"Reusable" Fabric Gift Tags

Since my mother in law gifted me with some holiday fabrics when we visited Vermont, I figured I should make some gift bags.  One fabric seemed a good print to lend itself to make the "ribbon" for a couple of "wrapped present" look bags, after being inspired by the block Katie @ Swim, Bike, Quilt did for the Christmas in July Block-a-thon. I started thinking about how to label the gifts - stickers wont stick to them, so I figured fabric tags would be the way to go.

I thought about embroidering them with names but that would take forever, and I wanted them to be reusable.  I decided to go ahead and to use a Pilot FriXion pen to write names on them, that way if the recipient wants to reuse it, all it requires is 2 seconds of a hot iron and voila! Blank again.


So this doesn't really requires a "tutorial" (and I'm sure there are lots of tutorials out there for stuff like this anyway) but I'm practicing my technical writing skills!  These are the steps I took.
1. Cut out two pieces of fabric the same size, of the desired shape and size you want your label to be.

2. Sew on a bit of lighter colored cotton fabric wherever you like on the tag (you can also do this step after it's sewn together if you dont mind the stitches sewing through on the back).  I used a zig zag stitch on most of the tags, but since I these don't need to be super durable, a straight line stitch is fine in my book.

3. With right sides of fabric facing each other, sew around the edges with a 1/4" seam allowance backstitching a couple stitches at the beginning and end.  Leave an inch opening (easiest to leave the opening in the middle of a side instead of in a corner, makes closing it look neater).

4. Turn tag right side out, I use a dulled wood skewer to poke the corners out.  Make sure the edges of the opening are tucked inside and press the tag with a hot iron.

Don't forget to use a Shout color catcher to avoid pink :|

5. Sew the 1" opening closed.  You can hand stitched it closed, machine stitch just the area of the opening (not bad if your thread matches closely) or sew around the entire tag with the machine. If I work on some nicer looking ones I will probably hand stitch around them with perle cotton or embroidery thread.

6. Write on whatever name or term of endearment you want with a heat removable pen. (I know there are other brands out there too.)

7.  Attach to present.  I strung lengths of perle cotton thread through the tops of my gift tags with a needle.  In the picture above, I sewed the thread directly into the tag as I made it.  I may also make some gift bags with fabric loops sewn into the seams for me to tie the tags onto.

And that's that!  Now I am sure you can do better this, I was very sloppy in my assembly! Christmas and the whole gift thing is not my favorite pastime, but I do admit I'm having fun with this year's crafty aspect to it ;)