Hello everyone. I’m back in my happy CAS place today with some ‘mini makes’, creating gift tags using the fab new ‘Ani’s folk art sampler‘ stamp set from Clarity Crafts which Barbara is showcasing over on Clarity Social TV today. I’ve managed to pull a few challenges together into these little tags, taking the colours from Seize the Birthday, both diagonals from TicTacToe’s grid and the ‘anything but square’ theme at Cardz4Galz

I first cut a couple of tags, one white and one on kraft card, using the second smallest of Clarity’s nested tags dies. I stamped the outer leafy heart image onto the white one with ‘pumice stone’ Distress Oxide and heat embossed it with clear powder. I stamped the same image onto the kraft tag, but this time in Versamark clear in & using white embossing powder

I then sponged ‘festive berries’ Distress Oxide onto the matching infill stamp to highlight the heart and added it to the kraft tag – I needed to do this twice to get the depth of colour.

Now, things didn’t go quite as planned with the white tag – stamping the red ink into the heart really didn’t give a good enough effect, as you can see. I tried going over it with a red Pergaliner pencil, but still wasn’t happy – I relied the problem was probably that the leafy outline colour didn’t give enough contrast so this one went in the recycling bin!

After cutting another tag, I stamped the leafy outline in’walnut stain’ Distress Oxide this time, again heat embossing with clear powder – much better! I decided I wanted a sharper image for the heart, so put down an ‘undercoat’ with the red Pergaliner pencil then went over it with a Pergacolour pen. A definite improvement!

To finish, I simply added one of the ‘bijou retro sentiments’ to each tag and some narrow white ribbon.

You can catch Barbara on YouTube again at 2pm, or watch both of today’s shows on catch up via Clarity’s channel. There’s lots more inspiration to see!