Magenta Super Saturday: Berry Chickadee - Embossing and Prismacolor Coloring

Hi I'm over at the Magenta Blog today. I'm a huge fan of Nathalie's designs for Magenta, and I love all the bird stamps she has made for this latest collection. The Berry Chickadee is no exception, and it doesn't just have to be used for Christmas. Imagine the berries colored in blue.

I stamped the Berry Chickadee in green, and then colored the bird and the berries with Prismacolor pencils. I cut the image out with an oval die, and then inked the edges with Versafine ink. I dipped the inked oval into gold embossing powder, and embossed. The shine is subtle in the picture, but very pretty in real life. 

I stamped the sentiment with the same green ink (Distress Pine Needles), and then stamped the Bursts stamp twice, using Versamark ink and embossed in gold. I adhered the oval Berry Chickadee  panel to the larger white panel, and added some gold gems in the centers of the Bursts. To finish the card, I matted the panel with Red Palmero Pearl cardstock and mounted it to a base card.

I liked it so much that I thought I would make a simpler version as a tag. The entire tag is rimmed with gold embossing powder, and I chose a different sentiment and added a red ribbon.

I hoped you enjoyed! I have some more tag posts to come, stay tuned!

Magenta Products used:

02.123.K Berry Chickadee

0770.P Bursts

07.1018.H Let Your Heart be Light

07.1022.I Wishing you a Merry Christmas

Other Products used:

Prismacolor Pencils: PC901 Indigo Blue,

PC924 Crimson Red, PC905 Aquamarine,

PC938 White

Versamark ink

Distress ink: Pine Needles

Ranger Gold embossing powder

Hero Arts Infinity Nesting Ovals DI 337

Sizzix Super Scallop Tag die (discontinued)

Red Malmero Pearl Cardstock

Neenah Solar White Cardstock 80# & 110#

Mini Masterpiece Gnome Tags

I don't have a card for you today, but I have some adorable gnomes that I'm going to use as tags. These would also make great cards, and there are lots of samples online using them.

Simon Says Stamp Large Gnome die
sssd112037

I made them with this adorable new die that I got from Simon Says Stamp. It's the cutest gnome, and the set has 2 dies: an outline and a detailed die. This is what he looks like, and there is a little one too, for those of you who have to have both (which I did); and there is a stencil as well.


I went looking for patterned paper to cut out this cutie, and then I realized that I have patterned paper that I made myself. The Mini Masterpiece master sheets! For those of you who haven't seen my previous posts about Mini Masterpieces, which is a creative technique from Sally Penley, you can see my previous posts here, here , here, here and here and there are more posts using them. The possibilities are endless with this technique of creating a master sheet using acrylic paints and markers. To learn more about Sally, and possibly take her class on this technique, go here to her website. You can contact her via her email about available classes.

Here are some of the first ones I made, and I just love them! I could decorate them further, and put pearls or gems on them, but I just really like them just as they are.

This is the first batch. I cut the detailed die from both white and Mini Masterpiece cardstock, and also cut white outlines to assemble the detailed pieces onto. For most of the noses, I used a nose cut from white cardstock, and colored them with an E11 Copic, with a little touch of white gel pen at the top. The exception is the one in the middle at the bottom. He has a blue nose, and it came from the Mini Masterpiece detail cut. I couldn't resist.

The more I looked at them, the more I wanted to use the beards that came from the Mini Masterpiece cut too. You know how some guys with beards decorate them for the holidays? I thought these gnomes could do the same. But I wanted the hat and robe to have less color, so the beards would stand out a little.

Here are some of the gnomes with the wildly colored beards! I love these too!

I used hats and robes from the white cardstock cut of the detailed die, and I colored them with Distress ink and blending brushes. I chose Distress inks that would most closely match the acrylic colors on the Mini Masterpieces. In blending the colors, I made them darker at the edges away from their beards, and faded the blending to white. I also thought I might add more decoration to these gnomes, like stamping or gems on their hats, but I really just like them as they are.

I made a dozen of each: the fancy beards and the white beards, but I have sent some away already. These are also super cute using Christmas patterned paper, and/or velvet paper (Pam Nelson's idea).

