For what it’s worth, even I struggle with adding bold colors to my projects. But I’m okay with that. 

Every once in a while, I try a project with lots of bold colors and I’m just not always as happy with those projects. If find that I’m more confident in my creating when I stick to no more than three colors. And I find that I always love my projects that are pastel or monochromatic just a little more—and it seems that many of you love these projects as well. 

And I think I’ve hit my stride with “my style.” But that doesn’t mean I have thrown experimenting with styles I’m not as comfortable with out the window. The point of creating is to experiment and to at least try. So while I share this monochromatic trio of tags with you today, know that I’ll never give up on experimenting and getting out of my comfort zone. 

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s get to what you probably came here for—a tutorial! There isn’t too much to this one as the tags are simple in and of themselves, but I’ll share some of my process of selecting papers and colors for this project.

I wanted an easy mixed media background and sometimes the easiest is to pick a pattern paper that looks like mixed media. That kind of look is why I instantly fell in love with 49 & Market’s Spectrum Sherbet collection. I selected a sheet that had several hues on it and then cut some rectangles with my trimmer. I cut the rectangles to a width that would give me a monochromatic background for each—one in teal, one in aqua and one in pink. I trimmed the corners on one side to shape them like a tag and punched a hole in each. For texture, I distressed the edges.

For the florals, I choose some coordinating papers from the collection. I wanted them to stand out against the colorful backgrounds so I chose a paper that was mostly white with dots of color. I also selected some more solid color backgrounds to cut the flowers and butterflies from. I cut out one of each stem from Spellbinders new Sealed Wildflowers die set for each tag and glued the layers together with a liquid adhesive. The butterflies came from the Butterfly Burst die set. 

To assemble the tags, I bunched the flowers and leaves  together in a nice way and then held them in place on the tags with some low tack mint tape. I then added stitching to hold the stems in place and removed the tape. If after adding the stitching, some of the stems felt a little loose, I added a small dot of liquid adhesive to make sure it didn’t fall off the tag. 

The butterflies got added on with a little bit of 1/8 foam adhesive. I also stamped out a sentiment from the Wordfetti Best Day Ever stamp set in a coordinating Distress Oxide. I used Peacock Feathers, Salvaged Patina and Kitsch Flamingo. I cut the sentiments into strips with a small pair of scissors and distressed the edges. These sentiments also got added with the foam adhesive. I then added a few opal gems to each tag for a bit of bling. 

For the ribbon, I used crinkle ribbon (seam binding), coloring some in coordinating Distress sprays and Mica Stains. I used Peacock Feathers with Frosted Juniper, Salvaged Patina with Shiny Bauble, and Kitsch Flamingo with Cocktail Party. I then bunched the ribbon up and dried it with a heat tool. I doubled up the ribbon and looped it through the top of the tag and then trimmed the tails of the ribbons. 

And that’s it! I really love how this set of tags turned out and I couldn’t think of a better thing to put on a tag then such a pretty set of flowers. Be sure to click the links below to grab your favorite from the new Floral Reflection collection from Spellbinders. Florals are always really popular, so don’t wait to grab your favorites! Until next time, happy crafting!

Adrienne