Tag-tastic!

Happy New Year! I do love Christmas but it’s also nice for things to calm down and go back to normal again.  For my tags in recent years, I’ve started doing what my Mum used to do, which is cutting up the previous year’s cards.  The trouble with that in the Christmas just gone was that we ran out half way through the wrapping.  Quite often, people had written a little note inside, which is lovely to hear their news, but no good for converting the cards to tags afterwards.  However, a friend and my M-i-L had some pretty festive napkins so I kept the ones that weren’t smeared with mince pies with the intention to repurpose them into tags.

These ones that my M-i-L had needed to be dissected to remove the “home composting” section.  These were 3-ply napkins so, after removing the two backing layers, I used a fine paintbrush and a little water to draw around the various elements which made them easy to tear apart leaving a soft edge.

After watering down PVA glue a little, I applied this all over a sheet of card and stuck down the foliage sections, painting the glue gently over the edges to secure them.  This was set aside to dry.

Once dry, I trimmed the card in half lengthways and then into 2” strips.  To make a fancy top for the tag, I used an old Stampin’ Up! tag topper punch.

The baker’s twine for the tags was also recycled from the present wrapping.  I love how these turned out.

The robins were glued to card the same way and then fussy cut when dry.  They’re quite large so for big presents!

I did the same with the other napkin, which was from the Emma Bridgewater range, this time just glueing the whole sheet onto a 12” x 12” piece of card.  Some of these I trimmed with the punch.  For others, I used an old credit card as a template for the corners and guide for my scissors.  I’d cut one corner at ½” and the other at ¾” so I had the choice, depending which suited the tag.  

I punched a hole for the twine and used a corner rounder punch on some of the tags.  The other tags on the left are from a gift bag that was torn, glued onto kraft card and fussy cut.  I don’t think we’ll be running out of tags this Christmas! 

I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for pretty napkins to use throughout the year to use for tags for birthday gifts as I like the finished look of these plus I did a bit of recycling too.