I been tagging stuff

I'm the worst when it comes to preparing really nicely wrapped packages and I never include a card. I write for a living and I do not write thoughtful cards or cards at all. The irony does not escape me.

Just after Christmas, I decided, hey I have no reason to give anyone a gift for months...this seems like a good time to make gift tags. See, I have these folders (2 or 3 not 40) bursting with pages from magazines, old cards, and other pieces of paper that have interesting photos and graphics on them that I plan to use 'one day.'

I'm done with the 'one day' philosophy. It's all gonna burn, right? So, just as I've been attempting to use up the bursting bin of fabric I brought up here from Mississippi (there's still one or two at the homestead), I've been looking around and trying to be creative with all this crap I saved to be creative with....

Hence, gift tags. Pretty stinking cool ones, too. If you get one on a package, you'll probably throw the package away and keep the tag. They're that great. 

I even documented the process so you too can use up all those pieces of paper you tuck away like some crafty John Nash.

What you need:

A plastic milk jug (well washed)

A big fat glue stick

An exacto knife

Interesting snippets of paper

Cardstock

Step one: Take the old milk jug and fashion yourself a tag template. I'm sure you can find some online you could trace. I just winged it. There are, of course, tag shaped punches you can buy at a craft store, but those take up more space and are not in keeping with my whole repurposing thing here. The virtue of the plastic jug tag is you can see through it and line up the image on the paper perfectly.

Step two: Grab some paper with cool graphics, prints, words. Maps look great, those pieces of wrapping paper you irrationally saved, postcards and ads from art galleries are really cool as well.

Step three: Pick a piece of paper out!  (Maybe this didn't need to be it's own step.) The plastic is thick enough that cutting out the tag with your exacto knife should not result in cutting into the template.

Step four: Use your big fat glue stick to paste the paper cutouts onto cardstock and then cut around them. Last, but not least, punch a whole in the top so you can string them around your presents. (How much do you love that little bird on the right? I want to squeeze it.

And now, you too can have an obscene amount of very useful gift tags.