Computer Crafting: Tag Bag Gifts

Beware: computer crafting is seriously addictive. Once you've seen the results you can achieve by combining technology and the loving work of your hands, you'll be hooked. Not only is computer crafting inexpensive, but the results are so purely professional-looking that it's shocking to think "I did this!" ... and wonderful.

Tag bag gifts are a year-round favorite. Even the person with absolutely no crafting abilities can create them to include in gift baskets, as stocking stuffers, or any number of other things.

I've seen some creative uses of tag bag gifts that were sold successfully at craft fairs and in online boutiques; one in particular was a hot chocolate kit that included a mug, snowman-shaped marshmallows, the hot chocolate in a tag bag, and a candy cane for stirring and flavor. You can find the recipe for it, called Snowman Soup, here.

Getting Started Making Tag Bag Gifts

Perhaps one of the most appealing things about tag bag gifts - aside from the fact that they take very little time to make - is that they don't require any special equipment, either.

What you will need are a few ingredients. The ingredients basically break down into three categories:

1. Bag Contents - The contents of the bag can be store bought or home made. A store bought hot chocolate mix works well, as does all the dry ingredients for cookies combined at home.
2. Zip Top Bag - Any brand of small, zip-top bag will work fine. Just make sure that the plastic it is made out of is thick enough to prevent tears (and leaking), and to keep out anything unwanted.
3. The Tag - This is where your computer will come in. You'll want some lightweight white card stock and ink in your printer as well as a pair of scissors and a stapler.

Gather these basic ingredients and you're ready to go.

The Steps to Making Tag Bags

To make life easy, make sure that you've gathered your ingredients before you start working on your tag bags. If you're using store-bought contents like muffin mix or hot chocolate, have the original packaging nearby so that you can use its instructions on your tag.

Beyond that, here are the steps to creating great, professional tag bags:

1. Choose a recipe: If you're going to use store-bought contents, all that you'll need to do is choose what contents you want to design a tag for first. There are also many sources of recipes for tag bag contents, though, and it feels really good to know that everything in your gift was made from scratch.

For a good selection of dry soup recipes, try here. Muffin mixes are always a great choice, too - there's a large grouping of them here.

Don't forget the cookbooks you have at home. Any recipe that is largely dry ingredients (breads, baked sweets, dry soups, drink mixes) can be used in a tag bag recipe. You'll just combine the dry ingredients and keep the recipe close so that you can use it when you're typing out the tag; you'll include whatever liquid ingredients are needed there.

2. Measure & Hit the Computer: You will need to measure the width of the zip-top bags you have chosen to use. Jot that measurement down. Then, decide how tall you want the tag to be - usually they're about 2 inches tall. Double that measurement, and jot it down. The average measurement for a tag bag's tag will be about 4 inches wide by 4 inches tall. It's folded in half across the length, so it becomes 4 inches wide by 2 inches tall.

On your computer, go into a graphics editor. Any one will work, including Microsoft Paint, although I'm partial to Photoshop. In the editor, create a new document that is sized 4 inches x 4 inches (or whatever measurements you came out with).

You can find several "bag topper" and "baggie topper" templates on this page to get you off on the right foot without a lot of measuring.

3. Create Your Design: When you start putting together clipart and text for your design, remember that the bottom half will be the front and the top half will be the back. This is important because the back must look upside-down on your computer screen, or it will actually be upside down when you print it out.

Be creative with your tag bag design. There are some really great websites that offer graphics free for you to use in crafting. Some are free, period, while others work off of a membership. One of the most popular, by far, is pcCrafter because they have such great graphics and a cool membership format. Another popular site is Country Clipart by Lisa and she does offer some free graphics here.

When you're designing the tag, don't forget instructions. Usually, you'll want to place the instructions on the back of the tag. This would include liquid ingredients if they're needed, baking temperature and time, or just a quick "Pour in a cup of hot water, stir and enjoy" line.

Please also feel free to reference the illustration attached to this article.

4. Print & Place: When your design is laid out the way you like it, you're ready to print. If your printer has an option to print several images on a single page (tiled), go for it - it will save you a lot of time and paper.

Cut your tags out carefully, fold in half, and slip over the top of your filled zip-top bag. The bottom edges of the bag should just cover the "zipper" of the bag. Staple in place and you're done!