I want to first off thank anyone who purchased my items at my first craft fair and happened to have taken a card and decided to visit my blog

Technically, it was my first craft fair I attended. My actual first one I got sick the day before so had to give my items to my mother in laws friend and she was gracious enough to sit them out at her table.

I tried to get the pictures off of my phone of my table, but couldn’t find the cable to do so but I can at least show you the sign I had made.

I recommend Vistaprint to everyone out there for great, low cost, yet professional looking vinyl signs. Their small sign was plenty big enough for my table.

In the next couple of days, I’ll be sharing a couple more of the items, that i haven’t shared already, I made for the fair.

Am I going to do another fair?  I think I did this one because it was convienient and low cost. That would be the reason I do it again. For me I don’t want it to be a 2nd job. I enjoy making things and want to make sure it stays that way.

I really liked a pencil holder idea online from this site and this site so thought i’d make a few with some supplies I had already on hand for my upcoming craft fair.

Here are some christmas themed ones.

Here are some jungle animal themed ones. The cute set of erasers I had on hand lent itself to the color scheme and jungle animal type theme.

I prepared my paper holders first, cut and scored to the correct dimensions with the double sided sticky tape already on them.  For me this seems to work better for a more efficient assembly line. Here you can see the set of 4 erasers.

I didn’t have an appropriate stamp that seemed to tie into this theme, so I thought to make the holders more interesting, I’d emboss the bottoms. Spots and Dots Embossing Folder seemed the best fit.

I also proceeded to do all of these ahead of time as you can see below. Then I just fit them all together, wrapped a 20 inch or so piece of raffia around and tied it off. Instead of putting the eraser at the bottom, the raffia formed sort of a shelf so the eraser fit nicely at the top and with the tightness of the bag I put them all in, the eraser didn’t move so thought it was perfect that way.

For the christmas ones, I took a snowflake stamp and used my Tim Holtz Distress Ink Barn Door to put red on red hint of a pattern.

I then proceeded to assemble each holder before hand.

I used some 2 inch wide white card stock, and Border Punched with Martha Stewarts Ribbon Loop Border Punch on each side. Then adhered it to the holders. I finished them off with some tied coordinating christmas ribbon and placed a christmas eraser at the bottom.

I was able to do all of these in maybe a couple of hours. Great stocking stuffers, or for a little christmas gift for kids to hand out to their classmates.

I know I know…more gift tags…but I really wanted to share. I think these are quick craft fair items that I thought i’d make a few to see how they do at my first craft fair in a couple of weeks. I’m going to package 6 in a cello bag and sell them 6 for $1.00.

Angel with trumpet on kraft paper with white embossing powder

Fancy Ornament on Pink Paper with White Glitter Embossing Powder

Noel on Kraft Paper with Tim Holtz Distress Ink Walnut Stain Sponged over for Texture with Gold Embossing Powder

Merry Christmas on Kraft Paper with White Embossing Powder

Angel with Trumpet on Kraft Paper with Bronze Embossing Powder

Snowflake on Lime Green Paper with Bronze Embossing Powder

Peace on Christmas Green Paper with Gold Embossing Powder

Noel on Red Paper with White Embossing Powder

Okay I swear that is all the gift tag posts I’ll make! 

More craft fair item posts coming this weekend for certain…hope to get a lot done Friday night if time allows.

See yesterday’s post as to why this is a take two for making gift tags.

Michaels was having a lowest prices of the season sale so while I was there getting some extra yarn for craft fair scarves and christmas present scarves (yes more scarf posts ARE in the near future), I picked up a bottle of white fine embossing powder.

This is what embossing is ‘supposed’ to look like!

Some are a bit imperfect, but 3 out of these 4 isn’t bad!  I think this batch I would be proud to display on my craft table.

By the way, the embossing powder I used yesterday was ultra thick embossing powder. It was only after I read the label today on them that I realized that ‘gloppy’ look is a normal, wanted result using that kind of powder.  So I realized that would be good for a deboss effect which I will try as well and post the results. 

The punch I used for these tags is made by EK Success called ‘Real Estate’.

4 down…only 50 or more to go ! 

I post my successes but I also don’t mind posting my semi-failures and first try results with techniques. So here it goes.

I’m getting ready for my first ever craft fair so I’m pretty excited and nervous at the same time.

I had an idea to make sets of christmas gift tags to sell. I originally thought i’d just stamp some christmas phrases on each one but I had an inkling to try out for the first time ever (gasp!) embossing powder and my heat gun. The results are mixed and I think I figured out why. So my findings may help someone else out there.

To be honest, unless I’m being to hard on myself…they look better in these photos than in person. I know embossing has  been around FOREVER, but I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to deal with the mess. However, after finding some inexpensive embossing powder (yard sales and on sale) and a heat gun (7 bucks at a yard sale!)  I figured it was fates hand forcing me to give it a try. I find myself definetly becoming addicted to the results. It’s really pretty when done well.

I think my main issue with the ‘gloppy’ look, is my embossing powder is too thick. It isn’t the fine kind. Also for more intricate stamps, the fine I think works better.

You’ll notice this if you compare the ‘Warm Holiday Wishes’ in the fine white glitter emboss below vs. the first picture where the ‘warm wishes’ is in gold. The white, although sloppy with some stray powder  it’s much easier to read than the gold.

In the photo above, you can see the noel is very gloppy. That I’m assuming is because the gold is just so thick it may work on less intricate stamps.  Then in the lower left, I tried a deboss effect. I think though I needed to put more coats on to get the deboss effect. I only used 2 coats. Then stamped in blue the word peace.

Also, afraid of burning my work mat, I used my ironing board.

Here is a tip on cutting the strings for gift tags:

Take a piece of chipboard that is maybe 3 or 4 inches tall and start winding what your using for the string, around it like so.

Then hold your threads at the top, take some scissors, and snip through just the bottom threads to cut them in half.

As you can see, I now have even pieces of  gold string to use for the gift tags.

I used kraft paper for these below, but the variations of dark brown, is me taking a small dauber and rubbing some Tim Holtz Distress Ink Walnut Stain over the gold emboss, and edges. This made the gold stand out I think and helped the look a bit.

I’m still not sold on these and I don’t want to put anything up for sale that I’m not 100% happy with so I think I’ll put these away and move onto another item planned, then come back with a fresh pair of eyes and see if I think differently about them.

Any suggestions are appreciated.