Today, some encouragement to make simple, consistent gift tags out of your recycled paper stash. Making your own gift tag is hardly more trouble than making a few snips with your scissors and adding some string, but every time I think I can free-hand my own tags, I marvel at my inability to cut a consistent angle. Instead, I cut and recut, gradually whittling away my paper tag until the proportions are all off and I decide to start over. To save myself the consternation, last year I made a few cardboard templates to make the process easier.
To make the templates, I traced the shape of two favorite tags onto pieces of corrugated cardboard, cut along my trace marks, punched a hole in the cardboard template, and strung up the tag templates right alongside the envelope templates that Rose and I made.
To use, there’s no need to untie the template or separate one template from the pack. I just trace with the string in place, cut out the paper, punch my holes, and add a bit of string to the tag (pulled from my handy dandy string dispenser, of course).
This year, I’m cutting graphic tags from pages of the 2022 Appointed Wall Calendar (the same one I made a folder out of a few weeks ago). One of my favorite gifts to myself this time of year is a crisp new calendar and putting the pages of this past year’s calendar to work in end-of-the-year holiday gifts has felt like a particularly cathartic practice in bidding the year goodbye without trashing it. If you don’t have this past year’s calendar pages squirreled away, you can cut your tags from any favorite papers you might holding on to. These calendar pages are made of 100 lb cover stock and I’d say anything in the 80 to 100 lb weight will lend a nice heft to your tags.
Over the summer I bought myself a heavy-duty hole punch like the one Rose has. Zero regrets about being able to punch through a whole stack of these babies at once.
If you’re on the hunt for a 2023 Wall Calendar that you can put to work in your own papery projects, use the code READTEALEAVES to receive 15% off sitewide at Appointed (No expiry!).
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