Folded Tag, Candy Cane, Male/Female

It's time for a new Tag You're It challenge, everyone...  and I have a little confession to make!

But before I do that, here's my tag...

... and here's Kara's tag that was used for inspiration this time around.

As for my confession?

I have never heard of, yet alone seen Candy Corn before.  I even double checked with my husband and he didn't have a clue either!  I guess it's just one of those things that hasn't made it over to the UK...  like the MISTI :(

Needless to say my daughter knew exactly what it was (she spends a lot of time online) and proceeded to tell me how it used to be available just for Halloween but now you can have it year 'round...  Is that right my American friends/passers by?

I wonder if you can make your own?

This doesn't tell you how I came up with my design, though, does it?  After all, I'm very aware it looks nothing like the original!

Well firstly, I made the jump from 'Candy Corn' to 'Candy Cane' as they are both edible, sweet and instantly recognisable - allegedly!  

Then I chose to do something I wouldn't normally do - I took a free illustration off the web as I couldn't find a candy cane stamp that I liked...  

Just printing an illustration off the web and sticking it down doesn't sit right with me though, so I printed off two copies, cut the red pieces out of the one, stuck them to the other and then mounted the whole thing onto card and cut it out again!

Then I used a deeper shade of red to colour over the red pieces on the candy cane and added on some extra lines here and there...  just to give it a bit more realism.

Kara's design has a lot of white space, one central image and four colours - if you include the black and white.  

I stuck to this design brief but brought Kara's outside edge pattern to the middle of my design.  The only way to do that without it looking cluttered was to use my Martha Stewart/All Over The Page 'Aspen Flurry' Punch, and then place a piece of black textured card behind.

The Stitched Holly Leaves (Memory Box) were used to bring the colour count back up to four.  Rather than use the berry that came with this set I cut a button from the Poppystamps 'Stitched buttons' die, put some Ranger 'Glossy Accents' on top and used that instead.

If you look really closely, can you see what else I did before gluing down the pieces?

I put my folded tag through my Cuttlebug with my Memory Box 'Shimmer' Stencil to add some subtle extra dimension to my mini make :) 

I'm beginning to realise that I love adding texture to my cards and tags!

Before I use this tag, I may 'bling it up' a little with some Christmas bells or charms.  I couldn't do that today though as Tag You're It is a Clean and Simple challenge!

I wonder what you will do with Kara's design if you chose to play along?

Donna...

PS...  I'm also adding this little tag to Pixie's Crafty Snippets Challenge as the holly, (berry) button and the piece of black backing card were all cut from my snippets collection :)

Hope you have a good weekend...