I hope you enjoy these, they were so much fun to make!

Products used:

Simon Says Stamp Large Gnome die sssd112037

Mini Masterpiece sheets made using acrylic paints,

Sharpie markers, foil & Stickles

Copic marker E11

White gel pen

Distress inks: Mowed Lawn, Festive Berries,

Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers

Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock

Connect glue

Christmas Tag from the Magenta 2019 Fall/Winter Collection

We had so much going on this year that I didn't get a chance to make Christmas cards and tags all year long like I did last year. Let's just say that the Holidays are coming like a freight train, and I have lots to do to catch up. Next year, I am definitely going to try to do them all during the year; that's a much better plan! I'm busy now making cards and tags, and I will be posting them all, so stay tuned.

This is a tag that I made from Neenah 110# cardstock and a couple of the new Magenta stamps. I cut the cardstock to 3.75" x 3.75",  and used the GinaK Designs wreath builder template to help position the stamping. 

I stamped the Berry Branch 8 times, and colored the berries with a red glitter pen. They are bright and shiny in real life. For the sentiment, I used the Hero Arts Infinity Circles dies and cut the top panel out of Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock; the red circle was cut from The Paper Cut Hopsack Red cardstock, and I also cut a piece of black craft foam to the same size circle as the top circle piece, to pop the sentiment up.

I stamped the Joyeux Noël sentiment from Magenta (which is also part of the new collection) onto the top panel, and it's the perfect size. At the end, I used a corner punch to round the corners, punched a hole in the top and threaded in some thin green ribbon.

Since I only used one stamp for this process (not counting the sentiment) I honestly believe I could have done this without the template. You could stamp the Berry Branch from Magenta at the top, bottom, and right and left; then stamp it again in between each one of those. I don't think it would be hard, especially since the place where the stamped images intersect in the middle are covered by the sentiment. In fact, I have used another stamp in a similar way, more than once.

It's been a while since I did these, but I still love them. You can see that post here. And these stamps are still available from Magenta.

You can see and purchase the new Magenta Fall/Winter collection at the Magenta online shop. The rubber stamps are here, and the stencils/masks are here. The stamps used in this post are linked below.

Magenta Products used:

02.323.F Berry Branch

07.1029.D Joyeux Noël

0661.H Leaf

07.730.H I am in love with this day!

07.665.I Congratulations

Other Products used:

For the tag:

Versafine Clair ink:  Green Oasis, Glamorous

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

The Paper Cut Hopsack Red cardstock

Black craft foam

Hero Arts Infinity Nesting Circles DI 199

GinaK Designs Wreath Builder template

Red Uniball Signo Sparkling Pen

Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper

For the Leaf cards:

Purple card:

Memento inks: Grape Jelly, Lulu Lavender

So Silk Purple cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# & 80# cardstock

Hero Hues pearls

Silver card:

Memento ink: Gray Flannel

Versafine ink

JudiKins Detail Silver embossing powder

Neenah Solar White 110# & 80# cardstock

So Silk Black cardstock

Hero Hues pearls

Magenta Super Saturday - Last Minute Cards and Tags

Christmas is getting close, and if you still have a card or some tags to make, it's best to keep it simple and fast. This post appears on the Magenta blog today, and you can see it here.

This card turned out so pretty, and yet it was really fast to make. I love this Trio of Poinsettias stamp from Magenta. It's not new, but I chose it because it goes so well with the new Calligraphy stamps designed by Sally Penley for Magenta. The Poinsettias and the Calligraphy stamps are so classic they will never go out of style.

I stamped the poinsettias with Versamark ink and embossed them with gold embossing powder. I did the same with the sentiment, and they were all stamped and embossed twice to get that beautiful thick, fluid gold look.

I pressed some Distress Inks onto my mat and painted them onto the flowers. This actually goes really fast, and I love the look. You can see more examples where I have done this here and here. I tend to go to Distress Inks to paint quite a bit because I'm so familiar with the colors, and so I find it fast to do.

