Today I am going to share with you how to get creative making seven different kinds of paper homemade gift tags for your presents this upcoming holiday season. Some of these ideas are free and others you would need to purchase some supplies, but for me all of them were free to make because I already owned the tools and gadgets from previous projects.

This post might serve as a reminder to check out some of your crafting supplies that you can use again. Reusing your old crafting supplies is another great way to Green Up Your Holiday Gift Wrapping.

  Do you have any punches that you can use? This punch is the Fiskars XX-Large Tag Punch  that actually makes gift tags. If you have this punch or buy one, I have one piece of advice – it works best if you punch out one piece of card stock at a time. I also used a starburst punch to make the hole at the end.

I punched out tags from brown card stock and then thought it might look need to glue the leftover of the punch on to red card stock and make a tag of the reverse image. Same punch done two different ways!

This is another punch gift tag idea. I have had this circle punch forever and have really gotten quite a bit of use out of it! You might remember that I used it on my Juice Lid Name Plaque post on Northern Cheapskate. This is a 2″ Circle Punch.  I made snowmen out of gluing 3 circles together and drawing on it with BIC Mark-It Fine point markers. And then I glued on some leftover fabric scraps. When I tied it on to the package I used some leftover white tulle.

This idea might be something you plan ahead to do next year unless you had saved cards from the previous year, which is what I did. Instead of just recycling your cards, cut out images and words using decorative edged scissors, or you could just use straight scissors if you wanted but I think the decorative edge gives it a special touch. I also used these decorative edge scissors on my next idea below.

This next idea took looking through my old stamp collection to see what I had to use. The smallest tags are of a gift tag punch that had the words to and from on them, but the larger gift tag was a stamp of gift bags and did not have any words on them. I added to and from by using individual letters stamps. I cut out all my stamped gift tags using either straight scissors or decorative edge scissors and used a hole punch for the center. If you like the idea of stamped gift tags, this Hero Arts Stamp and Tag Boxed Sethas everything you need including the gift tags, ink, and 6 stamps.

Another idea is to cut out tags from paint color cards. If you are like me, you probably grab several choices to bring home to match things up. Cut out a few tags from them before tossing the remainder of the card in the recycling. They don’t even look like paint color cards once you trim them to remove the words. I cut these with straight scissors, but this is another opportunity to use your decorative edge scissors and any hole punches you have.

And don’t forget the curling ribbon, tulle, raffia, ribbon, yarn or anything else you come up with to tie your gift tag on. You can easily tape them on but I think tying them on gives it such a finished look.

My last two ideas can be found on Save Green Being Green that include a Chalkboard Juice Lid Gift Tag (pictured in the top picture on the tall cylinder package) and Cinnamon Ornament Gift Tags.