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Make Easy Literary Leaf Gift Tags, Free Template

by on Dec 21, 2015

This year, all my Christmas decor is leaning towards the paper-y and the handmade. So, when all my Christmas presents ended up getting wrapped in brown craft paper and old books, I knew the leftover red and green gift tag stickers at the bottom of my wrapping paper organizer wouldn’t do.

So, I came up with this easy way to create leaf-shaped newsprint gift tags for free! And free is a lot better than the $4.00 apiece they’re asking at West Elm. Here’s how:

Materials and Tools

  • Old book (raid the secondhand shops, or grab one from your shelf. Seriously, you aren’t gonna read that again)
  • Utility knife
  • Leaf outline template, available here
  • Tracing set-up, see below
  • Pencil
  • Scissors
  • Hole punch
  • Circle reinforcement labels

created at: 12/07/2010

1. Begin by downloading and printing out the free leaf outline template. It’s a scaleable PDF, so you could make them any size you want, but they work well at the standard 8 1/2 x 11″.

2. Use the utility knife to remove the pages from the book’s binding.

created at: 12/07/2010

3. Create some sort of easy tracing setup. I don’t have a light box, but I just use a clamp light under the plastic case for my turntable. A flash light and some glass or plexi from a picture frame will work, or even a window during daylight hours. If you can’t come up with a solution, you can print the shapes onto card stock and cut them out to make a stencil, but really! Look harder. There’s gotta be something in your house you can use!

Then, just use the pencil to trace out the desired shape onto the book pages.

created at: 12/07/2010

4. Cut out the shapes along your pencil line.

created at: 12/07/2010

5. Punch a whole near the bottom, and stick a paper reinforcement label on both sides. Book pages are pretty thin, and the reinforcements are worth the extra effort. Plus, they look cool.

6. Then, just attach to your presents. You could also use these on your dining table, tucked into a napkin as place cards.

created at: 12/07/2010

Also, to see how to make the gift wrap in the image above, head over to our sister site, ManMade!

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