Make your own holiday personalized name tags

This is a fun holiday crafting idea I got from a friend of mine.  She loves the holidays and made these personalized name tags for herself for work.  They are really simple to make because almost all the work was already done.  They are inexpensive to make, too!  I thought this would be a really fun personalized gift to make for someone you know who loves holidays and who wears a name tag at work.  This would also be a really fun and easy kid’s craft that turns into a personalized gift for a family member who wears a name tag at work. 

The wood shapes are already painted and available at many craft stores, especially as a holiday draws near.  Then all you need to do is glue on a pin to the back.  You can use hot glue or glue that adheres easily to surfaces like wood and metal (for example, Aleen’s Tacky Glue or Sobo Craft Glue).  Just make sure to put on enough glue so the pin is securely adhered to the back of the wood (see picture). 

Apply plenty of glue to back of wooden cut-out

Then take blank address labels and put the name of the person on the label.  You can handwrite the person’s name or print it using your computer or use rubberstamps.  Cut away the excess of the label, so the name fits easily on the name tag (see pictures below).

You could make a gift set of personalized name tags for their favorite holiday or one name tag for each of the holidays.  If you choose to make one for each of the holidays, plan ahead so that you can find these pre-painted wood cut-outs throughout the year in your local craft store or online.  These name tags are sure to be a big hit!

Happy Crafting,

AJ

Halloween Bat Name Tag

Halloween Witch Name Tag

4th of July Luminaries

Happy 4th of July to you!

Here’s a fast and easy 4th of July craft project.  It literally took me minutes to make these cute 4th of July luminaries.  They are great if you are having a party or BBQ and want some fun and easy decorations.  They are so easy that they make a great kids craft, too.  In fact, it’s something the kids could do during the day on the 4th of July for a craft project to keep them busy and entertained.  Then  they can help you add candles (or LED lights) to light up the luminaries when it gets dark.  But the luminaries are still  fun and festive decorations during the daytime too!

If you’re a scrapbooker, rubber stamper or paper crafter, you probably already have everything you need already.

You may already have the supplies you need

Here’s what I did:

1. Cut the top of the paper bag with decorative scissors.

2. Punch the top of the bag with a decorative punch (see picture).  Make sure the bag is unfolded when you do this…otherwise you might punch both the front and sides of the bag at the same time. (Yes, I’m speaking from experience.  That’s exactly what I did on my first bag.)

Use decorative scissors and punch to embellish the top edge of luminary

3. Using ink or paint, rubber stamp the bag with red, white and blue stars.  It was easy to lay the bag flat to stamp the front and back of the luminary.  To easily rubber stamp the sides of the luminary, I simply placed the top of one of my ink pad containers inside the bag and held it there while I stamped the side of the bag.

That’s it…you’re done in 3 easy steps.  You don’t even need to do the first two steps for these luminaries to turn out wonderfully.

Here’s a tip: place citronella candles inside the bag instead of regular candles to help ward off bugs at night.

Happy Crafting!

AJ

PS - If you don’t need luminaries, this bag would make a great gift bag – especially if you are bringing something like cookies to a BBQ, or some other food that you could put in a bag.  Just a thought.