Extending My Best Wishes via Hand Painted Gift Tags

I keep taking up a lot of art and craft projects to make something new and useful for my home and loved ones and most often use handmade paper as the base. Since the paper does not get used entirely, I am left with lots of pieces of handmade paper, big and small.

Handmade paper forms a raw yet colourful and ‘no-so-plain’ background for the art piece as well as gives sturdiness to the final product, making it last longer. Broadly, it makes for a perfect base to portray my creativity with colours and the paintbrush.

My sheer adoration for the paper makes me think of new ways to creatively utilize the leftover pieces.

The idea of making Gift Tags or Congratulatory Message Cards on Gifts popped up in my mind and I started my new craft DIY project. 🙂

Method:

• Cut the paper into equal rectangular shapes, which forms the basic shape for the gift tag
  • You can take any shape you prefer, i.e. diamond, circular, oval or square, but make sure that there is enough space on the paper to decorate as well as write a congratulatory message 🙂
• You can start by making a rough sketch/drawing of the design/shape you wish to put on the gift tag
  • If you are an expert artist, skip this step and straight away start making the desired design using colours, paintbrush and some marker pens
  • I prefer to draw with a pencil before starting to add colours 🙂
• You could make occasion specific drawings/designs
  • For example, a pram for a baby shower gift tag; a bouquet for multiple occasions; conical caps, cakes and confetti for birthday gifts; and paisley prints for Indian occasions and other celebrations, Ganesha/Swastik/Lakshmi ji’s feet for Diwali gift tags

Here is a look at the first set of gift tags I painted and used these for conveying my best wishes to loved ones. There is no better feeling in the world than gifting something handmade. The recipient treasures it for a lifetime and you can’t imagine how carefully preserved your handmade gift will be kept. I have seen this in my family and always get encouraged for making more handmade stuff.

Handmade Gift Tags/Congratulatory Message Cards for Gifts

Ganesha Gift Tag for an Indian Celebration/Festival like Diwali/Marriage/Housewarming Gift

Alternately, just like many people use occasion based flags for inserting in cakes, I made a sort of miniature placard by pasting a toothpick at the back to make a ‘Happy Birthday Mummy’ card for placing on my mom’s birthday cake.

Gift Tag Used as a Miniature Placard/Flag for Cake

Hope you like these 🙂