from Benzie Design.  The tree is from the Scandinavian Prints Christmas dies, and the leaf shape is actually one of the smallest leaves from one of Benzie's Felt-Fetti Magnolia Leaf sets.

I started by die cutting all the pieces.  I wasn't sure how the rectangle with the diagonal cuts would look in the felt, but I really like the texture it adds.  

The tree was first hand stitched to the leaf and diamond.  Then I machine stitched the diamond to the smaller light green rectangle.  

  

The sequin/sparkle was added to the corners of the diamond, and also tacked to the larger red rectangle at the same time.  I used a regular sized red sequin, a small gold sequin, and a gold seed bead.

The entire red piece was then stitched to the tag base, as was the tag topper.

I didn't stitch the top of the red rectangle shut so that I could slip a gift card in.

This was really pretty easy to make.  The nice thing about felt is that it kind of naturally sticks to itself, so there's really no pinning required.

Be sure to head over to Tracey's blog to check out the rest of today's tags and find out how you can play along and win a prize from one of the event's many sponsors:

*Affiliate Links below to Ellen Hutson and in text to Neat & Tangled

Neat & Tangled Dies, Build A Tag

Neat & Tangled Dies, Gift Card Box Additions

Neat & Tangled November Release - Bonus Day, Recap and Winners

Hey everyone!  It's Release Day at Neat & Tangled, and everything is now available for purchase in the store, but we have a fun surprise for you!  Today is a 'bonus' day.  We have some extra goodies that we're popping into this release - some stitching dies that were designed by our friends at Benzie.

There are two sets of dies - the Ugly Sweater dies and the Snowflake dies.  Clearly, I'm showing off the snowflakes.  There are four dies in the set, and I'm using two of them for my snowflakes.  I really like the contrast of the pointy star with the smaller detailed piece in the center.

These are so quick and easy to make.  I used out N&T sequins as well as some seed beads to accent the prongs of the center piece, but you could certainly just go with stitching also.

The purple star was made using Benzie's Vineyard and Smoke felt, while the green snowflake features their Rainstorm and Blue Spruce felt.

These are double sided.  I did each one up the same way - stitching the detailed piece to the pointed piece with embroidery floss (three strands) and adding a sequin/seed bead at each of the points. 

Then I placed them back to back and stitched them together using those small holes between each of the prongs in the center of the star.  I also added the center sequin/seed bead at this point.  To secure the pieces a little better, I kind of threaded the floss between the stitches behind where the prongs are so that they were adhered a little closer to the edges.

The actual tips of the star aren't adhered/stitched together, but I like the clean look of it, and because the pieces are felt they kind of stick together naturally anyway. 

For the hanger, I just cut a length of embroidery floss, threaded it through one of the points of the snowflake, and knotted it just above the tip of the snowflake and then at the ends to create a loop.

These are really quite easy to use and would be a great kids craft for older elementary/middle grades.

Here's a look back at the rest of my projects for this release:

And I have some winners to announce!

Shona Chambers wins the Triangle Box
@beccay217 from IG wins the Holiday Sentiments set
@raggiodiluc3 wins the Fa La La cover plate
Debra Rumpza wins the Fa La La stencil

Congrats winners!  Please shoot me your mailing details and I"ll get these sent out.

And if there's something you must have from the release, head on over to the store.  Have a great weekend!