Make Gift Tags From Greeting Cards

I know I'm not alone. You get excited when those greeting cards come pouring in the mail, especially at Christmas. Some of you probably tear right into them. Others of you wait until there's a small collection, then savor them with your favorite cup of holiday cheer. You display all of the cards with pride on your door, mantle or card holder, taking care that the most unique or most treasured cards occupy a prominent spot. You tweak the arrangement so the photo cards aren't obscured. You never know when those family members might drop by!

What happens when the season is over, and it's time to send the decorations into hibernation once more? If you are like me, you're not quite ready to part with the cards. But after several weeks, the stack of cards you had such good intentions for becomes more of a nuisance than a source of pride. Then you're forced to filter the stack into toss-outs and treasures.

No more. Turn those toss-outs into gift tags!

You treehuggers out there will appreciate this idea. I've been talking about it for a while. Some of you have even been recipient to a few. So, anyway, here's how I make them:

1. Trim your favorite part of the card with multi-purpose scissors or personal trimmer. This could be an image, words or both.
2. Embellish the cutout with brads, eyelets, ribbon, etc. of your choice.
3. Choose one to three pieces of coordinating cardstock.
4. Trim a piece of cardstock that is slightly larger than the card cutout. Use the cardstock to charge the cutout or cut slits in the corners following steps five to nine below.
5. Using a photo corner maker, punch slits into all four corners of the cardstock.
6. Make sure the card cutout fits into the slits. If not, trim to fit.
7. Optional: Trim corners of cutout if you don't want them to appear on the other side of slits. 
8. Put tape runner on the back of the cutout and slide it into the corners.
9. Trim another piece of cardstock so that it fits into the slits on the reverse side.
10. Put tape runner on one side of the cardstock and slide it into the corners. (If you trimmed the corners of the cutout in step 6, this new color will appear on the front side in place of the corners.)

11. Using a eyelets setter, create a hole on the corner, top or bottom. You can later insert ribbon to attach it to a gift.

12. With a metallic round tip pen and your best penmanship, write To: and From: on the back side of the tag.

13. Attach to the gift package!