My Creative Blog [Search results for hang tags] 

These tags make great personal touches for gifts, or, if you're a crafty, use them in altered art and scrapbooking projects. If you sell your work, use these as jewelry cards or hang tags for your handcrafted items, as I have done above.
Supplies needed:
Manila hang tags 'available at office supply stores, or if you prefer you can cut your own from cardstock. I prefer to use the purchased ones, just because it is more time efficient for me.

Teabags and hot water to brew some strong tea (or you can use coffee)

Other Optional supplies & embellishments:
Spray bottle (optional)

Ribbon scraps
Carnival tickets (office supply stores, Walmart, and Party supply stores)
Misc. ephemera
Glue stick

STEP 1
Brew a strong pot of tea and when cooled, pour it into a medium pot (I keep the teabags in). You can brew the teabags right in the pot on the stovetop. I use about 6 teabags per every 4 cups of water. If you prefer you can use coffee instead of tea.
STEP 2
Submerge and soak the manila tags in the cooled tea until stained and saturated. They do not have to be evenly stained. The less-even the stains are, the better. You can either just dip them for a lighter look, or you can allow them to soak for a while for a deeper shade. Experiment until you achieve the look you like.
STEP 3
When the tags are the color you like, remove them from the tea soak and lightly blot them on an old tea towel. Next, arrange them on a cookie sheet and bake in a warm oven (about 200-250 degrees F) until they begin to dry. Watch them carefully so that you do not burn them. Then remove them from the oven.

when dry, your tags should look like this

STEP 4
This step is optional, but I like to go the extra mile for the look: spritz the tags with a spray bottle filled with tea or coffee to add some extra, darker stain marks. If you don't want to use a spray bottle you can just randomly drip the tea on your tags. This step helps them look old and worn or grungy: that is the look we are going for. Bake again for just a few minutes until dry and remove from oven.

I love drip stains on my tags!
STEP 5
Embellishing: Once your tags are completely dry you can rubber stamp them with designs. Using the rubber stamp and stamp pad, stamp your tags with whatever designs you desire. Some nice stamps that I like to use are seasonal designs and nature designs. You can stop here and use your tags as-is, or read on for more embellishment ideas.
For Those Who Want More * Thread a few scraps of ribbon through the hole in the tag and tie for a colorful look (see below).

Just thread the ribbon through the hole...

....and then tie in a simple knot

I coordinated these earrings to the ribbons to complete the look!
Getting Fancy
* Use rubber stamps to decorate carnival tickets, punch a hole in each with a hole-punch and then attach these with ribbon through the hole on the tag (as shown above). Or, if you prefer, use a glue stick and glue the carnival ticket directly to the tag.

You can buy carnival tickets by the roll

use a simple, small stamp on the carnival tickets

a colorful, whimsical look
A Few Other Ideas
* Distress the edges of your tags by running the edge of the tag along the stamp pad or by tracing along the edge of the tag with a marker.
* Add some color to your rubber stamp designs by coloring with colored pencil.
* Add vintage ephemera to your tags with a glue stick for an altered art look.
* Good idea: If you're using these as tags for items you are going to sell or as jewelry cards, use the reverse side to write pertinent info about your item (such as materials used, etc), or, stamp the reverse side with a sticker or personalized rubber stamp to advertise your business name and/or website. I had a custom rubber stamp made by Etsy seller terbearco, and I love it!

We've been keeping a secret from you. And it's a good one. But don't worry! We're about to let you in on it…ready??…ok, here goes: Six weeks ago we asked several amazing bloggers to join with us in a collaboration group we called Blogging 2 Better. We're a bunch of like-minded home, DIYand crafting bloggers that want to learn as much as we can about blogging, while also sharing ideas, encouraging one another and sharing each other's awesome projects as much as we can. We're so fortunate to be part of a blogging community that encourages sharing! (If you write a blog, we strongly suggest getting a group of girls together to learn from. No one understands all that blogging entails except for other bloggers! You can find more about that in our Part-Time Blogger series here.)

Anyway, these girls are really, truly talented and it was a lot of fun getting to know them better. For our final week, we had Beckie from Infarrantly Creative give us a list of materials that we all needed to incorporate into an awesome project. It's like our version of a Nate's Crate Challenge! Woohoo! And today is the day we get to see what everyone's been up to!! Once you finish taking a look at what we created, make sure you hop over to the other gal's blogs to see what they made.

Here's the list of the supplies from Beckie:

And here's what we came up with:

We struggled to come up with a clever name for it, but basically it's a rustic/industrial storage bin. A very easy project that turned out adorable, if we do say so ourselves. You know we love a good pallet project (we've done several here and here), but we also keep loads of barnwood on hand, too. We picked one that was already the perfect length (yay! no extra cutting required!)

We also scored these three wire bins at HomeGoods for four bucks a pop! We didn't love the color, but knew immediately that this is where we could use coral! We spraypainted them with Valspar's Hacienda Tile- the perfect coral.

Next we found a font that we liked and printed number 1 through 3 large on regular, old paper. With a pen, we traced the number while pressing down to leave the outline on the barn wood.

Have you tried paint pens yet? They're so easy to use, but they still looks like paint. We carefully filled in the stencilled numbers with a black Sharpie paint pen.

