My Tips on Taggin' via Meylah Blog!

It was my pleasure to recently collaborate with the very sweet Courtney over at Meylah Blog! I just discovered Meylah blog and found it a very useful resource for those crafters and creatives hoping to increase and grow their businesses. There are tons of tips and great articles by crafters for crafters! Meylah also hosts a group on Flickr that has monthly photo contests so get out there, join, and share your work - May's theme is Mothers Day - and you have a chance to win a $25 prize towards your the next handmade goodie of your choice!


Here's my tips on handmade packaging for your crafty business:

Creating Great Hand Tags for Your Products

by Courtney Dirks / Timely Tidbits / May 6.10

 

You may recognize Jodie from Lova Revolutionary, our winner of April’s photo contest.  In reviewing the incredible images she shared with Meylah’s Flickr group, Encounters of the Creative Kind, I noticed Jodie’s amazing product tags and couldn’t resist asking her how they are made, so together we’ve collaborated to outline the tips and tricks she uses to create her stunning tags as we all know they can help you sell more!
Jodie personally creates all of her hand tags.  In the beginning, her priority was to keep costs as low as possible.  She mentioned "I had to be resourceful, and making my own tags and packaging that were great for my products seemed like the easiest and most cost effective way to go."

In a nutshell, here are the steps Jodie takes to create her beautiful product tags:
1. She designed her logo tag templates (with little experience in graphic design or paper crafting) using fonts and shapes within Microsoft Word, maximizing the available space within each template to get the most tags possible.
2. She prints her templates on cardstock from her home printer.
3. She hand cuts each logo tag.
4. Then she glues (using an Elmer’s glue stick) her logo tags to heavy weight double-sided patterned scrapbooking paper (her favorite brand is American Crafts because it tends to be thick and sturdy). 
5. The scrapbooking paper is then cut so there is a nice trim around the original logo tag (she typically gets 7 large tags or 20 small tags out of one sheet of scrapbooking paper).
6. She then edges the corners of each tag with a decorative corner punch.
7. When her tags are finished she uses various sizes of hole punches to affix the pins she makes as well as ribbon for attaching hang tags, leaving the back of tags plain so customers can use them to write a message if they're gift giving or for wholesale buyers to add their own barcodes or pricing.
8. Then, as Jodie says: "PRESTO, all finished!"

Jodie also made some great suggestions for you to consider if you tackle this project:

• Keep your eyes out at local discount stores (like Tuesday Morning or Big Lots), occasionally they will get reams of scrapbooking paper at a significant discount over your everyday craft stores.
• If you need to incorporate the price on your tags consider handwriting the price in pencil on the back or using stickers with the price that can easily be removed or covered up. 
• Decoupage glue works well for getting your tags to adhere to shiny or smooth surfaces such as jewelry boxes or jars. 
• Double thick paper is great for creating sturdier cards and tags.
• There are several free fonts available on the web if you want to get creative with your text designs.  You can also add photos and graphics to your templates. 
• Consider keeping elements of your graphics consistent between your store, your tags, your blog, etc. (such as your fonts, logo, and symbols). 

Finally, when I asked what tips Jodie had for creating great tags, she replied:
"Make them your own and don't be afraid to try and design something special for your own goodies! People love things that come in sweet little packages!  Your packaging is part of your branding and helps to create a cohesive look and completed design for your product. It can help make your product memorable and stand out in a crowd!  Last but not least, a little effort goes a long way, your customers will notice and appreciate that little bit of extra work that goes into your packaging!"  Thanks Jodie for the wonderful information and good luck to all of you creating your new product tags!