The first gift I worked on this year is a set of reusable gift tags for Sarah. A few years ago, we switched over to wrapping our Christmas gifts in reusable gift bags. We made a bunch of them and they're really quite pretty. So building on that theme, I decided to create a set of gift tags out of wood that we could use again and again rather than the paper tags we've been using.
I bought a bunch of wooden "N", "E", "S", and "H" letters from craftcuts.com. I bought 10 of each which I think should be enough. I painted them different Christmasy colors
I used 1/8" basswood for the tag part. I cut them on the table saw and my chop saw. I used a jig on the chopsaw to make them al consistent.
I also used a jig on the drill press to drill the hole in the top for the ribbon. I stacked 4 at a time to make it go a bit quicker.
I ended up with a bunch of tags ready to have their letters glued on.
After drilling I sanded each one by hand. I made sure all the edges were smooth, corners rounded, etc. This took a while but was kind of nice to just settle in to while I listened to the radio.
Getting the glueing right was tricky. I started with Testors wood glue right out of the tube but that just made a mess; then I switched to super glue but I couldn't apply enough to be reliable. So I switched back to the Testors and applied it with a brush. I had much better luck that way.
I sprayed them all with urethane to protect them and then boxed them up in a box I custom made to hold them. That was a fun little project, too.
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