Dala horse cards and tags

Today I'm going back to a project from this time last year, my Dala horse Christmas cards and gift tags!

When I went to Japan last November, one of the things I noticed was that the shops were full of items related to the upcoming Year of the Horse. There were little chirimen fabric ornaments, tea towels, and many other items. But the thing that stood out for me was all the rubber stamps. In fact, one of the department stores had a whole display of Year of the Horse rubber stamps! Here's a photo I took outside one stationery store - I particularly like the one on the middle left, and the red one near the top right under the Japanese character.

I'd been trying to think of an idea for my family's Christmas cards, so by the time I got back to my hotel after taking this photo, I'd thought of a Year of the Horse based card, and I began to sketch my Christmas card idea in the back of my travel journal.

I also loved this tiny envelope with a horse design that I bought in Japan, so it inspired me too.

The cards and tags were really easy to make!

You can download a template for making this and some of this week's other projects here!

1. First I drew two horses of different sizes, and used these as templates to cut out red card. 

2. Then I added some the mane and saddle with yellow and turquoise card, and added some details to these with pen.

3. I glued navy blue card to the card blank, then some white card on top for snow.

4. I glued the horses in place and added a few punched snowflakes.

The tags were similar, but I added a dashed line around the outside with white pen, punched a hole in the top and added some pretty turquoise yarn. They looked particularly good with the red gingham wrapping paper I had chosen!

 I made two designs of card, one with kissing horses and the other with a baby horse!