Holiday Tags

This guest post is from Karen Grunberg.  She has SIX fun and artsy tags (and 3 bonus printable tags too) to share.  This tutorial is packed with awesome techniques!  Be sure to watch her fantastic instructional videos.  I think you'll enjoy them!

The holidays are my favorite time of the year. I get to spend more time with my family, snuggled up on the couch and watching the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree. I don’t give too many hand-made gifts but, this year, I thought it might be fun to try to make a few handmade tags that I can attach to the gifts I send to family members who live far away. This is an excellent way to personalize a store-bought gift. It’s quick and cheap, as well.

Today, I wanted to share with you six tags I made using different techniques and materials that I had at home. I hope looking at these will inspire you to create some hand-made tags of your own.

For all my tags I used manila tags I bought at Office Depot. You can always cut your own tag from cardstock and punch a hole instead.

1. Blessings Tag

Here are the steps to this simple tag:

1. Using two different shades of green distress ink, I colored the background of my tag.
2. I stamped two snowflakes to light blue paper.
3. I picked two facets and glued them on top of the snowflakes, using glossy accents, which dries completely clear.
4. I dabbed a small amount of blue and green alcohol ink on the facets to give them a blueish glow.
5. I put some baker’s twine through the holes of the facets and glued the whole thing down on my tag so they looked like dangling ornaments.
6. On the bottom of my tag, I glued a blue ribbon and put a sticker with red type on it.
7. I spelled the word “blessings” with small letter stickers on top of that.
8. Finally, I stitched all around the tag and on top of my tiny letters just to make sure they don’t fall off in the mail. I also like the texture stitching adds to my projects.

Supplies Used: Peeled Paint and Shabby Shutters Distress Inks, Tim Holtz Idea-ology Facets, Tim Holtz Shabby Vintage Paper, The Girls’ Paperie Tinsel and Twig stamps, The Girls’ Paperie Tinsel and Twig Sticker Market, Stream and Meadow alcohol inks.

2. Merry Christmas Tag

1. I wanted to stamp on a transparency because I love the unique look it creates. When you do this, you need to make sure you use the rough side of the transparency.
2. I used a big script stamp I had and stamped using Statz-on ink.
3. Then I grabbed three different colors of felt. Two shades of green and one brown. I cut two triangles and one stump. I gently glued the pieces to the transparency so it stayed in place.
4. I then stitched around my tree.
5. I glued on some round beads for ornaments and a star sticker on top.
6. I covered my star with some distress stickles.
7. Finally, I added Merry Christmas with tiny alphabets and stitched them in place.

Supplies Used: Red Staz-On Ink, The Girls’ Paperie Tinsel and Twig Sticker Market, Antique Linen Distress Stickles, beads, felt, script stamp, transparency.

3. Seasons Greetings Tag

1. For this tag, I wanted to experiment with embossing. I stamped some snowflakes into my background with embossing ink.
2. I embossed using sparkly clear embossing powder.
3. I then inked the tag using blues and greens. The embossed sections resisted the ink.
4. I added the big snowflake and changed the button with a bigger, more ornamental one.
5. I glued on ribbon on the bottom and added a sticker with Season’s Greetings on the ribbon.

Supplies Used: The Girls’ Paperie Tinsel and Twig vintage buttons, sticker market, trims, and flower market crepe paper. Broken China and Shabby Shutters distress ink.

4. Joy to the World Tag

1. For this tag, I wanted to play with fabric. I covered the background with polka-dot red fabric that I love. I glued it down and then stitched around the edges of the tag.
2. I then added the felt reindeer with the baker’s twine around his neck.
3. I put a bling on his eye and one on his nose.
4. I added the word stickers and stitched through them to make sure they stayed in place.
5. I added two border stickers on top and bottom and put the sentiment sticker in the middle of the two.
6. I stitched through the whole thing a few times to make sure the sticker would stay in place.

Supplies Used: The Girls’ Paperie Tinsel and Twig sticker market, fabric, bling, felt reindeer, and baker’s twine.

5. Be Merry Tag

1. For this tag, I wanted to play with copic markers. I stamped three different ornament stamps on copic-friendly paper.
2. I colored the ornaments using blues, pinks, purples, and red.
3. I cut them out and attached baker’s twine to each.
4. I covered my tag with print paper.
5. I inked the edges of the tag to define the edges better.
6. I put the ornaments on the tag with dimensional tape so they stood out a little.
7. I then added the tiny alphabets and stitched through them to ensure they wouldn’t fall off.
8. Ta-da! Another tag done.

Supplies Used: My Mind’s Eye Holly Jolly stamps, My Mind’s Eye I Believe stamps, The Girls’ Paperie Tinsel and Twig sticker market, Making Memories Ledger Slice Paper Pack, Dusty Concord Distress ink, baker’s twine and copic markers.

6. Seasons Greetings Tree Tag

1. For this tag, I wanted to play with water-soluble crayons and sticky-back canvas. I stuck the canvas to my tag and then cut it out.
2. I colored the canvas using three different shades of green and then mixed them with water.
3. I then layered some trim to create a tree.
4. I separated one of my crepe paper embellishments to put the topper on the tree.
5. I cut the circle of the crepe paper down some to be in correct proportion with my tree. I used the cut piece to create the stump of my tree.
6. I added a star sticker on top of my tree topper.
7. I added the word stickers and stitched them down.

Supplies Used: The Girls’ Paperie Tinsel and Twig sticker market, trims, and crepe paper embellishments, Caran D’ache water soluble crayons, and sticky-back canvas. The little star sticker is an old one from Making Memories.

As you can see, each of these tags is simple and can be created in just a few steps. They are a wonderful way to add a personal touch to your gifts. However, if you feel like you’re too stressed or busy to create these, I also wanted to offer you an even faster alternative. Here are three tags you can download and print.

You can click here to download them.

And if you want to make them a little more interesting, you can ink them up after you print them, like I did with mine:

So, there you go, nine different tag ideas for the holidays! I hope some of these inspire you and/or give you ideas for creating you own personalized tags for the holiday season.

Thank you for letting me share some of my holiday ideas.

My name is Karen Grunberg. I am a mother to two amazing boys who are one and five. My wonderful husband, Jake, and I have been together for sixteen years and he's my best friend. I am delighted to work for Google on our browser, Google Chrome (if you haven't tried it, you should!). I started scrapbooking right before my older son was born, about 5 years ago. Since then, it's become one of my favorite hobbies. I design for The Girls' Paperie, Tim Holtz, A Million Memories Kit Club, and Write.Click.Scrapbook. I regularly teach at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I love teaching almost as much as I love taking classes and learning new things. When I am not with my family, taking lots of photos, or scrapbooking, I read voraciously and write on my blog.

Blog: Karenika