The elf - that would be me - is hard at work

Scenes from the studio in recent weeks, as holiday production geared up ...

It might look like a mess to you, but I call it production!
Various greeting cards fresh off the printer, waiting to be
gathered up, cut, folded, packaged and labeled. Newest
Christmas one - Season's Greetings from Cincinnati - at bottom. 

My first attempt at glass ornaments. My studio home
- Brazee Street Studios - houses a glass school.
On Monday, all Brazee artists were invited to try their hand
at making a trio of ornaments. Different shapes were available
but I stuck with circles. These are pretty rudimentary, but I
enjoyed making them under the guidance of Leah Busch,
who has to be the MOST patient woman in the universe.

My studio tree. It's a work in progress,
and is hung with collages - tags,
ornaments, etc. - that are for sale.
I stuck my glass ornaments on it, too,

Collage tags featuring vintage Santa images
from my Santa card collection (yes, I have one).
Most have been sold, or are for sale at
Nvision in Northside. Hope to whip up more
when I hit the studio today. 

The holiday Tinys - my new line of
petite gift enclosure cards. This side
of the rack is all Santa, but there
are plenty of other designs,
including non-holiday
(see earlier post). 

Tied to the past

The gift tags above were created years ago by my late Mom. So long ago, in fact, that they are now vintage.

I've written before about my mom's innate craftiness, and it's lasting impact on me. One of her many projects was recycling holiday cards as gift tags. She needed a lot, because we had such a large immediate family - seven children - and extended family.

I found these in the garage of my parent's house. We are preparing to sell it, because our dad - now 86.5 years old - is in assisted living. My brothers have been remodeling the house for the past year, and stashed most of my parents' belongings in storage. But a cache of photos, ephemera  and craft supplies were still in the garage. My youngest sister, Helen, and I were sorting through it all when I found these.

I actually still have the tags that my mom wrote for Christmas gifts that she bought, and wrapped, for my family before her death, which was 11 days before Christmas. They are tucked away in a box.

As for these, it's tempting to use them on my "Fit to Be Tied" holiday collage tag line. But a more meaningful re-use would be attaching them - as is - to family gifts. So, that's what I plan to do.

Tag mania! Holiday style.

Just finishing a couple dozen holiday collage tags. This morning, I'll seal, trim and punch them, then, add hand-colored reinforcements and vintage seam binding for the ties. The images - all the original paper, as always - run the gamut, from the Victorian era through the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

I used vintage greeting cards, antique postcards, recycled grocery bags (Trader Joe's shoppers will recognize the woman on the bottom left from the store's holiday bag), vintage Christmas seals, antique and vintage sheet music, vintage sewing pattern illustrations, snowflakes punched from old greeting cards, antique endpaper, recycled wrapping paper (yes, I save all the bits and pieces leftover from wrapping).

They are glued onto recycled manila folders and coasters (the large round ones are the end of a lot of letterpress coasters I bought years ago to use as tags but didn't).

Northside's NVision - newly expanded - will get a batch on Thursday, the rest will be in the studio for my Friday and Saturday Holiday Open Studio.