Harvinaisen Kaunis Elämä: 12 Days of Holidays with Prima and Finnabair

Hello Prima and Finnabair friends,

I made vintage themed Christmas or Holidays tags that are easy and quick to create, with a cup of coffee and some Holiday cheer.

I used Prima’s Memory Hardware self-adhesive chipboard tags, but you could also create ATCs or greeting cards, if you like. Also, as it is 6^th December and we celebrate the Independence Day here in Finland, I wanted my tags to be very Finnish vintage ones, but you could use Prima scrapbook paper and ephemera, and even soft pastels if you like. The idea is the same!

Here’s how I did it.

First, I took the protecting layer off from the tag and pressed a vintage book sheet onto the tag and cut it to the right size. Next, I added a lovely dimensional layer with Finnabair Irish Tapestry Stencil and Modeling Paste, and let it dry properly. The wonderful Icing Pastes in colours of Gold, Silver, or Pearly White would go perfectly with the festive theme, too, but I wanted my layer to be subtle, vintage looking one. (If you don’t have any stencils or pastes, you can skip this part, of course.)

After the paste had dried completely, I added a thin layer of white Heavy Gesso to the tag. This is for priming purposes, but also for making the background to be a bit softer looking and the vintage text not so visible. (The book I took the page from, was about the love life of lobsters in the 1880’s, after all.)

A word about the priming just in case if you are not familiar with gesso. If you are using scrapbook paper and your colour theme would be pastels or other soft, clear colours, you might not need this part at all, especially if you are not going to add paint over the tag. But as I am using vintage paper that is a bit fragile and will absorb everything immediately, I wanted to prime it. A layer of gesso will make sure that I can control how the paint will react with the background I am painting. You don’t need a thick layer of gesso, just a thin coat will do. (If you watch the tutorial video about these tags, you can see it: I painted one tag without priming it with gesso and two with gesso, and the result underlines my point very, very clearly.)

After letting the gesso dry, I mixed Finnabair Impasto paints Pitch Black and Dark Chocolate to create a vintage looking, dark and warm brown, and with a very wet mix and a very wet brush, painted the tag all over, and then wiped most off with a baby wipe. This step makes the stencil pattern to rise up from the background so, so prettily, and makes the whole tag look lovely vintage.

Next step was the fun decorating part. I used Finnish vintage papers (printed versions), with coffee dyed doilies, and botanically dyed lace, but the choices are endless. You could use die cuts, ephemera, trinkets… I attached the papers with two sided 3D tape and glue.

As the final touch, I added some Finnabair Golden Dragon Effect Paste here and there, with Vintage Gold Metallique Wax around the edges, and sprinkled some Impasto Snow White paint all over the tag.

Here’s the link to my tutorial video: https://youtu.be/g1n9DwmWF9Q