Welcome to our third week of Doodle December!
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In this series, I share with you a new personalized holiday gift tag that you can make at home. Use the same designs that you see here, or branch out and come up with something of your own, inspired by our December Doodles. Each week my inspiration comes from one of the newest videos available on how to zen doodle or tangle, such as Tiffany Lovering’s Tangle Love Workshop: Doodled Pattern Projects. I was honored to co-host this with Tiffany. In this video, she teaches a variety of ways to take your doodles off the page to create fun projects.
For each of my DIY gift tags, I thought about what my favorite holiday symbols are: Christmas trees, candles, snowmen (this design is coming up next!), and ornaments. I’m obsessed with ornaments because they’re so beautiful and eclectic. Since the most common shape is a circle, it made perfect sense to incorporate circles into these homemade holiday gift tags.
Before we get started, note that you can get these blank tags at the Interweave store in red, green, and white, as well as the Micron pens I used.
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1. I used a circle template to draw the large circles, which symbolize the ornaments, and filled in the surrounding space with smaller hand-drawn circles. I immediately designated two of the circles for the “To” and “From,” so I wouldn’t get overzealous and doodle within all of them. I gave those two circles a little flower power around their edges, adding a petal-like design. I then started my official tangles (which I learned from Tiffany) within the remaining large circles.
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2. I added detail to the edges of the “To” and “From” circles, and began to complete the doodle pattern within the ornaments. I've used a Micron 08 for everything so far, except for the tiny circles lining the doodle’s “stars,” for which I used a Micron 01.
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3. This is where the fun started—I filled in all the extra blank space with tiny circles, using the Micron 01 again. If I could change anything, I would’ve added little hooks to the tops of the ornaments, and made the four ornaments either very different or all the same. What do you think? What would you have done differently? (Comment below.) Stay tuned—next up is my friendly snowman. In the meantime, check out Tiffany’s Tangle Love Workshop: Doodled Pattern Projects and get your set of tags and pens today. Merrily yours,
P.S.
Our site is experiencing a little technical issue, so I'm unable to post a comment below, but I'd like to respond to MaryLizzy, who had a great question. 🙂 MaryLizzy, one could also ask why we create any art at all? Maybe these tags would be reserved for friends/family who fully appreciate them, as opposed to those who would just toss them. I like to make others feel special, and putting a personal touch on things like gift tags, cards, and envelopes lets the recipient know that I care enough to take the extra time to decorate them.
Once we create any art and let go of it, the fate of it is out of our control. But I don't think that should stop us from creating/making/expressing/drawing/etc. Just my humble opinion… 🙂