Merrily Making

Gift tag making has been filling spare moments and providing a wonderful venue for creativity. I found more scraps of linen I had saved, that were perfectly suited for cutting into gift tags! I decided to make a little series of matching tags from that linen.

 

Heavy weight linen provides a stable background for a fabric tag - this one is embellished with a fussy cut and stamping.

 Linen makes a great blank canvas for embellishing and the heavier weight linen works especially well in making a tag that keeps it's shape. I used an iron on fusible, to bond my linen to a scrap of quilting cotton, making the finished weight similar to cardstock (so the tags aren't floppy).

 

I found the perfect seasonal fabric for fussy cutting in my stash (Riley Blake's Santa's Workshop) and began by making fabric "stamps" a technique you can find in Amy's book: Zakka Handmades.

I fuse (using Therm O Web: Heat'n Bond Lite) the fabric stamp onto my linen tag and then I stitch around the stamp (more for the look, than for fear the stamp will not adhere to the linen).

Each tag is backed with quilting cotton fused to the linen, and edge stitched to finish.  The last step is adding an eyelet for ribbon to thread through. All in all, easy tags to make - you could skip sewing altogether, if you wanted - which would make them even faster to make. I don't mind spending the time adding the stitching because I like the look, but it is an option. The cute results are why it's hard for me to stop making gift tags. ;o)

Looking for fast method for cutting tags? Here's a link to a die similar to the one I used in my Sizzix Big Shot.