Inspire Me Monday - Holiday Tags

Hello Everyone! How are you today? I am Kathy from The Daily Marker and I am so happy to be back for another Inspire Me Monday.

Today I am excited to share with you how to make some pretty quick tags with some easy coloring & this beautiful Poinsettia stamp set. My take away for this project is to skip a step when coloring by adding color with a spray. All you need to do is fill a mini mister with a color from a Copic refill bottle. Don't add water just the refill solution straight up. 

My assumption is that you can use any brand of alcohol marker fluid. I have the Copic brand so that is what I am using today. The best part of this technique is that you have that first layer of color quick and easy. Once you fill your mini mister be sure to label what color you are using.

After stamping my poinsettia, I punched a large circle in a sheet of copy paper & placed the paper with my circle top of my stamped poinsettia leaving a white border under the copy paper. (I wanted to keep the border white that I will be using for my tag) 

When the copy paper is sitting on top you only see the pink part that's in this photo. (Sorry, I don't have a photo of the before I sprayed with the mini mister.) Hold the mini mister spray bottle about 6" from your paper...and spray. If you hold the mister further way you get a more speckled effect which is so pretty. I suggest you experiment with different distances and different colors. Masking off an image and spraying the background this way yields an awesome result!! 

If you want leave me a comment and tell me if you would like a video for my next Inspire Me Monday showing a sprayed background. 

If you like you can push the color out of the leaves by using the "0" colorless marker. If you are using a darker green it's not necessary. Add red to the poinsettia leaves and buds. 

To blend out the red color you just added plus the pink color from the mini mister, it's pretty easy and you most likely have done this before? Scribble some of the red on a acrylic block, packaging, palette or a craft mat (just wipe using some blending solution or alcohol wipes when finished). Using the same color marker as the background, load the pink tip with the red from the acrylic block. 

The tip of the marker acts like a brush. You load the color on the tip of the darker color and use that to blend the color on the petals. You need to keep loading the tip with more color as you continue around the flower. You only need to load the tip maybe two or three times for the large petals depending on how much pressure you use when coloring. This is a great way to get more mileage from your markers. 

If you want to give your petals a more blended look you can take the "0" color again and place the tip where the light areas are and give the entire petal a once over with the "0" or just keep it on the edges of your petals. More importantly, don't worry just enjoy the process it always comes out beautifully. :)

I always like to go back after blending and add my darkest color in the nooks and crannies of the petals usually right up next to the lines in the corners. Keep in mind a little dark color goes a long way. If you add to much you can always blend it out with a lighter color. 

The rest goes super fast. Add some grey to add definition to the background if you like. Outline the flower and color the tiny areas of the background in the grey. Color the center of the flower a contrasting color. I prefer a dark and light brown. 

Give some straight up color on the leaves and pine branches. No blending at all. 

I am a nut about adding white dots and discovered some poinsettias have white dots. Adding some glossy accents to parts of a colored image really enhances what you have colored. In this case I added glossy accents to the green leaves, flower center and the buds. 

Photo Credit

Isn't this speckled poinsettia beautiful? So many lovely varieties and so many beautiful colors to use as inspiration.

This poinsettia would be fun to try and get a similar look by coloring the petals with some easy lines and no blending.

Have you ever used fun foam? This was my first time and I am addicted. The foam comes in sheets of 3mm and 5mm in many colors. I found mine at Michael's craft stores. I die cut my sentiment in the foam and the cardstock then glued the layers together. Punch a hole, thread some ribbon and you have some tags. Tis the season for tags and they can be used for a bottle of wine, handmade gift or a card. 

If you have more time and are into shaker cards you can make a shaker tag.

What ever you are creating, I hope you find joy. For Thanksgiving my goal is to have a table set up so my family can make a card or tag to give someone special in their life. Thanks to Power Poppy for always providing such inspiring images to create with and thanks to you all for your visit.

Hugs, Kathy