Once the paint on the bins had dried, we brought them in and laid them down in front of the wood to determind the placement. We measured the board, divided it into thirds and then marked where the hooks would go.

Monica drilled pilot holes where we had previously marked and then we screwed in the eye hooks …Six hooks for three baskets.

Then I gently sanded down the numbers to distress them a bit.

Monica whitewashed the entire board with a mixture of paint and water to give the piece a little more depth. (Side note: working as a team makes the project go faster! We're so fortunate to have each other.: ) (I totally Agree! -Monica)

The last step for the wood piece is to add a coat of water-based polyurethane (water-based won't change the color of the wood!).

To hang it, we took chain, cut it to the length we wanted with wire cutters and screwed threw one of the links directly into the wood. Make sure your screw isn't so long that it goes right through to the other side!

Then we hit a creativity wall. Booo. We could not for the life of us figure out how to incorporate fabric into this project. We toyed with lots of different ideas, but finally decided on a cute hanging pendant banner for one of the baskets. Recently we came across a shop called The Finest Kind and we couldn't get over how cute their stuff is! We decided to purchase three of their typographical tags to use on our pendant. You'll probably catch the significance: EC2.: ) First, we spraypainted the little cuties blue.

Next, we took apart three 2x3 frames so that we could use the cardboard backing. Wierd, I know, but there's always an untraditional use for everything!

We wrapped the fabric around the cardboard and mod podged it right on.

Before the Mod Podge had dried, we stuck our tags on, and voila! An adorable pendant honoring our blog for the basket!

We were thrilled with the finished product, and it has now made it's home in my dining room. And just so you know, it totally inspired me to rearrange my living room and gave me the motivation I needed to start our dining room makeover!

To be completely honest, we liked this project better without the fabric banner, but do think it makes a super cute accessory!

And now for the REALLY fun part! We were so excited to see what our blogging buddies came up with using the same materials, and they did not disappoint!

Please stop over at these amazing ladies blogs to see what their projects. Share the EC2 love with them and tell them we sent you!
Clockwise from top right:
Kim from Sand & Sisal: Surfboard Pallet Art
Brook from Being Brook: Fabric Wall Map
Allison from House of Hepworths: Dangle Earring Frame
Jenna from SAS Interiors: Monogrammed Chevron Pallet Tray
We had SO much fun putting this project together and consider ourselves lucky to be in the company of these awesome bloggers. If you don't already follow them, shame on you! But it's not too late, go ahead and do it now.: )
We want to know: What would YOU do with those materials?

** And if you're loving up all the wood ideas, this one is one of our favorites! Check it out!

**If you're visiting from one of the other bloggers' projects, thanks for stopping by! If you like what you see use the links below to stay up to date with all of our projects and ideas!

We love a good DIY project so, of course, it comes as no big surprise that we automatically think DIY when it comes to gift-giving, as well. It's so fun to see a resurgence of all things handmade, and trust me, your friends and family won't miss that scarf and mitten set from one of those big box stores. I've rounded up 11 fun gift ideas for everyone on your list- most of them are easy to do and under $20. Let's get started!



1. DIY Color Pop Cord Lamp from Vintage Revivals. Leave it to Mandi to come up with something totally awesome. And get this, she made the lamp base out of a vase!

2. Marbled Paper Box from Centsational Girl. This project is what inspired me to hang marbled paper art in my dining room. The possibilities are endless with these boxes and could be customized for every recipient.

3. Sharpie Art Gift Mugs from Whipperberry. Super cute and easy. Love. Enough said.

4. DIY Washer Necklace from By Wilma. I'll be honest, I know nothing about making jewelry, but this tutorial makes me think I could tackle this one! I might just have to make one for myself… as a sample, of course. Ahem.

5. DIY Recipe book from 36th Avenue. This is a really simple upcycle of a cheap notebook using paint, paper clips and cute scrapbook paper. Totally doable, and cheap, to boot!

6. Double Wine Gift Bag from Infarrantly Creative. We always pick up a few bottles of wine for hostess gifts and this bag would be a perfect addition!

7. DIY Rope-Wrapped Hurricane Vase from us! (hehe.) I wasn't joking when I said I wanted to make one of these for all my friends. The cost for all of the materials is around $10, and that will make several of these vases!

8. Chalkboard Art Ornaments from Clean & Scentsible. We've been seeing chalkboards are all over the place, (for good reason- they're awesome!), and I love this version as ornaments! Aren't they cute?

9. Christmas Potpourri Neighbor Gift from Landee See, Landee Do. Nothing makes me happier than a house filled with Christmasy smells, so this gift is right up my alley. Comes with cute printable tags, too.

10. DIY Farmhouse Doll Bed by Ana White. My daughter is getting an American Girl doll from my mom this year, and you better believe I'm having my hubs make this adorable bed to go with it.

11. DIY Wooden Matchbox Car Race Track from Pretty Handy Girl. I can't forget all the little boys out there, and so this gift is for them! I love that this race track can be completely customized with their favorite colors and name.

I hope this round-up of awesome gift ideas gets you inspired to give something handmade this year! What's your favorite, easy DIY Christmas gift? Please share!