Happy New Year from all at The Manic Stamper!
Neil has been busy creating ready for Craft Club sessions this year and has hit upon an idea based on Tim Holtz’s 12 tags for Christmas: Twelve Tags for 2012. Each tag will be themed to the month it’s made in, and instructions will be posted here after the Craft Club. Here are the teaser pics for January’s tag – let us know what you think 
All you need is a luggage tag (size 6), white gesso, distress inks and some paper… and a bit of sandpaper, a brush, some thick card and an embossing machine. And a Cricut would be helpful too.
Here are the instructions for making this tag:
Firstly, make your embossing template. Neil used a Cricut machine with the Opposites Attract cartridge to cut out his lettering. Any die cut system with regular alphabets will work. Cut out enough letters to make a thick template, two to three card thicknesses high. Stick them in layers onto a tag. Two layers of 300gsm card seemed to work well.
The idea is that this is thick enough to leave an impression on the tag you’re working on, but not so thick that you risk tearing it when you emboss it.
If in doubt, start with a couple of layers and then see how well it embosses.
You will probably need to put the tag you’re working on face-down on the soft embossing mat, then the embossing template with your text on face-down on top of that, and then the hard layer of the embossing sandwich. Follow the instructions for your machine, and test on scrap tags/paper first.
Now it’s time to work on the actual tag. First, coat the tag in a layer of white gesso and allow to dry. This seals the card, and allows following layers to work. White acrylic paint should do the same job. Now emboss your undercoated tag. Next apply some distress inks in complimentary colours to get a mottled effect. Use a darker colour where the text will be.
Dry the distress ink thoroughly before using fine sandpaper to rub back to the white layer – if you are careful, the lettering should highlight. If you press too hard, the embossing will flatten – if this is the case, then place your embossing template under again and rub against that. Use a distress tool on the edges of the tags to roughen them up a bit. Set aside.
Next, punch out some daisies in two sizes – roughly 11/2 in and 1 in diameter. You will need half a large and one small per snowdrop. Using the photo as a guide, cut each daisy in half (between the petals). Colour the tips of each of the small daisy petals in green, on both sides. Fold the edge petals over the inner petals until you have ‘bunny ears’. Unfold.
This stage is the most fiddly bit. You are aiming to make a cone where two of the petals are stuck together, making a little three petalled propellor shape. Put glue on the top of the first petal, and curl this round and under the last petal and stick it down. Do this for all of the flower pieces, large and small. You may find that tweezers are helpful to get into the tip of the cone and hold the petals together while the glue is setting.
Assemble the snowdrop by using a good fast drying glue. Put a small drop of glue into the inside of the large cone and push in a small cone (with the green tips). Add another drop of glue into that cone and then stick the last of the small cones in, making sure the petals are rotated to fill in the gaps of the other cone. Set aside to dry.
Colour up a piece of white card with a combination of Forest Moss and Pine Needles Distress Inks. Use an applicator tool or a piece of cut and dry foam to swirl the colour on, and aim to get a dark mottled effect. Allow to dry. Cut out the leaves and stalks and stick to your tag with glue. Neil also cut out small quadrants to curl into cones which he then stuck onto the snowdrops, before sticking them to the tag.
