DIY Easter gift tags

Easter is always upon us before we even have time to catch our breath from the madness and chaos that is Christmas time!
But the lovely thing about Easter is that we get some time off to relax, without the pressure of all those Christmas parties and buying all those presents!

But if you’re anything like my aunty Tina, you still enjoy giving a little gift to your friends and family. My aunty buys me cherry liqueur chocolates. Every. easter.
I’m not complaining – I love the damn things!

So if you do enjoy giving out choccies and candy at easter, these gift tags make a great little DIY project. The process does involve a few steps, but trust me when I’ll say, you’ll be addicted to this printing method in NO TIME!!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• A few pieces of Cotton calico
• Photo copied images you’d like to print (Ensure they are toner based prints. No inkjet prints!)
  (if you’re printing words, ensure they’re printed backwards)
• A tag template in the shape you’d like
• Mod Podge (Or a water based varnish of any kind. PVA may even work!)
• Scissors
• Baking paper
• Iron
• Hole punch

 

 

Cut out your photocopied images and set aside. Use a grey lead to outline your tag template on your calico so you know where to place your images.

Give each image a coat of Mod Podge and place face down onto the calico in each of your tag outlines. Do this fairly quickly without letting the Mod Podge dry.

Ensure no air bubbles have formed under each image by smoothing each image out with your fingertips.

Using a warm iron and some baking paper, iron over your images to dry the Mod Podge.

Get a tub of warm water and submerge your calico into the water and soak for a few minutes.

With your fingertips, rub back the soft paper to reveal your transferred image. Don’t rub too much so as not to remove your colour image. I made this mistake a lot when I first tried this technique. I recommend making a few copies of your images so if you make a mistake, you can always re-do.

Once you’ve removed all the paper from your images, dry your calico with a hair dryer.

You’ll find that when the calico is dry your transferred images look a little like this (see above) The smudgy white is paper residue. The best way to remove this is to wet your finger tip and lightly rub the image to remove the excess paper.

Once you’ve removed the excess paper, give your images another coat of Mod Podge to seal them.

Use your tag template once again to cut out your tags.

I used a hole punch to create the tag holes but it didn’t work too well with the calico. I ended up using some fabric scissors to trim a little hole in each tag.

Use your choice of strings and twines! You can use a sharpie to write personal messages too.

Have fun! Once you’ve mastered this technique, the possibilities are endless! You can use the same process on a huge range of surfaces, from clay to wood! Happy upcoming easter everyone!