The white dots were added with Pico Embellisher. At the end I scattered some gems, matted the panel with red and mounted it onto a base card.

I liked the pairing of these two stamps so much that I also made a tag with them

This was easy and fun to make, and could be mass produced very quickly. For the "To" and "From" on my tags, I usually print out current pictures of intended recipients and punch them out with a circle punch. You can see this here.

Magenta Products Used:

02.273.L Trio of Poinsettias

07.989.G Merry Christmas

Other Products Used:

Distress Inks: Festive Berries, Mowed Lawn,

Peeled Paint

Versamark Ink

JudiKins Gold Detail Embossing powder

Wedding Dress Pico Embellisher

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Various gems

Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock

Stardream Jupiter cardstock

Neenah Solar White #110 cardstock

August Christmas Tags

It was my goal beginning in January to make Christmas cards every other month, and Christmas tags every other month. I run a little behind because I'm making multiples of each design, but I have the August tags for you today (all finished) and I'm working on the multiples of the September cards now, which I already showed you in this post.

These tags are pretty simple, but I like them a lot. They are about 2.75" x 4" and their design was constrained by the fact that I have been trying to use up the scraps from making lots of multiples of the cards seen here. I had plenty of nice red and green and white rectangles that just needed to be used for tags, and I used some of them on these tags.

Both of these tags were made by die cutting into the colored piece, stamping them with new Magenta sentiments using Veramark ink and embossing the sentiments with JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder. This powder is very sparkly in real life, but the sparkle is hard to capture in a photo.

I mounted each die cut onto the white leftover rectangles. For the green cabin in the woods one, I colored the windows with a Copic marker and then went over it with a clear Wink of Stella glitter pen, which provides sparkle in the windows in real life. 

I hope you like these, and I hope you will be inspired to use your leftovers and make your own Christmas tags with dies or stamps that you haven't used yet. You can see in my piles of tags that there are a few I tried out that didn't quite make the cut for producing a lot of them, but I will still definitely use them on presents!

Red Poinsettia Tag

07.995.E Joyeux Noël

Sizzix 661602 Tim Holtz Mixed Media Christmas Thinlets

Die-Namics MFT-847 Inside/Outside Stitched Rectangle die set

Versamark ink

JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder

Stardream Jupiter cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock

Green Secret Cabin Tag

07.990.G Peace Love Joy

Memory Box 99602 Secret Cabin Die

Die-Namics MFT-847 Inside/Outside Stitched Rectangle die set

Versamark ink

JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder

Emerald Green cardstock from The Paper Cut

Hellebore Christmas Tags

I was kind of waiting for the new Magenta Christmas stamps to do the tags I was supposed to do in June. It was my plan to start the year with making 17 Christmas cards every other month, and 20 Christmas tags every other month. That way, I can stop in October and have all I need for the Holidays. I stay "mostly" caught up...ok I stay a little behind, but not too bad. These tags were for June, but I actually did them in July. For those who are keeping count, the July cards were finished in July; that post is here, and yes I got to use new Magenta Christmas stamps for those also.

These are super simple tags, but I love them. The flowers are a new Magenta stamp, and they are a beautiful drawing of Hellebore flowers by Nathalie. Hellebores are a winter flower; but this stamp could certainly be used all year round.

The red and green rectangles came from a previous Christmas card, where they were cut out of the center of a frame. That post from May is here, and I knew then that these leftover pieces would be used as tags.

The flowers and sentiment, both designed by Nathalie, were simply stamped with Versamark ink and embossed with JuidKins White Detail embossing powder. I rounded the corners with a corner rounder. There is no need for a to/from on our tags, since we put a photo of the recipient on each tag. How we do that is shown here. However, it would be easy to write on the backs of these also.

Magenta Products Used:

14.669.L Flower Corner

07.993.F Merry Christmas

Other Products Used:

Versamark ink

JudiKins Detail White embossing powder

Hopsack Red cardstock from The Paper Cut

Emerald Green Linen cardstock from The Paper Cut

Crop A Dile Corner Chomper 1/4" round

Botanical Christmas Tags

As part of my ongoing attempt to have a low stress Christmas this year, I am alternating making Christmas cards and tags each month. April was tag month, so I made these tags using the Papertrey Ink Botanical Blocks IV set, which has 2 beautiful framed stamps: Poinsettia and Holly.

