Good morning! I am so excited to be sharing this tag with you today. It features Right at Home products and is part of Tracey McNeely’s 25 Days of Christmas Tags.

Can we just discuss this Cozy Cardinal stamp and die set? It’s just absolutely darling. And I believe I’ve yet to stamp him to look like a cardinal, but I will, one day. He’s just so ridiculously adorable. He comes with a stamp for blush. FOR. BLUSH. For his cheeks. I just love that. And those eyes. Sigh. So dreamy. I really love this little guy.

To start, I die cut five of his body from a piece of thin chipboard. I believe it was the backing of a pad of note paper. I keep stuff like that in a scrap pile and try to use it when I can. I wanted this tag to have some weight to it, and five layers was just right. He’s pretty thick, but I love that. I think it hold up better, visually, to his felt wing and jingle bell. I used my crop-a-dile to punch a hole in his head so I could add a string later. I adhered four of the pieces together with glossy accents.

I then went to work on the top bird. Ha! I mean the top layer of the tag, the one where I would do my stamping. Here’s an in progress picture of how I made sure to do my stamping the easiest way. I placed the die cut back into the sheet I cut it from, which I placed in the MISTI tool. This way if I didn’t stamp perfectly the first time, I wouldn’t have to start over from scratch. Also, you can see where I tested the color of Oxide ink for his tail feathers.

I stamped the tail feathers, head and chest sections using Candied Apple Distress Oxide ink. Can you tell I’m a part time ornithologist? I did his eyes and nose and feet in black ink, and then his blush in Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide. When that was all dry, I adhered the stamped die cut onto the other four die cuts that were already layered together. I then covered the entire die cut in versamark ink and the used clear embossing powder to emboss him. Five times. I wanted him to be perfectly smooth and glossy. Oh! And I used a versamarker to run along the edges of the tag to make the color match the front a bit more, since the embossing makes the chipboard a bit darker.

I cut out two leaves from the die set from green felt and stitched them together with some red embroidery floss. Glossy accents worked perfectly to adhere the wing onto the embossed die cut. I added the hanging string and a jingle bell to finish him off. There he is in all his glory. Isn’t he spectacular?

To make this a usable gift tag, I took one of the sentiments from Peace Love Joy and inked up the words “to” and “from” with a black marker to stamp on the back of the tag. As a last step, I stamped the heart from the Cozy Cardinal stamp set in Candied Apple and clear embossed it for a little dimension.

I really do love this little guy, and I’m not sure I can part with him, but I’ll try.

I hope you’ll be sure to check out all of the tags today. Click on this graphic, Tracey will have them linked on her blog. There are prizes to be won during this amazing event. Click here for all of the rules and regulations.

Supplies:

Cozy CardinalEH | SSS	Peace Love JoyEH | SSS	Cozy Cardinal DiesEH	Intense BlackEH | SSS | HA
VersaMark PadEH | SSS	VersamarkerEH | SSS | AZ	Candied AppleEH | SSS	Worn LipstickEH | SSS
Hero Arts ClearEH | SSS	Tuxedo Black MarkerEH | SSS	Bamboo FeltET	Bright Red FlossAZ
Jingle BellsEH | SSS	Mini Glossy AccentsEH | SSS	Embossing GunEH | SSS	Stamp ShammyEH | SSS
Mini MISTIEH | SSS	Craft SheetEH | SSS	TweezersEH | SSS