
Hello G45ers,
It's another gorgeous day here at the Graphic 45 blog! We want to welcome you all to today's special blog as we feature some stunning Nutcracker Sweet tags! Clare Charville and Alberto Juarez have created the most enchanting tags that are sure to warm your heart! There's even a super fun tutorial by Clare that's filled with great techniques for creating beautiful tags! Indeed, today is going to be stupendous! With the holiday season just around the corner, now is a great time to start thinking about holiday crafting. Tags are incredibly fun to make and have so many uses! You can incorporate them into your holiday home decor, string them together on some beautiful ribbon to create a festive banner, give them in place of cards, or add some extra pizazz to holiday gift wrapping! The list goes on and on! The Graphic 45 Nutcracker Sweet collection is just perfect for creating unique and gorgeous tags! There are so many vibrant colors and remarkable designs that give you a huge variety of creative options! Take a look at today's amazing tag creations and imagine what kinds of tags you'd like to create this holiday season!

This first incredible tag was created by Clare Charvill. She definitely captured all the joy of the holiday season in this lovely tag. Clare layered the beautiful Nutcracker Sweet papers and added some lovely inking and glossy accents to give this tag a whimsical holiday look. Follow her fun and informative tutorial to create one of your very own! Take it away, Clare!

Supplies:
Graphic 45 Supplies
Staples Packaging
Staples Metal Hinge
Other Supplies
Distress Inks Vintage Photo, Dusty Concord, Fired Brick and Forest Moss
Tacky Glue & Glossy Accents
Foam Tape & Double sided tape
White Vintage Seam Binding
Red Gem from own supplies
I'm starting to make tags for Christmas presents early this year,
which is unusual for me :-) but I'm determined to be organised ahead of
Dec 1st lol!! Here's how I made the tag. I took a piece of 2mm chipboard and cut it at 4" x
8",. To get the shape at the top of the tag I drew around the top of a Graphic 45 staples packaging and then trimmed the top of the chip
board into shape. Then I painted all around the edges on both sides of
the tag with white gesso. When that was dry I over painted it with Red
Pepper acrylic dabber and left it to dry completely.


From 8 x 8 Enchanted
Journey I cut out two pieces. the first 3 3/4" x 7 3/4" for the front of
the tag which I trimmed at the top using the staples packaging, and the
second 6 1/4" x 3 3/4" for the back of the tag. From the 8 x 8
Gingerbread Delights paper I cut a piece at 3 3/4" x 4 1/4". Then I
inked the edges of all three pieces with vintage photo distress ink and
using double sided tape stuck the large enchanted journey piece to the
front of the tag, the Gingerbread Delight paper over the top so that the
bottom edge stopped 1 3/4" short of the bottom of the tag. I stuck the
remaining piece of Enchanted Journey onto the back of the tag with a
1/4" border at the sides and bottom.

Next I cut out the two book pages
as one piece from the top of the 8 x 8 Festive Fairytale paper,(cutting
along the edge of the cream outline), and then I cut along the top and
bottom green edges of the border that runs across the page. I used the
reverse side which is green and cut it into two strips, each 3 3/4"
long. Lastly I cut out the large nutcracker soldier from the 8 x 8
Nutcracker Sweet paper. I inked the edges of all of these pieces with
vintage photo distress ink.
Then continuing on the front of
the tag I stuck one green border over the top of the Gingerbread Delight
paper and the other across the bottom of the tag, leaving a 1/4" red
border across the bottom. Next I folded the book pages in half, curled
the left hand one over a paint brush to give it an arched look, and then
did the same with the bottom right hand corner so it curled under.
I stuck the Christmas Wish sticker
from the sticker sheet in the bottom left hand corner of the tag, a
corner sticker in the bottom right hand corner and then stuck the book
pages down at an angle across the centre of the tag, putting tacky glue
in the middle of the back of the right hand page, and the bottom left
hand corner of the left hand page. I held the glued pages in place
until the glue started to dry.
Then I took a staples hinge, a
chip board tab (foam tape on the back) and two alpha stickers (foam tape
on the back) and added them to the tag as shown
I sprayed three pieces of white vintage seam binding
with water and stained each one a different colour using dusty
concord, fired brick and forest moss distress inks. I crumpled each
piece up one by one. and held it in place with tweezers while I dried it
with my heat gun. Then I punched a hole in the top of the tag,
threaded the seam binding through, tied it in a loose knot, trimmed all
the ends and stuck them down with a little tacky glue.
