DIY: Holiday Gift Tag

My father-in-laws company has partnered this Christmas with Crittenton Services for Children and Families for their Angel Tree Program.  Each person was given two tickets with a wish list item for two children in foster care.  My father-in-law asked us to help find the prefect item for them from their wish list, since my mother-in-law is out of town and apparently I'm known as the shopper :D (is that a good thing???).

I thought this would be easy, given they listed what they wanted, but not knowing anything about these children made it very difficult to find THE item.  A baby blue skateboard helmet was impossible to find.  So what color do I get for a 10 year old girl that likes to skateboard.  Clearly, she doesn't want pink (something I would go for), so do I get her dark blue, teal, maybe polka dots (something I would get).  Maybe she's not a girly girl, maybe she's a tomboy, so she won't like polka dots.  Would she like dark purple?  Would that make her look cool?  Maybe white would be better, so she can add stickers to it (apparently it's something they do).  What size head does a 10 year old have?  Small, medium?? I don't know...aaaah.

A jacket...what does that mean.  A puffer coat, a wool coat, a raincoat, a short jacket?  She's 10, but she wears a size 12, does that mean a puffy coat would make her look too big?  Maybe I should get her something bigger so she can grow into it?  Would she like purple?  Maybe she's a tomboy and wants something less girly, more black with stripes.  Maybe she loves pink (I do...ha!).  Sigh...

We racked our brains for days, and finally decided to go with what we thought was best.  A dark purple (lakers color as I was reminded) skateboard helmet (one size fits all) and a medium purple puffer coat with pale pink dots.  I can only hope they will like it, I'm praying that they do.

So, we had to wrap them all nice and pretty and add holiday tags with their names and a note from Santa :)

Last minute I realized I didn't have any tags, let alone a holiday tag.  So, what to do...what to do...be creative!  These kiddos need a perfect gift!

DIY Holiday Tag

What you need:

• Paper cutter and/or scissors
• Clear Tape
• Hole Puncher
• Glue Stick
• Ribbon
• Paper puncher with design of choice (I got mine at Marshalls for dirt cheap)
• Pencil for marking
• Shiny card stock paper
• Holiday card with text

 I wanted the Merry Christmas text from the card.  The card also had a message inside which wasn't appropriate for the situation, so I turned it into a "postcard" to write a note from the jolly fellow himself :) If I had time I would have gotten more appropriate cards, but I was working with what I had at the time. 

 Marked out a "tag shape" to use as an outline.

 Folded it in half to make sure it was even.  

 Cut out the tag shape using pretty shiny green paper.

My paper punching design of choice for the bottom of the tag.

 I cut off the Merry Christmas text, glued it to the paper and used clear tape to secure them.  The shiny paper made it hard to keep the card text glued in place, so the tape was necessary.  I punched one hole at the top and secured it to the package with white ribbon.