I absolutely love all of the PTI Botanical Blocks sets, but this one might be my favorite. You will probably see these stamps on the Christmas cards I will make in May, but using a different medium.

I stamped these tags with Versamark ink, and embossed them with JudiKins Gold Detail embossing powder. I couldn't decide whether I liked white cardstock or kraft, so I made half from one and half from the other.

I really enjoy having something to color in the evening while I listen to podcasts, so that's what I did with these. I made 20 total tags, and colored them all with Prismacolor pencils (details on colors below).

I wanted to put a small bow at the top of each, and looked at local stores for some thin, wired, red ribbon. Of course, I couldn't find that at all. I have gold though, so I colored the gold ribbon with a Copic marker, and that worked perfectly!

On the Poinsettia tags, I couldn't color with colored pencil on the leaves because the openings were too small, so I used a Tombow marker. I had in mind that I could use a water brush on them, and it worked ok, but that technique works best on watercolor paper. I think leaving the water out would have been fine.

At one point, I had gotten some green outside the lines and tried to take it out with some water (like you can do on watercolor paper) and it just stayed green, but got bigger and bigger. So I tried using a sand eraser on the big green spot and just made a hole in my paper because it was still wet! lol! I KNOW better than this! This is the tag, and I used some Simon Says Stamp confetti to cover it up. No one will ever know, except for you all. The very last step I went over the ivy and poinsettias with a Wink of Stella pen to add some glittery goodness.

Products used:

Die-namics MFT-525 Stitched Traditional Tag Stax

Patertrey Ink Botanical Blocks IV

Papertrey Ink Snow Globe Sentiments (for sentiment)

Prismacolor Pencils: PC926 Carmine Red, PC924 Crimson Red,

PC 1005 Limepeel, PC909 Grass Green

Tombow marker 245 for leaves on Poinsettias

Versamark ink

JudiKins Gold Detail embossing powder

Simon Says Stamp Rainbow Confetti

Celebrate It Gold Wired Edge Ribbon (from Michaels)

Copic marker R46 to color ribbon
Wink of Stella clear glitter pen

Paper Accents Natural Kraft cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Ornament Collage Christmas Tag

Just a little pause in my Distress Oxide posts to show you the Christmas tag I made recently. I'm actually making multiples of these. I'm trying to get ahead of the stress I usually feel around October, trying to get Christmas cards and tags made. I'm planning to do a design each month. alternating cards and tags. I will make multiples of each design. This tag design was supposed to be done in February, so I'm already behind (shock).

I love these tags, and there is no stamping whatsoever. Although in the photo, it looks like the sparkly ornament and Christmas are raised up above the cardstock, they are not; the glitter paper is behind the die-cut.

I first used the Simon Says Stamp SSSD111393 Holiday Frames die, and cut it out of Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock and Hopsack Red cardstock from The Paper Cut. The die cuts away the square behind the word MERRY, and if you are using two colors, you can switch the backgrounds out. You have to save some of the bits around the word MERRY to piece back in, and also save the centers of the "R" and "A" in CHRISTMAS, but it's worth it.

Here's the reverse one with white as the background. I die cut the Simon Says Stamp S404 Corbel Ornament Collage die out of the center of the background on each tag.

After placing gold glitter cardstock on the back that shows through the ornament and the word CHRISTMAS, I covered the back with a plain white rectangle, cut to 3" x 3.75", which is the size of the Holiday Frames panel.

I rounded the corners using a 1/4" corner rounder, and put a little bow on the top made from some wired gold ribbon from Michaels. Here is a photo of the two together. I have made 20 of these tags and put them away for Christmas.

To see my first Christmas card design for this year, click here. I still have lots of Christmas stamps and dies I have not yet used. My next Christmas design will be a card.

