The other day, I was looking for a quick way to put together some artistic gift tags. As I searched Pinterest for inspiration, a post I wrote a few months ago — Simple Flower Border Tutorial — caught my eye! I immediately set to work compiling a printable gift tag template based on that flower border. Shortly thereafter, these floral gift tags were born! In today’s tutorial, I’ll show you how to make my variation of them.
1. Print the Floral Artistic Gift Tags Template
You can find the template for free by clicking here.
I recommend printing these gift tags off on 80 lb. drawing paper
that you have cut to fit your printer, but you can make any paper work. When you go to print, make sure you do not select “Fit to Page”. Otherwise, the tags will print out smaller than their intended size of 2.5″ x 2″ (~64 mm x 51 mm).
2. Add Watercolor Spatters to the Gift Tags Template
In this step, you’ll use an old toothbrush and watercolor paint to get some color on your gift tags! Begin by adding water to the watercolors you plan on using. You can use a syringe to add the water if you have one, and if not, a spoon works great as well. Let the water soak into the paint for a moment, then saturate an old, soft toothbrush with one shade of watercolor.
Use your thumb to flick droplets of watercolor all over the template. To achieve this, you’ll basically stroke the watercolor-soaked toothbrush such that the bristles are initially held back, then they spring out.
Use several different colors of paint for a colorful, artistic effect!
Once you’re finished, set the template aside to dry. It’s time to move on to the next step!
3. Cut Out Cardstock Rectangles
You can use any color of cardstock you have on hand! I happened to have a shimmery orange, so that’s what I used. Each rectangle should be 2.75″ x 2.25″ (~70 mm x 57 mm), which is slightly larger than the gift tags on the template.
It’s up to you how many card stock rectangles you cut. I generally just cut one rectangle for each gift card I need to make. A paper cutter will make life much easier if you create projects like this often! Otherwise, you can absolutely use scissors.
4. Write Names on the Gift Tags
Before you write names on the gift tags, you’ll want to make sure your watercolor is completely dry! Drying time could take anywhere from 5-20 minutes, depending on the size of your paint spatters.
Once the watercolor has dried, you can use any calligraphy or lettering style and any ink to write the names. I happened to use Janet Style calligraphy and Walker’s iron gall ink (McCaffery’s ink would be a great substitute). I chose Janet Style because its prim neatness contrasts beautifully with the playful watercolor spatters! You’ll notice that I wrote the names in a variety of orientations for variation’s sake … feel free to do the same!
5. Cut Out the Gift Tags
You can cut out each gift tag along the solid outline around it. Again, scissors will work for this step, but a paper cutter makes quicker work of the task!
Once you have cut out all the tags, they’ll look something like this:
Now, it’s time to get out your glue stick!
6. Glue the Gift Tags to the Cardstock Rectangles
You’ll want to use a glue stick or white glue and a paintbrush for this step. Basically, you will turn each white gift tag over, apply glue to the back (make sure you get the corners!), then center the tag on a cardstock rectangle.
You could use double-sided tape for this step, but you may find it difficult to tape down the corners well.
7. Use Your Gift Tags!
You can use these artistic gift tags in any way that you see fit! To label gift bags, you might punch a hole in the top or side of the tag, thread a ribbon through, and tie it to the bag. You can use a different kind of ribbon or string for each tag you have made!
You can also leave the tags as they are and tuck them into the string tied around a square or rectangular package.
No matter how you decide to display these tags, they are an artistic and classy way to label your gifts!
I hope you enjoyed this simple, straightforward project! Remember, the tutorial I described here is just one approach. There are about a million different ways to vary this project: you can switch up the paint colors, use a different calligraphy style, and/or skip the card stock. You should also feel free to experiment with using the floral gift tags template for other projects — for example, you could make artsy decoupaged place cards or use them in a sketchbook journal. Feel free to play!
Thanks very, very much for reading TPK, and enjoy the rest of your day!
Warmly,
Thank you Lindsey, these gift tags will be very useful and I look forward to trying your watercolour design.
Love this! Thank you!
These are so pretty, what a lovely mix of ready done for you and have a go yourself. Thank you.
Thank you for this really fun idea! I’m going to try it out for Christmas tags.
Hello – I’m hoping you can help me with a problem I’m having with my pen. I bought the General’s Cork Grip pen holder and I can’t get the nibs to stay in. I can get them in but after writing a few letters they fall out. I can barely write a whole word without having to push the nib back in. Do you know what I might be doing wrong? Thanks! So glad I found your blog. 🙂
Hi Betty Jo! Are you inserting the nibs under the split in the lip? If you’re not sure, check out this blog post, which includes detailed instructions on how to insert nibs. 🙂 If you are sure you are inserting them correctly, it may be that there’s a manufacturer’s defect. If that’s the case, I would contact General’s and ask for a replacement or return the pen to the place you purchased it from.