Hello, friends! Today for the 25 Days of Christmas Tags we are featuring a fun new-to-me company.
Today is all about stretching your stamps and getting creative. I was kindly gifted Penguin Palace's My BFF (which at first glance is full of sweet spring images) and the Crystal Snowflakes stencil. I toyed with using the little animals in the stamp set, but kept coming back to the barren tree. The idea of having a tree get dressed up for Christmas made me smile, so I decided to make it happen.
I've always been intrigued by magic color slider cards, and this was my first attempt. I thought this would be a fun way to show the transformation, and let's just say it was a bit of a learning process. It's definitely doable without any special dies (like I did here), but for ease and the sake of time, I think investing in the dies is a wise decision (wink, wink). I looked at a picture of the Lawn Fawn dies and used that as a guide to create a folded pocket with a slit at the top that the white tag slides up through revealing the colored image below.
Second note of advice, there is such a thing as embossable plastic sheets. Definitely worth it to get them. I did not have any, and I won't tell you how many times I had to emboss on this clear cardstock to try to get it to work without warping the plastic too much. And in truth I still ended up having to trim out portions and glue them on top of another unmarred plastic sheet. Live and learn, friends. Live and learn. I think throughout this process I adopted the Little Engine That Could's motto of "I think I can!"
Moving on. :) After I finished stamping the panel and adhering it on the inside, it was time to dress up the outside of the tag. Since this tag is all about revealing a surprise, it seemed fitting to make the outside look like a gift. A few snowflake die cuts and a big bow on top and voila! A gift.
Thanks for sticking with me through the journey of this tag! I hope you had some smiles and laughs along the way. I know I did. And maybe this little gift will inspire you to make something. But if not, no worries! Head on over to Tracey's blog for a bunch more inspiration options. I hope you have fun creating...even if it includes some learning along the way. ;)