12.05.2011

Day 3 of 12 Days of Eco-Christmas: Greeting card gift tags

Today is the third day of a special series called 12 Days of Eco-Christmas and Stephanie of Scrapworthy Lives has turned old greeting cards into gift tags that are perfect for Christmas.



I never know what to do with the greeting cards I receive. And Christmas-time means I’ll have many more to deal with. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting cards in the mail. I just don’t know what to do with them after the holiday. Throwing them away just doesn’t seem right (unless the card is from my insurance company or some other random organization). I can’t save them forever. And most only include a signature—not exactly personal.

I end up saving a few cards—mainly from older relatives who include a personal note or cards addressed specifically for my daughter.

I turn the rest of the cards into gift tags.

You can do this in several different ways. I use a tag punch from Creative Memories, but a tag punch is not required.

I then select an image from the card if there is an image that fits nicely on the punch.


If there is no image that fits nicely, then I just randomly punch.


Sometimes, you luck out and get a cool image on one side and something neat on the other side.

The front:


The back:


I also punch out the sentiment on the inside of the card if it fits in the tag shape.


You can also just use your paper trimmer, corner rounder and whole punch to create a tag. Or you could use a circle punch and add a whole punch to hang that tag from. The point is, you can make tags using the tools you already have. You do not have to buy a tag punch to do this project.


When I’ve made these tags before, I’ve stamped the words “to” and “from” on the back. This time, I did not because I can easily just write that on the tag when I am preparing my gift.

You can leave the tags as is or embellish them a bit. I kept it simple and inked the edges of a couple of the plainer tags.


For this project, I started with five cards and ended up with 20 tags.


Read more about Stephanie and her scrapbooking tips here.

Three eco-inspired projects down and nine more to go! If you are inspired by this or any of the projects you see during the month and decide to create your own, email me (ecoscrapbook at yahoo dot com) and I'll share it here.