Products Used:

Simon Says Stamp die SSSD111393 Holiday Frames

Simon Says Stamp S404 Corbel Ornament Collage

Core'dinations Gold Glitter adhesive paper (sold at JoAnns)

Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock

Hopsack Red cardstock from The Paper Cut

1/8" Galena wired gold metallic ribbon (sold at Michaels)

Upcycle Your Scraps: Snowflake Tag

I have this one last tag for you. Remember the post where I made snowflake tags by cutting the Poppy Snowflake Ribbon out of tags colored with blue Nuance? I then inserted white glitter Snowflake Ribbons into them, and had the blue ones left over. You can see that post here.

Here is where I used the blue Snowflake Ribbons. First I have to tell you how we tag presents that go under our tree. I find photos of our kids, preferably from the past year. My husband then shrinks them down in Photoshop and cuts out just the faces and prints them in multiples. I take them and use a 1.5" punch on them and put scor-tape on the backs. When we wrap presents, I make tags for each present, and the photo of the recipient is stuck onto the front of the tag. That way everyone knows who it's for, and who it's from, and we don't have to have a place to write "to and from".

I cut the tag out of Stardream Opal cardstock with the MFT-525 Die-Namics Stitched Traditional Tag Stax (The second largest tag). I made ten of these at once to use with all of the leftover snowflakes. I took the tags and snowflakes out to the (very cold) garage and three at a time, used spray glue on the backs and stuck them to tags. I brought them in and used Sea Glass Stickles on the snowflakes.

I didn't punch a hole in the top of the tags or add ribbon, but it would be easy enough to do. These tags get stuck to the top of a present, and a little bow at the top would be pretty.

Since this one has my picture, maybe it will go on a present for me from my husband.. some new RubberMoon inks perhaps? Some Arteza pens? Hmmmmm....

I will have one more card to show you, and then I will take a break until after Christmas. Stay tuned!

Products Used:

Poppy Snowflake Ribbon die

MFT-525 Die-Namics Stitched Traditional Tag Stax

Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock

Stardream Opal cardstock

Sea Glass Stickles

Magenta Nuance

Poinsettia Tag

I had to stop making cards and make some tags to go on out of town gifts so they could be mailed away. I'm going to share a few that I really liked.

I think this Poinsettia tag is my favorite of the bunch. I will definitely make more for my in-town packages.

This was actually super easy to make. I die cut tags out of watercolor cardstock (I used Tim Holtz cardstock because I like it to be white) using the Sizzix 38-0945 Scallop Steel Rule die. You could use any tag die you prefer, or you could just use a rectangular piece of cardstock, rounding the corners or not, as you wish.

This die cuts a tag that is a bit larger than I wanted. I wanted to be able to cut 2 tags out of one piece of 5.5" x 4.25" TH watercolor cardstock, so I made sure the top was within the die, but the bottom was chopped off. This was easily remedied with a corner rounder punch at both corners on the bottom.

Using my mini MISTI, I stamped the Poinsettia with Versamark ink and embossed it with JudiKins Fine Detail Gold embossing powder. I then stamped and embossed the sentiment the same way. The Poinsettia is from Hero Arts CL796 Peace Poinsettias, and the sentiment is from Hero Arts CL722 Merry Christmas Messages.

To color the Poinsettias, I put some Candied Apple Distress ink onto an acrylic block and spritzed it with pearly water (1/4 teaspoon of Perfect Pearls powder to 2 oz water). Working with just a few petals of the flower at a time, I first painted them with clear water and then added the ink at the inside of the petal and let it flow out.

This was actually very fun, easy and quick to do, and I made quite a few almost before I knew it. This technique would work well with almost any open stamp, and I may try to find an evergreen tree image that I can use the same way.

I just added some gold ribbon at the top. I wrote the "to, from" at the bottom of the back of the tag and taped the top of the gold ribbon to the package. This way the tag can easily be flipped up to identify the recipient.

Products Used:

Sizzix 38-0945 Scallop Steel Rule die

Hero Arts CL796 Peace Poinsettias

Hero Arts CL722 Merry Christmas Messages

Candied Apple Distress ink

Versamark ink

JudiKins Detail Gold embossing powder

Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock

gold ribbon

corner rounder