Lastly I stuck the nut
cracker in place using foam tape then I put fine lines of glossy accents
on the band across his hat, his shoulder tassel's, buckle and button
trim and sprinkled some gold art glitter over them. I stuck a red gem
to his hat too. When dry I put glossy accents on his boots and set
aside to dry.
The I turned the tag over to finish off the back. I
cut the top 1 3/4" off the staples packaging I'd used as a template and
stuck it to the top of the tag. The I cut a strip of the red
border from the 8 x 8 Nutcracker Suite paper , keeping the red and green
edging along the top of the strip. I stuck it down so it covered the
join between paper and packaging. Lastly I cut a piece of cream card 4" x
1 3/4", inked the edges with Vintage photo Distress ink, and added a
tiny strip of the red/green border cut off the bottom of the red word
strip I'd just stuck down, and stuck the card onto the tag slightly off
centre.
I hope you enjoy following along if you make this tag your self and happy paper crafting.
Next we have three magical tag creations by Alberto Juarez! These Nutcracker Sweet tags are fun and easy to make! Alberto did a lot of fussy cutting and paper layering in each of these tags. You can see the brilliant results of these simple techniques! Check out these three unique designs and get inspired to create some Nutcracker Sweet tags this holiday season!
"I made these tags inspired by snowflakes. The dancers in the Nutcracker ballet represent snowflakes and it is one of the things that I like so I created these tags for Christmas. This is a clean and simple project, really easy. You only need Graphic 45 paper and some good scissors." -Alberto Juarez
Supplies:
Wow, wasn't that great, G45ers?! We wanted to make a quick special announcement! We just recently hit a milestone with 15,000 Facebook fans! Wow! We are so excited and we wanted to say a special thank you to all of our Facebook fans. We are giving away three big prize packs everyday from Tuesday-Saturday! We are choosing three winners each day from our Facebook fans. These prizes are out of this world so definitely stay tuned to our Facebook page for more details on how you could win an awesome Graphic 45 prize! Thank you again, G45ers, for all of your amazing support of Graphic 45! We are so honored!
Graphic 45 Facebook:
We want to thank you all for stopping by the Graphic 45 blog today. We hope today's crafts helped bring some joy to your day. Big thanks to Clare Charvill and Alberto Juarez for their masterful work! There are more fabulous crafts and inspiration to share with you all this week. We hope you'll come back and see us tomorrow for more fabulous crafting ideas! Have a glorious day, G45ers!
Your Pals in Paper,
Team Graphic 45
Stunning Christmas tags!
Posted by: Margie Visnick | October 24, 2012 at 05:07 AM
Really love the tags.
Posted by: Amy Kluchesky | October 24, 2012 at 05:20 AM
Such beautiful tags!!!
Posted by: Dorothy | October 24, 2012 at 05:22 AM
I love these tags! Thanks for the step-by-step, Clare!
Posted by: Sara Nell Langland | October 24, 2012 at 05:26 AM
Beautiful tags!!
Posted by: Cherie Gray | October 24, 2012 at 05:35 AM
Wowwwwwwwww!! These are beautiful!! LOVING how the book effect was created on the first one!!!
Posted by: Julie Tucker-Wolek | October 24, 2012 at 05:40 AM
Beautiful tags.
Posted by: Shirley D | October 24, 2012 at 05:48 AM
Love these tags
Posted by: Cindy Roderique | October 24, 2012 at 05:52 AM
Wow, the tags are so festive. Thanks Clare for the tutorial. Alberto your fussy cutting and layering are excellent. Congrats G45 on the 15,000 on FB!
Posted by: Sharon Young | October 24, 2012 at 05:54 AM
Love the ballerina-theme Christmas tags. Nice use of 'bling'!
Posted by: Laurie Laikam | October 24, 2012 at 06:01 AM
Beautiful tags!
Posted by: Gail Elizabeth | October 24, 2012 at 06:24 AM
Alberto's and Clare's tags are wonderful! Thanks for the tutorial it has inspired me to get to work!
