Ways to Make Your Own Christmas Gift Tags

If you want to do something a little different this year, try making your own Christmas gift tags. It's a fun craft activity that the whole family can participate in and children, especially, will enjoy it, not to mention the time spent together is priceless. The one thing I do suggest having for this, regardless of how you decide to do this, is cardstock. It's pretty inexpensive and can usually be found in the scrapbooking section of any department store. For example, there's a 70 sheet starter cardstock pack from Walmart for $11.88 and, if you want to get even fancier, a metallic cardstock pack for $19.88. There are cheaper cardstock packs, too (I believe I got mine-an assorted size pack, which is good for all different sizes of tags and which I recommend-for about $6 at Walmart and it was a good sized pack), but you'd have to go to the stores in person and find them yourself. If you don't want to pay for cardstock, index cards work too and they also come in a variety of colors and tend to be pretty inexpensive (maybe $1-$2 for a pack). Anyway, there are a couple of different ways to go about this, so I'll break it down into two sections and describe each one.

Gift Tags Completely By Hand:

This section is for those who want to create the entire gift tag by themselves.

Recommended Items:

- Christmas stickers from the scrapbooking section. They have them for usually $1 per sheet and there are some really cute stickers that make wonderful accessories for gift tags.

- Some sort of fancy stickers that can be used as a border of some sort. It doesn't necessarily have to be Christmas. For example, I had curly, silver, ivy-like stickers that made wonderful borders (they were actually meant to be borders) and they add a simplistic, but fancy, touch to gift tags that you might not want to be too Christmas-y.

- Some fun ribbon can make a cute border for gift tags, as long as it's not too thick. Something with simplistic, yet fancy, patterns work best, like these.

- Rhinestone-type stick ons also add a nice touch to gift tags. For example, something such as these, but they can be found for a much lower price than that (a couple bucks, tops).

The best way to make these is to decide exactly how big you want your gift tag to be. If you have different size cardstock, choose a smaller size because it makes the next step easier.

Once you've decided on the size, cut a piece of cardstock that's bigger than that. It should contrast in colors to the smaller piece. So, if the smaller piece is white, the larger piece should be a dark color such as black or dark blue, and vice versa. This adds not only a little off-setting color that attracts the eye, but it also allows more room to add your ribbon, stickers, and other decorations as you wish.

Simple attach the smaller piece to the larger piece (glue works just fine, but tape works better, rolled and placed on the back of the smaller piece).

For the lettering, stencils are always a fun way to go. You could use letter stickers, but that would get expensive using all those letters, which is why I would recommend stencils over that. Besides that, it lets you (or your child) get the chance to do a little coloring, and who doesn't love to color?

Gift Tags With Internet Printables:

This is for those that want to make their own gift tags, but maybe don't have the ambition to make each and every one by hand.

Yes, there are printable gift tag patterns. If you choose, even, you can add your own personal touches to these, too, so you do end up doing some of the creation yourself.

In either case, I suggest having cardstock for this option all the same. You'll print the gift tag on regular printer paper and then just cut the printer paper out and place it on the cardstock. You have one of two options here. You can cut the cardstock larger than the paper and create a nice border that's handmade (as is described above), or you can cut it just the size of the printed gift tag and this will give it a more solid support.

If you really want to make things different, I'd suggest even buying colored paper to print the gift tags on, too. It'll add a little bit more color to things and increases your options for gift tags.

Here are some good sites to find printable gift tags:

- Printable Christmas Gift Tags

- BasketMakers

- Seussical Gift Tags

- Gift Tags

- Gift Tags pg 2

- Gift Tags pg 3

- Bear Gift Tags

- Harry Potter Gift Tags

- Printable Gift Tags

- Hippie Christmas Gift Tags

- Christmas Gift Tags With Hints

- Blue Mountain Gift Tags

- Neopets Gift Tags

- DGreetings Gift Tags