Merry & Bright

This tag will be entered into the 25 Days of Christmas Tags which is an annual event hosted by Tracey McNeely over at her blog "In My Creative Opinion".  Whenever I am in a class, I have several of those "parts & pieces" laying around from attempts at a certain technique or style.  This post is all about one of those but my attempt to reclaim this particular part was inspired by Tracey herself and her tag from Day 9.

I really messed this panel up the other day when I ran it through my die cutting machine after heat embossing the silver snowflakes and attaching them to my card front which today became my tag.  I put it in to cut the edges off of the snowflakes in alignment with the scalloped rectangle. So all of the silver embossing had lines and creases in it from all the lines and creases in my cutting pads.  I should have had a thin sheet of printer paper in there to prevent this from happening, but I don't normally cut after the fact, so I had forgotten this one little detail.

This panel was laying at the top of my trash can when I had a sudden thought that maybe, just maybe, I could use my heat tool to re-melt the embossing powder and salvage this panel that I liked so much.  BINGO!

The card stock was inked up with a Ranger Mini Ink Blending Tool using a bit of Thistle in the very center and Audrey Blue all over the rest of the tag.  I then stamped several of the Stamps from the Simon Says Stamp Lots of Snowflakes Stamp Set in Versamark and heat set them using Simon Says Stamp Ultra Fine Detail White Embossing Powder.  There are 17 stamps in this set. Next I cut the Simon Says Stamp Exclusive Snowflakes Eliza, Abby, Alexis and Kate in heavy white cardstock.  I inked up each of the snowflakes using Versamark and then put Fine Detail Silver Embossing Powder and heat set them and repeated that. This gives your die cuts so much dimension; it's really beautiful!  I attached them all to the Scalloped Stitched Rectangle from the Sunshine Layers Die.  Then I popped it back into the die and ran it through to cut off the overhanging edges. That is when I saw all the creases in the silver embossing.  So I tossed it in the trash and went on to the next card front.

I don't know what made me think to try reheating the embossing powder to see if it would melt again, but I had nothing to lose.  It worked like a charm and after seeing Tracey's cute tag from day 9, I had to make it into a tag even though I don't seem to have a cute little snowman like she does.  Ya'll know I love my snowflakes!

Since it wasn't in the shape of a tag and I don't have a tag this large, I slipped a My Favorite Things Stitched Oval over the top portion only and cut it to get the arch. I could have used a circle die but I came to the ovals in my binder first. Then I reheated it to smooth out all of the silver embossing.  I cut and stamped my greeting using the Mama Elephant "Merry" die with Silver Glitter Paper and two stamps from the Papertrey Ink Sparkle & Shine Stamp Set for the "& Bright" that are heat embossed in the same Simon brand Silver Embossing Powder on a strip of paper inked up with the same Audrey Blue Ink that I love and adore so much! It is such a beautiful color. I have a banner punch that I used to make the swallowtail end on the banner strip and adhered it to my tag with foam squares. A few silver sequins and Voila!   I used ribbon from my stash.

It's not captured very well but I'm really happy with all the texture and sparkle on this tag and will be uploading it over at the 25 Days of Christmas Tags on Tracey's Blog. Thanks so much for stopping by today!