/* */ Beulah Bee

November 19, 2018

12 Tags for Christmas 2018 - No. 2


May I present Tag No. 2 for this Christmas which I really enjoyed working on in a carefree manner with little or no planning.

I'm happy with the result and it was a good reminder that, too often, I overthink what I make and it gets in the way of fun.


After stamping the bird and text (Penny Black Festive Season) on a virgin manila tag, I used a stencil to trace the tree trunk and branches using a mechanical pencil with fine lead (which made it easier to get into the tiny spots).


Then I went over the pencil lines with a Uni Ball Vision Rollerball pen (Fine Black). I like this pen very much because it never clogs and the ink is waterproof. As you can see, I filled in the tree trunks and branches with additional line work in a loose and sketchy manner.


The background was painted in with watered down blue acrylic and I used colored pencils on the cardinal, berries, and Christmas text.

An oval frame (Tim Holtz Industrious Sticker) was placed around the text and some snow on the branches and other white embellishments were made with paint.


I'm linking this tag to the Penny Black Creative Christmas Challenge and to Simon's Monday Challenge Blog because this week's theme is "Let It Snow."

To see more of my Christmas tags you can click on the label at the bottom of this post or use the link I've placed in the sidebar.

November 11, 2018

12 Tags for Christmas 2018 - No. 1


I've started my tags for Christmas and, with any luck, I'll have twelve completed before December 24 (fingers crossed).

I've had a little trouble with my mojo (or muse as some would call it) so I'm going back to basics to embrace some of the original techniques that influenced my paper crafting journey.

I'm sharing my step-outs for this one, with minimal explanation, so don't hesitate to comment if you have a question about my technique.

And if you'd like to see any of my tags from Christmas past I've put a link to them in the sidebar.

Oval drawn on Speciality Stamping Paper, matt finish (Ranger)

Stamp (Penny Black) with Distress (Fired Brick)

Spread ink with water brush

Stamp greeting (Penny Black) then mask it along with flower

Stamp background with archival ink (Potting Soil)

Rub on Distress inks (Forest Moss, Peacock Feathers) and spritz with water

Cut out oval with X-acto knife.

Re-apply Fired Brick Distress ink to strengthen flower color.
Add a paper background behind flower.

Trim oval with dimensional dots and tag edge with black marker


After I'd cut out the oval, it was fun playing with different papers for the background and I finally settled on a paper that matched the Peacock Feather blues.

I'm linking this to Simon's Monday challenge blog because this week's theme is Make Your Own Background and also to the Penny Black Creative Christmas Challenge.

October 25, 2018

Few Passed Them


Here's a post about the way I used Plain Collage Paper (Ideaology) to create a mirror image of a stamp and how to reduce transparency by painting on the back side.

I'm linking up to Simon's Monday challenge--this week's theme is Halloween.

The background is made from various paper scraps tinted with Distress inks and the gate (yes, I know it's upside down) is a die-cut from Tim Holtz called Gothic Gate.

The house and skull are stamp images from a 2016 set called Mini Halloween 5 and the kids are a classic called Photo Studio (Tim Holtz).

I used some words from Ideaology Clippings Stickers and tinted a tiny diamond with red alcohol ink.

As you can see, the house is single-sided but I wanted to create something a little different.



So I stamped the image on Plain Collage Paper then turned it over and stamped the image again on the backside to create a mirror image. They were trimmed and pasted together to create the larger house.


The family was also stamped on the Plain Collage Paper but I painted the backside with off-white paint to reduce the transparency to make sure the facial features didn't get lost. Once the image was pasted down, I used inks to lightly tint it.



I really like the properties of this collage paper and plan to stock-up in case it's discontinued as I have been using it a lot!