Bokeh Technique for Garden Gift Tags

I used a fun stamping technique to help wrap up some gifted veggies, and created these Garden gift tags using the Bokeh Technique!

If you planted a garden this year, you’ll probably have a whole heap of tomatoes or peppers or herbs soon. What did you plant? Some seasons are, ok…MOST seasons, there are more than any one family can use. Or that’s what we tell our neighbors, because we like to share with them.

The extra produce from our garden is beautiful, and it needs beautiful tags for when we present it to the neighbors.

What is bokeh? It’s the visual qualities of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image. It can happen with the help of specific camera lenses. This blurring of the background can additionally help your main subject stand out.

That’s what I did with this tags; created a blurred background so the garden goodies on these tags were featured.

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Bokeh Technique Steps:

Sponge Background

From one 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet, cut in half @ 5 1/2″. (You’ll get at least 8 tags from a single sheet).

I chose sunrise colors, and used sponges to add the ink around my paper. Start with your lightest color, and progress to the darker colors.

Make a Stencil

Cut Vellum to 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″. This size allows you to easily fit it into your embossing machine. I choose vellum because it’s easy to see through and strong enough to use multiple times as a stencil. You can also use window sheets.

Use circle framelits of varying sizes, and circle punches, to cut your vellum randomly. These don’t need to be exactly how you want them on your card, but don’t overlap the circles. We will overlap the circles on your project.

Sponge White

Sponge all sizes of circles with whisper white ink lightly. Do this in a circular motion around the circles of your stencil.

Layer next “layer” of circles with more ink

Continue until you are happy with the level of bokeh

LET DRY! You can hurry this with a heat tool, or take a short snack break. Or you can do both.

Cut into Tags

Cut your piece into 2″ strips.

Punch with Scalloped Tag Topper.

Decorate Garden Gift Tags

You can leave your tags as is, or stamp over your bokeh backgrounds, or layer pretty embellishments on the front.

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Supplies:

Whisper White 8-1/2″ X 11″ Cardstock $9.75	Stamping Sponges $4.00	Vellum 8-1/2″ X 11″ Cardstock $10.00	Stitched Shapes Dies $30.00
Uninked Stampin’ Craft Pad & Whisper White Refill $9.50	Scalloped Tag Topper Punch $23.00	Garden Goodness Photopolymer Stamp Set $17.00	Soft Suede Classic Stampin’ Pad $7.50

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These tags would also make great bookmarks! Maybe your recipient will use them for their cookbooks while in the kitchen with your gifts from the garden. Or is your neighbor the one with the green thumb? Perhaps they would enjoy a small basket of these tags!

This might even nudge them to send over more veggie goodness to your front door!

I’m playing along with these garden tags with the following challenges:

• Stampin’ Up Only Challenges – Summer
• Stinkin Inkers Challenge Blog – Some Like It Hot
• Papercraft Challenges #43 – Summer Fun

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Do you want to make that cute basket to hold your vegetables?

The instructions can be found here in this earlier post:

Love making tags for gifts? Check out these other great tutorials:

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Happy Crafting!