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ELEMENT: Christmas Gift Tags
By Jeri Ingalls 2005
Sep 29, 2005, 02:22

Would you like to add a little homemade touch to your gifts this Christmas?  Tired of all the same old tags the stores are offering year after year?  Making your own tags is easy, and once you’ve made the design or even a whole page of designs, you can save them and print them off again and again as you need them.

First, I open a new image.  Choose whatever size you want your tag to be, and set the resolution to 300 for best printing results.

Then, go to Edit/Fill and choose whatever color, gradient, texture, or image that you would like your tag to have as a background.  I’m going to choose a solid color for the background as I plan to add embellishments later.  You can even leave this white if you like, though if you do this you may want to add a border so it will be easier to cut out after printing.

I’m going to add a border to mine as well, to do this I choose Selection/All, than Selection/Expand Shrink.  I’ll check the shrink box and set it for 20 pixels, but this number can be whatever you want.  You should now have something similar to the example below.

Now choose Selection/Invert and the border will be selected.  Choose Fill and then the color you would like the fill to be.  Now choose Selection/None.

If you want to add a little texture to the tag before going on, you can do so by adding noise using the Add Noise selection the Effect Menu, or using the Effect/Material Effect/Texture Filter and choosing a texture, or both.  I like a lot of texture, so I did both.

It’s a little plain, so I’m going to add some snowflakes.  Choosing the shape tool and then choosing custom, I find some snowflakes to choose from.  There are lots of other shapes to choose from as well, here’s where you get to use your imagination.

Here in the sample below I’ve added a few different snowflakes to the tag, and then applied a drop shadow using the Web/Button Designer/Any Shape command.  I left the bevel at zero and decreased the shadow down to 3 pixels since I’m working with a small graphic.  I also set the transparency and soft edge to a value of 30, and made the shadow black.

Now to add text.  Play around with different fonts and sizes to get the look that you want.  I’m going with my old favorite, CK Invitation for this tag.  Add the same type of drop shadow to this as well, with the same commands.

Once you’ve added all that you want to add, you’re ready to merge all the layers and then print them out.  You’ll want to have a full paper of these to make multiples, the quickest way is to open up a new image at 8x10 (or whatever your printer’s printed area can handle) at 300 ppi, then copy/paste your tag onto it in rows.  If you want to make several different kinds of tags, follow the instructions of this tutorial again using different colors, shapes, and fonts, and copy/paste them onto the sheet as well.  I like to fill the whole sheet up, especially if I’m using sticker paper to print these on as it’s not cheap.

If you don’t want to use sticker paper, you can leave a little extra space around the tags, and print them on cardstock.  Cut them apart into tag shapes, and with a hole punch, punch a hole on the side so that it can be tied onto the package with a string.