I am excited to have this entire week off from work and I am hoping I’ll be able to squeeze in some craft time each day.  Good idea, right?!  I have very long “to-do” list that includes a few blog posts, getting caught up on things around the house, hiking Mt. Si, few scrapbook layouts, creating some party decor, enjoying the sun and spending time with the kids.   

Regarding the parties…This upcoming weekend two friends are having birthday parties for their little ones and I am creating some handmade paper decorations.

The the first thing I’d like to share are party favor thank you tags.  As you can see the theme is Ice Cream and the baby girl is turning one year old.   I am so excited to get to make some things for this super cute little girls party & for fun such a fun theme. 

Do you ever use digital paper packs & embellishments? I am very new to making things with digital files. (never even done a digital scrapbook page).  My favorite part about digital is that you can usually download the files straightaway (or they arrive w/in 24 hours) and begin creating.  Not to mention they are super affordable (some shops even do by 2 get 1 free specials).

I found the digital supplies to make the ice cream tags on Etsy (Erin Bradley Designs), the ice cream cones are so adorable that I was instantly inspired to make a ton of things.  

Ice Cream Cones Clip art: 

Coordinating Digital Paper: 

I printed background colors in blue, green and pink (polka dots and stripes) on white cardstock and then punched out a scalloped circle with my 3 inch round Paper Shaper.  This was the easy part. 

Next I designed the inner circle of the tag starting with a 2.45 inch circle.  I wanted to use my 2.50 circle punch to punch the tag out.  I offset the size of the circle so that there’d be a white border after punching. 

I used pink and green circles that were from the owl set of clip art (Digital Bake Shop) from Gwen’s party.  Then put a dashed blue circle with the words wrapping around the top half of the tag.

Getting the writing to follow the circle and for the letters to be at the right angle to read was the hardest part!  It took me a while but I am so glad to learn how to do this trick. 

The second hardest part was figuring out which command to use in order to erase the bottom of the cone so it wasn’t showing behind the green and pink circles.  I felt very accomplished after learning how to erase the bottom of the cone!   I printed all of them on one 12×12 sheet of cardstock and then used my circle punch to cut them out. 

I added some colorful ribbon (via the leftover stash) and left them untied so that we can add them to the party favors before the party.    If you have any digital tips or ideas to share I’d love to hear them. 

I’m going to continue with this cute circle theme for the rest of the items.  The circle goes well with the shape of the ice cream scoop.  Now I better get busy and create the rest of the paper items!!