Betsy

Hello and welcome, friends! It’s Kelly here today sharing a pair of cards featuring the Handiwork Collection. This is one of my all-time favorite collections, but I haven’t created with it NEARLY enough! I
absolutely love doing embroidery, so it’s always fun to play with stamps/dies that align with other
hobbies and passions!

I knew I wanted to make two cards; one with a round hoop and one with an oval. To begin, I die cut the hoops using the Hoopla Oval Die and the Hoopla Round Die. I cut the hoops from white and then colored them with sponge daubers and distress oxide ink. I also used the same dies to cut out the hardware for the hoops using both gold and silver cardstock for that realistic metal look. I glued the hardware to the hoops using liquid glue.

I used the Hoopla Round Insert Dies and the Hoopla Oval Insert Die to cut out the portion to fill the
hoops. I glued the hoops over the top and set them aside to dry while I got to work on all of the
embroidered elements. I decided where I wanted the sentiment for the oval hoop, so I stamped that as
well. Both cards feature sentiments from the Sew Vintage Stamp set.

I used the Embroidered Blooms Die and cut everything from white cardstock and then colored each
piece using sponge daubers and distress oxide ink. I layered them over the top of the hoops/inserts with
exact placement and then used Press n’ Seal wrap to lift everything up all together and then applied glue to the back. Once that was done, I simply placed it back where I laid it out originally, pressed it down until the glue set a bit, and then removed the press n’ seal wrap. This is one of my favorite techniques/tools to use for this type of a project!

I used the Notionable Die for the scissors and the thimbles. I cut them from gold cardstock and also from
Kraft cardstock. I glued each gold piece to a Kraft piece to give it added stability. I find that metallic cardstock has a tendency of curling and it’s not as thick as regular cardstock so like to reinforce it. Once
that was all done, I used a gold brad to secure the scissors together. I bought some of the cute Screw-
top Mini Brads that are in the shop, but do you think I could find them? Nope! Argh! Once I find them, I
will be putting them right next to the Notionable Die so that they are always together! Ha ha! Needless
to say, that would have been MUCH cuter!

For the background, I used the Embroidered Background Stamp on two A2 panels of peach cardstock using Saltwater Taffy for the oval hooped card, and Tattered Rose for the round hooped card. I did trim down the panel for the round card to measure 4 by 5 ¼ inches. I stamped the other sentiment directly onto the peach panel in black ink and then added the hoop using foam squares.

I thought I’d reinforce the “love” theme and add a few of the corners included in the Romantic Corners Die from the recent Bibliophile release. I attached both panels to top folding A2 cream card bases. I added the scissors using foam squares, with the ability to move the scissors on the round hoop card; I just love how fun that is!

I hope you’ll take some time to revisit one of your favorites, but perhaps neglected, collection and have some crafty fun! Thanks for joining me today!
~Kelly

Hello, friends!  Today, it’s my turn to share a project here on The Greetery blog, and I’ve got one for you that’s been brewing in my mind for awhile now.  You may remember this post from awhile back, I used the Char-cut-erie Board die to make some large tags.  I loved them so much that I used them up right away, and knew I needed to make some more as soon as I had a chance.  Today was that day!

The great thing about the Char-cut-erie Board as a gift tag, is its size. Because it’s so large, it makes a really big statement on a gift box or bag. And I especially love the way it dresses up a simple kraft gift bag, as you can see in the photos.  Not only that, but its large size allows you to really pile on all sorts of things!

For today’s tags, I pulled out the Crest No. 1 die, which is a personal favorite and fits the Char-cut-erie Board sooooo well! And I also pulled out a couple of the Birth Month Blooms sets (#2 and #3). They’re full of floral options and I wanted to just have some fun and use a bunch of them!

I also pulled out all sorts of colors to work with.  I’m veeeeeery excited about the prospect of flowers growing in the garden, that’s on the horizon.  Granted, we’re still a couple months out from that, but a girl can dream, right?  🙂  So, since I’ve got flowers on the brain these days (wait, when do I NOT have flowers on the brain???) I decided to use loads of flowers and loads of color, which reminds me of our garden in full bloom.  And that, my friends, is how today’s tags came about!

PRO TIP: Pull out a stack of colored card stocks that you want to work with and die cut all your tag bases and crests or whatever other second layer you might want on your tags. Go ahead and lay them out, pairing them up in whatever color combos look pleasing to you. Then, pull out the florals that you want to stamp with. Die cut a bunch of them from white card stock and then just stamp to your little heart’s content. Don’t worry about matching everything…..just stamp and play and mix colors and have fun, using many of the same inks as your card stock colors.

Then, once you’ve got everything stamped and you have a happy little pile of colorful florals to choose from, start laying those out on your tag/crest combos, until you’ve got all the colors mixed and matched in a pleasing way.

PRO TIP: Keeping the labels black and white (I used the Little Labels stamp + cut combo here) allows them to really stand out from all of the fun colors on the tag, making them a focal point and giving your eye a place to land.

PRO TIP: I kept the sentiments simple so that I can use them for all sorts of occasions. Each one says “with love” or “with love from me to you”. That way, whether it’s a just because gift or a birthday gift or a thank you or whatever else, these tags will work!

PRO TIP: One other thing….just to keep things fun and interesting, I played with the composition of the flowers and label on each tag. As you can see in the photo below, sometimes the sentiment is at the bottom, sometimes the top, sometimes left justified or right justified. It just made it fun to make them all COORDINATING but not identical in the placement of things.

Once I had everything laid out, all that was left to do was pull out the foam adhesive and adhere everything in place.

PRO TIP: The Press n’ Seal trick works great for laying everything on the tag the way you want it, then picking it all up at once with the Press n’ Seal, and then adding all the foam adhesive to the back and sticking it all back down in one fell swoop! Easy peasy and everything stays just where you want it!
Is that not the cheeriest pile of gift tags you’ve ever laid your eyes on? 🙂 Can’t wait to use them!

Hope you’ve enjoyed these tags and I hope the tips have been helpful to you! Have you made tags with the Char-cut-erie Board die yet? Have you busted out your Birth Month Blooms stamps in awhile? Have you just added any of this to your Greetery wish list? I’d love to hear! Let me know in the comments!

Thanks so much for spending a bit of your day with us!  We’re grateful for you!  Come hang out with us on Instagram!  Be sure to say hi!!