Show & Tell Friday for March 20

For Show & Tell today, I have some of my inexpert attempts at paper crafting to share. A dear friend of mine is excellent at this craft and has really inspired me, especially with her tags. I like the idea of tags because they can be displayed in so many ways and they need not take a lot of time to make.

One of my goals for 2009 is to nurture my creativity. I thought that perhaps setting a goal to make one tag a month might help with that, since it is a new craft to me. I thought that narrowing the challenge by designing one tag each month, themed for that month, would help me focus better. And I also decided that I would buy no new materials or equipment for this venture, but would just use what I had on hand. I have plenty of card stock, a few punches and stamps, and a multitude of sewing trims and other embellishments, though no brads or other special paper crafting supplies. I also plan to keep all the tags the same size for this project.

So I decided to be brave and show scans of my tag efforts for January and February, and hope that no one will laugh at them.

Here is the front side of the January tag.

I wanted to have a snowflake/snow theme for this tag. I scanned some snowflake scrapbook paper and printed it out on pale blue card stock so that I would have one print side and one pale blue side. I was thinking of some different snippets of poems I had read about playing in the snow. That led me to thinking of some old photos of a childhood snow fort. So I put a copy of one photo (printed on white card stock) on the tag along with a few lines from a poem. I had intended to punch more than two snowflakes in the tag but my punch wasn't working well at all. I punched through some foil to sharpen it a bit, and one of the foil snowflakes came out intact so I stuck it on the tag. The large snowflake was on the envelope of a Christmas card my friend sent me. The cord is a silver-gray old-looking cord. The clear snowflake is one from a package I got at Jo-Ann's or Walmart after Christmas some time ago. The hole at the top was not big enough for the cord, so I strung the snowflake on clear thread and attached it directly to the tag. The little snowman was a charm that used to be on a necklace belonging to one of my daughters. I had saved it for years and decided this was the perfect use for it.

Here is the back of the tag.

The clear snowflake is the same one that's on the front; I just flipped it to the back to scan it. The glittery white snowflakes are from the same source as the clear snowflake; I just snipped off the little hanging loops from them. The snowy cabin is a Gooseberry Patch illustration. And of course, the blue snowflakes were added (none too expertly) with some small rubber stamps.

Here's the front of the February tag.

I scanned some red snowflake fabric and printed it out on white card stock. This is fabric I used some years ago to make a Christmas apron for one of my daughters. I wanted to use a family photo on this tag, but it needed something to set it off. The little scalloped frame was from a set of Christmas frames I had bought on clearance at a scrapbooking store last summer. I was at a loss as to how to trim the frame; it needed something, though, and I wanted it to look as if it was being held in place some way. So I borrowed an idea from a friend and glued tiny thread bows to buttons. At the very bottom of the tag is a piece of vintage bias tape from my grandmother. As you will see, it wraps all the way around the tag. I overlapped it here on the front and decided a button would be a good "fastener" for it.

Here's the back of the tag.

I glued on plaid scrapbooking paper to cover it. You can see the same bias tape at the bottom edge. The 2 red diecut hearts were sent to me by my creative friend, and I wanted to incorporate them in my February tag. I thought it would be nice to use the saying "Cold hands, warm heart" so printed those words out and then cut and glued them. The tiny mittens are made from white felt. The little hot cocoa sticker on the small attached tag was from a set of stickers my daughter gave me when we visited her this past fall. It seemed perfect to use here.

So those are my simple paper crafting efforts so far. I may post about the others later on as I finish the ones for each month.

To see what others have shared for Show & Tell Friday, head on over to There is No Place Like Home. Happy Show & Tell Friday!