Posted by: Mary Jane | October 24, 2012 at 06:24 AM
I love tags, the detail in these are amazing. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Sue Benedick | October 24, 2012 at 06:25 AM
Those are beautiful tags that I definetely plan to scraplift! I had just made pages and cards with this line, but these tags are wonderful!
Posted by: Maxine Hodges | October 24, 2012 at 06:26 AM
absolutely gorgeous! The tags are mini gifts themselves.
Posted by: Kim R | October 24, 2012 at 06:35 AM
Gorgeous tags!!..I so love Clare's work. I am a huge fan of hers. I do so love all the projects today.Very inspiring!!!
Posted by: Mary | October 24, 2012 at 06:37 AM
Amazing tags!!!!!!!!!!!!
They are mini gifts themselves!
Posted by: Athanasia | October 24, 2012 at 07:03 AM
Wow, fabulous tags, I love to fussy cut and just love all of the dimension that was done doing it on the tags today. TFS
Posted by: Pam Bray | October 24, 2012 at 07:03 AM
very beautiful tags
Posted by: Geraldine | October 24, 2012 at 07:05 AM
The just adore the ballerinas. So festive.
Posted by: Ruth M. | October 24, 2012 at 07:14 AM
I LOVE Nutcrackers! I Have a huge collection of them!
Posted by: {vicki} | October 24, 2012 at 07:19 AM
these tags are stunning and the Nutcracker Suite is perfect!!
Posted by: Susan | October 24, 2012 at 07:21 AM
Love the color of the ribbons on Clare's tag--thanks for sharing the details in creating that one. Alberto's tags are so fun--his vision of making the ballerinas the snowflakes is beautiful--I can see it so clearly. I make tags when I want to create but am stuck on what to create. These are really lovely.
Posted by: Rita P. | October 24, 2012 at 07:24 AM
First really inspiring tags I've seen for the Season. Beautiful work.
Posted by: Rebecca Harvey | October 24, 2012 at 07:28 AM
These tags are beautiful and I can't wait to get out my nutcracker sweet papers and start creating now!
Posted by: Lynn Hardy | October 24, 2012 at 07:34 AM
Love the tags, the first one is my favorite.
Posted by: Jeniff | October 24, 2012 at 07:49 AM
WOW!! I LOVE the creations!! Such AMAZING images~the Drummer Boy and Ice Skaters are too PERFECT!! THANKS for sharing and CONGRATS on the HUGE Facebook Fan GOAL!! AWESOME!! THANKS also for all of the chances to win!! Have a FABULOUS WEEK!! =)
Posted by: Larissa Heskett =) | October 24, 2012 at 07:52 AM
Aren't they just beautiful! And so inspirational!
Posted by: Maureen Collett | October 24, 2012 at 08:02 AM
this tags are sooooo beautiful.
Posted by: kerstin zelmer | October 24, 2012 at 08:08 AM
Today's tags are GORGEOUS! They are great little gifts in themselves. My niece, now 12 almost 13 would luv Alberto's tags as she is our ballerina in the family!
Posted by: Sleigh | October 24, 2012 at 08:09 AM
Beautiful!! Love the nutcracker!
Posted by: Conisu | October 24, 2012 at 08:09 AM
Gorgeous tags!
Posted by: Marilyn Hughes | October 24, 2012 at 08:13 AM
Dreamy, just dreamy!
Paula
Posted by: Paula | October 24, 2012 at 08:15 AM
Amazingly Beautiful Tags! Just gorgeous!
Posted by: Michelle G. | October 24, 2012 at 08:18 AM
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE todays tags!
I am for sure making the first one.
Posted by: Brenda Stiltner | October 24, 2012 at 08:25 AM
Breath taking tags!
Posted by: ReNae Allen | October 24, 2012 at 08:26 AM
Great tag ideas, and so easy to do. Can't believe it's almost time for the holidays again...
Posted by: Eugene Bellion | October 24, 2012 at 08:29 AM
there goes C lare again she is great and i loved Jims tags too so different but made beautiful with graphic 45 paper thank you
Posted by: maria winspear | October 24, 2012 at 08:30 AM
These are so beautiful. Love the color too....
Posted by: Amy Jones#8546 | October 24, 2012 at 08:31 AM
All the tags are simply stunning. Thank you Clare for a step by step tutorial. I know some of us will want to copy your wonderful tag.
Posted by: Ramona Walter | October 24, 2012 at 08:58 AM