To make your own gift tags you will need the following:
1. Old Christmas Cards
2. Or Craft paper and decorations such as sequins, feathers and stick on gems and glue (to start making your own gift tags from scratch)
3. A hole punch
4. Ribbon or string
5. Sellotape (optional) to secure the tags to the presents. Alternatively, you could loop the gift tags onto the ribbon directly.
6. Scissors
Step 1
Cut your Christmas cards into gift tag sized shapes. Some of these may be width ways and others may be in more of a square shape, it will depend on the pattern and design of your card. Try to also account for the corner in which you will place a hole for the ribbon as you cut.
As a tip, try to find the focal point of the images, perhaps using the background colours or text to guide you. Look for the main features of the images and cut around those. You may even find you want circular gift tags or hexagonal ones, there is no set shape.
Step 2
Once you are happy with all of your cut out gift tag shapes, you can now hole punch all the corners of them. Try to aim for the top left-hand corner.
Aim to leave a little gap from the edges so that the tags will not snap or break easily if lightly pulled or placed in a bag with other gifts.
Step 3
Now all that is left to do is to attach your ribbon or string through the gift tags. Use thicker ribbon if you find this part a little tricky or if you are encouraging smaller hands to help you out!
Whilst this can be a very therapeutic activity, if you simply don’t have the time to thread hundreds of gift tags onto strings then you could sellotape them directly onto your gifts if you prefer.
These homemade gift tags can be extremely useful for presents that are unusual or difficult shapes to wrap and place tags on.
Finally, you will want to store your homemade gift tags in a small bag or box. I find that a clean plastic sandwich zip-lock bag works well for me because I can see the contents easily and check when I am running low on the tags and to make more.
I have one of these Christmas wrapping paper organisers shown above and they are fantastic! Not only do they keep all your wrapping paper in one place securely, they also have lots of pockets for gift wrapping accessories such as ribbon, bows, stickers and decorations too!
Every year your unique homemade present gift tags will add a lovely personalised touch to your presents for family and friends!
Although it may seem like a small expense, every year for many years a small cost can add up. As the saying goes “If you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves”. So making lots of little money saving changes can certainly help in the long run!
