Graphic 45 - Gift Tag

Being invited friends to the 12th birthday celebrations of their daughter, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to show the Italians what papercrafting is all about....or at least a part of what it's about.  So, I whipped up this tag...quite literally it took me about 30 minutes, but the ballerina was a leftover from a previous project so that saved me a little time.

 

 

Materials used:
 

• Graphic 45 - French Country - Tags & Pockets;
• Graphic 45 - French Country - Banners:
• Graphic 45 - French Country - Flowers;
• Graphic 45 - Nutcracker Sweet - Ballerina cut from the Snowflake Waltz paper;
• Graphic 45 - A Place in  Time - Alpha Stickers - "Happy Birthday"  sticker;
• Want 2 Scrap - Silver Rhinestones;
• Tim Holtz - idea-Ology - Paper String;
• Tim Holtz - idea-Ology - Label Letters;
• Glossy Accents;
• Glimmer Mist - Silver Sugar

 

Steps by Step:

1. I selected which tag I wanted to use as my base from Graphic 45 French Country Tags & Pockets;
2. Ballerina - maybe out of place, maybe not - Safè does ballet so I wanted to add ballet to the theme.  The Ballerina was cut from the sheet of cardstock and to give a nice 3D finished it was coated with Glossy Accents;
3. The flower custer was made by first selecting 3 different sized, but colour co-ordinated flowers from the Graphic 45 French Country die-cut Flowers. I scrunched each of the flowers as tightly as possible to give more dimension and a bit of a grungy look.  I used double-sided tape to stick together and then sprayed with Glimmer Mist Silver Sugar to give a bit of sparkle. 
4. The flowers were then layered along with the Banner and Sunflower. Rhinestones made the perfect centre for my flowers adding a bit of glammer and bling to the tag.
5. To finish the bottom section, the Happy Birthday sticker was added.  Note that the sticker hangs over the edge and of course is still sticky on the exposed sections.  I cut out small pieces of matching scrap cardstock and stuck these to the back of the overhanging pieces.
6. The Banner across the top was made by selecting 3 of the smaller banners from the Graphic 45 die-cut Banners. To assemble with the Paper String couldn't be simpler...I wanted some dimension so used American Craft This To That Foam Dots to raise the banners, but first laid the Paper String across the tag as I wanted it and adhered each Banner over the top of the String - killing 2 birds with one stone....or rather, adhering 2 items with one foam dot! :)
7. The ballerina was also adhered using the Foam Dots to give some more dimension.
8. The final touch was to add our names and a piece of ribbon to tie to the parcel.  Our names were made from the Tim Holtz Label Letters....I will admit that adding "Veronica" after everything else was stuck down was a bit of a challenge and I made a mistake not doing it first.  I ended up doing it twice as it was awkward trying to line up the letters only to find  after the first time it was really wonky!  But that's what makes scrapping so great...for every error you find a new technique or a unique piece of art... :)

 

Really this couldn't have been easier to make and I'm definitely going to be making more in the future.  To add a nice hand-made tag to the present was nicer for me to give than the gift itself.

As a review - I was amazed out how easy to use and how nice the finished look was using these Graphic 45 Die-Cut shapes!  Being perfectly matched colour-wise was a big advantage of course.  I've never been a big fan of using die-cut shapes.  Often I find they're not the same quality cardstock as papers or too glossy and so I have usually given them a miss...however with the Graphic 45 range this was not an issue and I will definitely be adding them to my "must have" list for all future orders. :)

I hope I've given you some inspiration...maybe use the same ideas for quick to whip up Christmas Tags?

Until next time!
Veronica