Are you already in the holiday mood? I am. Big time. To the point where my husband and I were musing about getting all the decorations out soon. In the meantime I have been satisfying my Christmas craving with holiday paper crafts. Today I'm pleased to share with you a tag made for Travey McNeely's 25 Days of Christmas tags event. Today the Ellen Hutson team was invited to participate and it was a pleasure to do so.
In celebration of today's post, Ellen Hutson is giving away a $50 store gift certificate – so be sure you leave a comment here, on the main event blog and through the inLinkz link up for a chance to win. Head over to Tracey's blog to find out all the details of how to enter to win prizes from the 25 days of fabulous sponsors.
My vision for this tag was to have 2 lone pines on a hill with the Northern Lights in the background, and I was really happy with how this turned out.
My tag features the brand new Essentials by Ellen stamp and matching die set called "Tree Farm".
I stamped the tree with Versamark ink onto vellum, then embossed with Ranger white embossing powder. I then colored on the WRONG side of the vellum with Copic markers. I purposely did NOT blend the colors. I wanted to see hard edges to the ink colors in order to achieve a bit of a watercolor-like look. I colored the trees with the following Copic marker colors: G02, G24, G82, G85, G94, E25, E74. After coloring on the wrong side, I used Ranger double sided adhesive sheets and stuck the trees onto white cardstock. Then, using the coordinating die I cut the trees out. If you've never tried this technique before, and would like to watch a video tutorial of it in action, you can check out this video. While it features a different stamp set, the technique is identical.
Next I created my Northern Lights background on Arches watercolor paper. First I painted blotches of yellow and green onto the paper, then, painted over the colors with black watercolor paint from the Prima, "The Classics" Watercolor confections set. Allow the watercolor to dry - either naturally, or speed the process up by using a heat tool. After the paints were dry I stamped the "O Christmas tree" title (using the stamp set linked above) by stamping the title with Versamark and embossing using the same white embossing powder that I used for the trees. Finally, I used the beautiful creamy white from the Kuretake Gansai watercolors and flicked little white specs onto the background for the stars (or, given that this is winter they could also pass for snowflakes.) I cut the background to size using an Avery tag I had hanging around here as my template.
The bottom of the tag is covered with old ledger paper from a ledged book I purchased years ago at an antique store. I cut it in a gently curving shape to mimmic a hill. Then, I glued the tree in the back directly to the tag front, and the tree in the foreground using low profile 3D adhesive. After the trees were in place I decided to add a shadow below them in order to give depth to the image. I did that using the following Copic marker colors: W0, W1, W3, W5.
I added a little tab to the top of the tag by cutting a little piece of the antique ledger paper and gluing it on the top of the tag. For an extra bit of texture, I used a black eyelet (which I attached with a Crop-a-dile) to secure the tab in place.
As a finishing touch I used my sewing machine to stitch a quick border around the edge of the tag, then I quickly swiped by Blending Tool and Distress ink in "Hickory Smoke" around the edge of the tag to give it a finishing touch.
And there you have it! If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments.
Here are the direct links to the products used in today's project:
