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Thursday, February 12, 2009

Puppy Love Tag Swap

So if you've been following my blog, you would know that I was involved in an altered art tag swap for Valentine's Day. The hostess, Karla Nathan, http://www.karlascottage.typepad.com/ chose the theme of "Puppy Love" for our swap. Each of us that joined the swap were to send Karla 6 tags made with this theme. Karla than put together 6 tags from those sent into her to send back to each of us. Karla provided each one of the bundles with one of her own hand created tags to act as a cover for each of the participants swapped tags.
This is the lovely bundle of tags I received.


Of course, Karla had the packages each prettied up with embellishments and paper goods. Thank you Karla for your extra goodies and for the beautiful tag cover and items you sent.

This is the front of my book cover from Karla. I'm sure it was made with vintage red flocked wallpaper. Love it! The cute puppy heart is a wooden heart that she's embellished. My tag had this adorable black Scottie dog on it as well as the glass blue heart. Lovely!

This is the back side of Karla's tag cover she made for my bundle.

Tag 1: was created by Susan Goffman.
It has beautiful soft coral and gray tones and has a coral flower added to it, as well as layers of artwork with this adorable young couple. I love the silver glitter she chose to use, as well as the petite ivory trim she used on the bottom really make a statement. Love the vintage music in the background of this tag.
Thank you Susan!

Tag 2: was created by Carla Fisch @ http://www.myvintagevignettes.blogspot.com/ .
I went onto her blog to thank her for my tag and while there I had the fun of reading her blog post describing how she made her 6 tags. She chose to make all 6 identical, which is a smart thing to do, as I had some trouble getting inspired to make 6 totally different one. Five other lucky woman got this adorable tag as well as me. The soft pink and soft gold with the adorable puppy makes a great tag. The tambourine on this pup used to have advertising and Carla carefully cut away the circle, than put in a see through covering and added punched out colored hearts behind the see through vellum. She also sewed on gold sequins and seed beads to make the tambourine jingles on this tag. It's all in the details!
Thank you Carla!
Tag 3: was created by Tiffany @ http://www.shabbyscrapsboutique.com/ .
This tag really has a lot of details, and is teaching me so much about layering while making tags. She has the tiniest pale pink gingham background on the top 1/3 of the tag, with a small print on the bottom portion. It looks as though she's in a room inside a home. The little girl is adorable w/flowers off to the right of where she's standing with a cute verse added to the bottom. Tiffany cut out words that she glued on over these layers, and added the B2 bingo piece for some 3 dimensional effect. There is glitter added to strategic areas on the tag as well as the in the rose flower pot the little girl is carrying.
Thank you Tiffany!
Tag #4: was created by Karoline Simmons @ http://www.cherishedvintageblogspot.com/ .
It appears as though she started with a soft feminine rose floral background of some scrap booking papers, than used pink stick on sequins to add accents, precious millinery type white flowers and tiny pink ball fringe on the bottom. She used crepe paper to make a rosette background and than has a puppy and a boy/girl Be My Valentine layered on top of that.
Thank you Karoline!
Tag #5: was created by Brenda Romine.
Her tag is very different from the other, but very cool. I love the "time worn" appearance that this tag was given. It looks like it could of been around for centuries, and I love that look. I again am learning so much from all of these tags, as I study each of the tags I would definitely do my tags different another time. This tag has many layers of build up using papers and than inking the edges for that time worn feel. She accented it with some excelsior paper strands and a vintage white button. The little girl holding the puppy and the words "Sweet Love" make this a wonderful tag.
Thank you Brenda!
Tag #6: was created by Shelia Rumeney @ http://www.blessedanddistressed.blogspot.com/ .
It appears that Shelia may have used wallpaper on the backside to add firmness to her tag, as well as tag board and the front side has newspaper print. She has added pink paint streaks and brown ink to the print to make it have a time worn feel. She then added a larger pink paper flower which she antiqued as well and added glitter to. I love this treatment! She has a very cool vintage card of a "Young Love" couple that looks very cool and it has been raised up to with foam dots to give it dimension. Cool technique as well. She has 3 mother of pearl buttons along the bottom, as well as chocolate brown velvet trim and some ivory lace.
Thank you Shelia!

So, my daughter, Emily, asked me "what are you going to do with these tags, Mom?"
My answer, "look at them, admire them, and enjoy them."
Thanks Karla, and thank you to my six tag swappers.




13 comments:

  1. I'm glad you enjoyed your book! It was such a fun swap. I'll do a post with all the links as soon as more people show their books.

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  2. Gretchen, I'm so glad I got to meet you and discover your blog through this swap. I hope to post the tags I received this weekend. Thanks for all of your nice comment about mine. Your jewelry designs are wonderful.

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  3. Looks like you got some great tags! What a great swap!

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  4. I am so glad you like the tag that I made. It is a picture of my beloved MaMa and PaPa when they were in high school. I am so glad you commented on my blog so I could find yours. I love all your jewelry. Do you have a shop?

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  5. Hi Gretchen, Thank you for Stopping into my Blog! Your Work is Beautiful! Im off to look around more. Nice to meet another Jewelry Creator. Jamie

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  6. Those are adorable tags! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog. I wanted to tell you after reading you post on my blog I ran right over to Lowes and got my Junk Beautiful Magazine! I am loving it.... I have not watched the dvd yet but plan on doing so today. tootles for now, Janna

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  7. I'm visiting the blogs that are displaying the puppy love tags.....I'm curious how they turned out!

    Every set that I've looked at is amazing. They are all beautiful!

    I participated in it, as well. I was delighted with the set I received. A true treasure for many Valentine's Days to come!

    Blessings-

    Christa
    Chloe Rose

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  8. Gretchen, I stopped in to see your Puppy Love tag book, which is wonderful, btw, and discovered your absolutely fabulous jewelry! WOW! I love old buttons and have way more than a person needs, so it is always fun to see ways to use them aside from clothing. I look forward to visiting often.
    ~Marilee

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  9. Hi Gretchen~
    I wanted to stop by to let you know that I received one of your Puppy Love tags and it is so sweet it! Thank you very much!
    It looks like you received a lot of lovely tags too--this was a fun swap wasn't it?

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  10. Hi Gretchen!
    Thanks for stopping by! I love all the tags you got too! It was such a fun creative swap to be a part of! I got one from Shabby Scraps too! Love her work!
    I'm off to explore more of your blog!
    Robin

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  11. whoops! I included the wrong link to my comment! Here is the right one!
    Robin

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  12. Hi Gretchen!
    I'm happy you like the tag I made. This was my first time doing a swap like this. It was so much fun!!! Your tag book is wonderful.
    -Karoline

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  13. It's so fun to see one of my tags on a blog! I'm so glad I followed the puppy love link here, as it led me to your amazing jewelry!

    SusanG

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