for the love of gold

did you all have a safe, fun Halloween, i hope?  we had a great time last night and Mr. Bagubian, our little skeleton, had a blast!  i haven't looked at our photos yet to see how they turned out but there were so many people around and we were moving along so fast that we didn't take many until we were back at our friends' house.  by that time, the kiddos were just running around and being silly, but they were definitely keeping the adults entertained.  hopefully, at least a few of the pictures will be worth sharing.  

so remember when you were worried that i had skipped fall to concentrate on Christmas projects?  well, you needn't have been concerned!  to celebrate the first day of November, i have a very autumn-oriented project to share with you.

i have officially been bitten by the GOLD bug!  i'm loving it in my projects right now.  i think it just begs to be used at this time of year whether you're creating fall or Christmas things.  it's warm and shiny and i'm finding it quite a bit in my stash of crafting supplies. 

so with gold on my mind, i set out to make a set of fall-friendship tags.  the inspiration came from wanting to whip up autumn-colored confetti bags.  i mixed together vintage gold sequin stars, yellow, orange, and gold beads, along with gold and chocolate tinsel glitter in a small glassine envelope.  i added a tiny message, like this one that says "amazing you," and stitched it closed with metallic gold thread.

on this first tag, i used a piece of corrugated cardboard as my base.  i knew from the start these would be heavy so i wanted to have something stronger than card stock.  on top of the cardboard i adhered an orange Acorn Avenue tag, a swatch of cream lace, some gorgeous gold striped washi, and a vintage doily that was hand-made by my great-grandmother.  i added the confetti bag, as well as a "hi" brad from On Trend and a wood leaf from Acorn Avenue.

this tag features similar items with the addition of some tulle and messy thread.  i recently purchased a gold leaf pen, after reading this blog post by CP Design Team Coordinator Christine Middlecamp.  had i known it was so easy to use, i would have gotten one long ago!  i painted the wood veneer leaves with the gold leaf and LOVE the way they turned out!

you can see it used here, too.  on the first two tags, i used a cardboard base, but on the last two, i actually chose Crate Paper product packaging.  if you get your hands on some On Trend paper flowers, you'll no doubt notice the backing of the package featuring that beautiful flower illustration.  when i opened the package to use a paper flower on a different project, i was careful to preserve the image for future use.  the front of the package is a clear plastic box and it didn't pull away from the cardboard backing as cleanly as i'd hoped, but i used the gold leaf to fill in the rough white edge.

another hand-made doily, lots of messy thread, and the confetti bag with a vintage flower button, and this tag was complete.  i love that these tags have so much dimension and texture to them.  

for the last tag, the base is from the Acorn Avenue Stand Out Sticker packaging.  i stitched some cream lace to it, attached the confetti bag, and then added part of the On Trend "happy day" garland on top.  the foil chipboard flowers (asterisks) are Thickers from the Sleigh Ride collection.  there are lots of gold bits in these new CP lines!

i secured all of my tags on a binder ring and tied on a couple of different gold ribbons--a thicker twill stripe, and a thin eyelash trim.

 i'm sure that you'll be seeing a lot more gold in my projects this season--i'm so smitten!  have a great Thursday, folks!