Ladies With Hats

Lynne, a customer on Etsy, asked me to make her a special tag for her mom to go with one of my altered clothes hangers that she was going to buy for her.  I had fun making several & wanted to post these so she could pick which one she likes the best.  Lynne -- send me a convo & let me know which one you like.  Also, I took this photo on my phone & wanted to see how it would look on my blog.  :-)

We've had a very interesting week.  I'll have to catch y'all up on it tomorrow.

Jo's Halloween Tags

Look what Jo designed! I just listed them in my Etsy shop.

Tutorial #10: Idiot Ink Swirl Tag

Here's one of the items that I sent to Somerset, but didn't make the cut.  So I'll "publish" my article here.  :-)

I happened upon this technique when I was searching for a white pen to draw on some of my darker papers.  I had seen a white Sharpie online and thought I'd look in the office supplies section of Wal-Mart to see if they had any.  No, not here either.  But wait... there's a white pen.  It was a Bic Wite-Out pen.  I didn't know if I could use it to write with or not but for around $2.00 each it wouldn't hurt to try.  I was really happy with how it turned out.  I had so much fun I used up the pen on the first day.  I lovingly call these my "idiot ink" tags.  That's what someone in my family always called correction fluid & the name kind of stuck.

Supplies:

manila shipping tags 

Bic Wit-Out pen

black fine tip marker

Dymo label maker

Autumn Leaves scrapbook paper

ink: ColorBox Chalk Ink, chestnut roan

vintage seam binding

images, UHU glue stick, bone folder, scissors, hole punch

1.  Completely cover one side of the shipping tag with adhesive.  Press down onto the wrong side of the paper.  Turn over and rub bone folder over the right side of the paper.  Trim with scissors.  Punch hole.  Repeat on second side of the tag.  Add small scraps of coordinating paper.

2.  Edit your photo to black and white and size.  Glue to tag.

3.  Ink edges of tag.

4.  Draw swirls and scribbles around photo, overlappingn at points.  Allow to dry.

5.  With the black fine point pen, draw highlights on white scribbles.

6.  Lightly rub the ink pad over the white scribbles to age them just a bit.

7.  Print word with Dymo label maker & attach.

8.  Tie vintage seam binding through the hole.

If you make one, please send me a link to your photo!  I'd love to see what you can come up with.

More Tags

Oh, no, I missed a day and Lauren blogged yesterday... can't let her catch up with me!  Here's another tag I made last week.

For this one I started with a blank shipping tag, covered it with one of the cards on my Vintage Lotto Card Collage Sheet, added a photo from my Vintage Loving Couples Collage Sheet (printed on cream instead of white cardstock), one of the Love in Many Languages circles on top of some old text, then did a little highlighting with my new charcoal pen I bought at Aaron Brothers when Jo & I went shopping last week.  (That's her new favorite store & they were having GREAT sales!)  Then I tied a bit of old lace seam binding through the hole.
And I told you Saturday that I wasn't selling my relatives on Etsy.  Here are some tags I made with one of my favorite pictures of my grandmother & grandfather.  

My Saturday

OK, had to take a break from chores so I thought I'd catch up my blog.  Thursday night my parents caught me on Skype when my mood message said I was upstairs crafting.  They wanted to know what I was making so I thought I'd show them some pictures.

I got a little carried away making tags again!  :-)  I'm thinking about having a "tag of the month" club!  Anybody wanna sign up?  lol...  Look, I even put my leftovers together in a little tag kit -- it already sold in my Etsy shop!

So this morning I decided that I really should trim my monster tomato plants a little bit.  I hauled off 2 black garbage bags of branches I cut off my tomatoes, herbs, and flowers.  And if you hadn't seen it before you probably wouldn't be able to tell right now!  I tied up a lot of the branches -- they're kind of running horizontally across the fence right now, kind of like grape vines.  I also brought in 4 POUNDS of tomatoes!!!  And remember, I've been eating a handful of grape tomatoes and an Early Girl every day for the past few weeks.  I've had whole gardens that didn't produce as many tomatoes as I'm getting from these two plants.  My patio smells really good right now -- a combination of tomato plant, chocolate mint, lemon balm, rosemary, sage, and chives!  

Since we're going to a semi-formal wedding tonight I'm going upstairs now to see if I can get the green stains and ink off my fingernails.  I'll tell you about that tomorrow.

Planning a Party

This is my favorite photo of our three Seniors. We (moms & girls) got together this afternoon to fold & stuff the party invitations, snack, and plan the party. I made a tag for each mom. Next year will be different! From left to right the girls are going to Los Medanos College in Pittsburg (CA), New Tribes Bible Institute in Michigan, and a Bible college in England! But they're enjoying their time together while they can.


Craft day tomorrow!!!

Tags (another Mac test)

OK, I've been trying to figure out how to reduce the size of my photos in iPhoto.  There didn't seem to be a way.  But this time I exported them from iPhoto to my external hard drive and the export feature allows me to reduce the size!  So these photos are 300-500 KB instead of 1.3-1.5 MB.  And I think I could reduce them more if I'm just going to post them online.  

J helped me design these tags a few weeks ago.  That girl can draw anything.  These papers are from my paper packs that I wasn't supposed to buy because I have plenty of paper but had to because they were on the clearance rack and I loved them.  lol...

I'm thinking about hosting a tag swap.  I've never hosted any kind of swap before.  I was thinking because tags are so small of maybe asking everyone to make one for everyone participating.  Does that sound reasonable?  I've only done one-on-one swaps.  Let me know if you have any ideas and I'll start working on it.  SE, I may want you do make another button for me!!!

Tomorrow we're supposed to have another graduation party planning meeting.  And Glenn has an opening day meeting and band rehearsal Tuesday night.   This new building is really keeping him busy.  I need to go over and photograph his office to show you!  Oh, and Tuesday's gonna be another craft day!!!!  Can't wait.

Mother's Day in my Etsy Shop

Some of the things I stayed up late making last week while Glenn was gone are now in my Etsy shop!