Guest Designer: Jayne Nelson

Hi everyone! I am so honored to be sharing several of my projects on the Altenew blog today! One of my favorite things to make and give are small gift bags for birthdays, holidays, thank-yous and party favors. The bags are perfect for giving candy, gift cards, jewelry, or small toys and a delightful way to let someone know that you are thinking of them. I've used many of the beautiful Altenew stamp sets to create a collection of these bags.

This bag features a background that I created by repeatedly stamping a diamond shape from Simple Shapes in four different colors of ink. I love how easy it is to create modern and graphic patterns with these stamps. I created a tag that I stamped with the wonderful giraffe and fun sentiment from Geometric Menagerie. I'm going to make several of these bags to give to a few special trick-or-treaters!

On this birthday bag, I first stamped the two-colored background pattern using several building stamps from Modern Beadwork. The pattern was very easy to create with these thoughtful stamps. I added a tag that I randomly stamped with the beautiful, multi-layered flowers from Painted Flowers, and then I added a small vellum tag with a birthday sentiment from Persian Motifs. I finished the card with several leaves and gems.

I used stamps from three Altenew stamp sets to create this fall-themed gift bag. I stamped the large Surprise! sentiment from Birthday Bash in rows across the bag to create a monochromatic background. Several of the graphic stamps in Dodecagram reminded me of wreaths, so I stamped a pair of these images on a long tag and embellished them with buttons. I finished the bag with a birthday sentiment from Shadow Play. By merely changing the sentiments, I could create bags to place at each place setting on the table at Thanksgiving.

To create this floral, birthday bag, I stamped a muted, sentiment background by repeatedly stamping the Happy Birthday sentiment from Label Love down the bag front. Then, I stamped one of the gorgeous flowers from Persian Motifs three times and colored each flower with markers. To complete the card, I stamped, trimmed, and popped the same Label Love birthday sentiment in a matching color. I couldn't resist adding a bow to this feminine design.

This card features the amazing lace stamp from Lace Up. To create a striking black and white design, I embossed the lace stamp in white on a black bag. I stamped the lace three more times on white cardstock, colored a portion of each image with markers, and then fussy cut and mounted these colored pieces to the bag. I embossed the birthday sentiment from Shadow Play in white on a piece of vellum which I folded over the top of the bag and secured with a bow. I can easily remove or change this sentiment if I decide to use this bag for another occasion.