Brighten Your Holiday Season With Fun & Festive Nutcracker Sweet Tags!

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 

Nutcracker Sweet  8 x 8 papers Gingerbread Delights, Enchanted Journey, Nutcracker Suite 

Nutcracker Sweet  Chipboard Pieces

Nutcracker Sweet Alphabet Stickers 

Nutcracker Sweet Sticker Sheet

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 

Art Glitter - gold from a pee wee pot 

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:

Nutcracker sweet 8x8 pad
Holiday magic
Festive fairytale
Enchanted journey
Snowflake waltz
Nutcrkacker sweet stickers
Want2Scrap Big tags
Want2scrap pearls
May Art Ribbon
3D foam

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:

https://www.facebook.com/Graphic45

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

Comments

[Margie Visnick]

Stunning Christmas tags!

[Amy Kluchesky]

Really love the tags.

[Dorothy]

Such beautiful tags!!!

[Sara Nell Langland]

I love these tags! Thanks for the step-by-step, Clare!

[Cherie Gray]

Beautiful tags!!

[Julie Tucker-Wolek]

Wowwwwwwwww!! These are beautiful!! LOVING how the book effect was created on the first one!!!

[Shirley D]

Beautiful tags.

[Cindy Roderique]

Love these tags

[Sharon Young]

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!

[Laurie Laikam]

Love the ballerina-theme Christmas tags. Nice use of 'bling'!

[Gail Elizabeth]

Beautiful tags!

[Mary Jane]

Alberto's and Clare's tags are wonderful! Thanks for the tutorial it has inspired me to get to work!

[Sue Benedick]

I love tags, the detail in these are amazing. Thanks for sharing.

[Maxine Hodges]

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!

[Kim R]

absolutely gorgeous! The tags are mini gifts themselves.

[Mary]

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!!!

[Athanasia]

Amazing tags!!!!!!!!!!!!
They are mini gifts themselves!

[Pam Bray]

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

[Geraldine]

very beautiful tags

[Ruth M.]

The just adore the ballerinas. So festive.

[{vicki}]

I LOVE Nutcrackers! I Have a huge collection of them!

[Susan]

these tags are stunning and the Nutcracker Suite is perfect!!

[Rita P.]

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.

[Rebecca Harvey]

First really inspiring tags I've seen for the Season. Beautiful work.

[Lynn Hardy]

These tags are beautiful and I can't wait to get out my nutcracker sweet papers and start creating now!

[Jeniff]

Love the tags, the first one is my favorite.

[Larissa Heskett =)]

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!! =)

[Maureen Collett]

Aren't they just beautiful! And so inspirational!

[kerstin zelmer]

this tags are sooooo beautiful.

[Sleigh]

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!

[Conisu]

Beautiful!! Love the nutcracker!

[Marilyn Hughes]

Gorgeous tags!

[Paula]

Dreamy, just dreamy!

Paula

[Michelle G.]

Amazingly Beautiful Tags! Just gorgeous!

[Brenda Stiltner]

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE todays tags!

I am for sure making the first one.

[ReNae Allen]

Breath taking tags!

[Eugene Bellion]

Great tag ideas, and so easy to do. Can't believe it's almost time for the holidays again...

[maria winspear]

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

[Amy Jones#8546]

These are so beautiful. Love the color too....

[Ramona Walter]

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.