Believe - Santa Tags

Hope everyone had a great week-end - can you believe it's almost the end of November!! That means December is literally around the corner - or maybe even in my backyard, slowly creeping up on me!! I always have so many ideas for crafts, sewing and knitting projects for the holidays, and then at this time of the year I have to re-think my list.

I will be working on some Christmas cards this week along with a few gifts that have to be sent out of town. But first I want to show you what I did this weekend.  After the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop I decided to make a few more tags for Christmas. I really wanted to include these in the blog hop, but never got them finished in time -- so here they are!!

Every year since I was a little girl, "Santa gifts" were always left unwrapped and grouped together for each child. On Christmas morning, (usually around 4 a.m.), my brothers and I would quietly creep into the living room to see what Santa had left for us. Then, we would take our stockings and the gifts back to bed to play and 'nap' until around 7 a.m. when we could 'officially' get up and gather around the Christmas tree. 

This tradition continued when I had my own children - - - Santa gifts were never wrapped  - they were left for my sons by the fireplace near their stockings. Even though my 'boys' are grown, we still do this.  So .... I had the idea of making Santa Tags that could be used each Christmas.(wish I had them when the kids were little!)


 I used the Tag Sale #1 die to cut out the white card stock and then stamped it with the Santa and holly images from PTI's set called Believe. A separate piece of card stock was stamped with the word "Believe".

 The Canvas Impression plate was sponged with the lighter tea dye duo and then the tag and sentiment panel were embossed - this gave a distressed and old fashioned look to the tag. Before embossing, I masked the Santa image so he would not be affected by the ink transfer. The edges of the tag were also sponged with the darker of the tea dye duo and then faux stitching was created using a green marker.

The star was stamped, cut out, coloured with a Sakura Gelly Roll pen and then attached to the Santa image.

Everything was then layered onto green card stock, trimmed and layered onto the patterned paper and red card stock cut from the Library Card Tag die. Finally a white and red dotted ribbon was added to the top.

The backs of the tags were also decorated, using a variety of stamps to create a postcard effect. 

I stamped the letters for my sons' names on to the patterned paper using Outline Alphabet  and then cut them out (not sure I want to do that again!!)
 

The post mark, deer and sentiment are all from 2010 Holiday Tags and the snowflakes are from Peace Be Still.

Tag Details: (front and back)

Stamps: PTI - Believe, Peace Be Still, 2010 Holiday Tags, Outline Alphabet

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Cottage Ivy; PTI Fresh Snow, Vintage Touch Tea Dye Duo

Paper: Brazill Emerald City, Real Red; Echo Park 'Wrapping Paper'; Bella white card stock.

Other Supplies:  PTI - Tag Sale #1, Library Card; Canvas Impression Plate; Copic markers, red and green markers; Sakura Gelly Roll pen "Golden Star"; Red and White Dotted ribbon; decorative scissors.

I still had lots of patterned paper left so I made a card to add to my collection.

I used a Kraft card base and Santa is holding a small blue present instead of the star. The present was attached to the Santa image with dimensionals and then dotted with Diamond Stickles for a little sparkle.

The sentiment from Fillable Frames #8  was used on the front of the card.

Most of the other details are the same as the tags shown above.