Flosstube #53 - How to Make Floss Tags

[Music] good morning everyone this is stacy the 911 stitcher welcome to my video about cross stitch today is saturday december maybe 12 20 20. this is video 53 and it's a tutorial video i've had several people ask for a tutorial video on how to make floss tags now a lot of people who are new to cross stitch don't know what a floss tag is it's something fun that people like to use for their floss to kind of keep it more organized and keep it a little bit more you know put together with their projects there's a lot of cute bags out there you probably see in project bags and we like to put all of our stuff together our chart our fabric our floss and a lot of people like to use floss tags so what floss tags are they're basically a tag punch that's been punched from a little uh puncher that you can buy online through amazon or through michael's i got mine through michael's and they're just a floss tag it looks like this it's got a hole up here a bigger hole for the floss on the bottom this hole is for the ring now my floss tags this is just an example look like this there's these are just a few that i've made along the way and here's what it looks like with the floss hanging down so what people like to do with their floss is put them all together on a ring just like this a two and a half inch i like the three inch if i'm doing a big project and take your ring and put them all together with your project super easy they hang real nice now i just throw mine in a bag so but it really is nice to keep the floss together like this and let it just hang on a floss tag so in order to make a floss tag you're going to need a few things and i'll show you what you'll need to make them first of all find some pretty paper again my floss tags this one happens to be from a postcard i got from the netherlands you can use postcards you can use wrapping paper which is thin and i'm going to show you how to thicken it up but you could use any kind of background scrapbook paper background paper um greeting cards all kinds of fun paper that you can use for your floss tags and it's a great way to reuse a gift card that's maybe old and you know you're kind of not really interested in having it displayed anymore so just chop it up make up some floss tags and you still have your card and so this was a postcard from the netherlands this particular tag these two here were both greeting cards the ones in the middle so i took a card someone had sent me and made it into a couple of floss tags and again it's on a two and a half inch this one happens to be a two and a half ring you can get on amazon and put it together real nice fold it up put it together in your project bag so you'll need paper of some sort uh again i get mine off of amazon sometimes i go to the scrapbook area of say a craft store like michael's or hobby lobby you'll work any kind of pretty paper you want to use it doesn't matter if it's real um thick because i'm going to show you how to thicken it up now i happen to have a couple of different background papers here as you can see they're real pretty these are simple because no matter where you punch you're going to get a pretty picture these you have to line up and i'm going to show you how to line these up but here's some more pretty paper that i really like it's from a victorian christmas that if you're interested i can let you know where to get that but these as you can see are in a square box so your floss tags are going to want to pay attention to how you punch them because they might you don't want to punch it in the middle and then now you've got this floss tag that's like two different pictures so i'll show you how to do that so anyway like i said it doesn't have to be thick paper you could even use wrapping paper if you want i'll show you how to do that too what are some other things you're going to need to make a floss tag you're going to need if you want to make it thick now these are mine that are really thick floss tags that i've made you can see they're nice and sturdy this part right here the the fragile area of the tag that you're going to hang your floss from i like it nice and thick so it doesn't break i like mine white on the back so i can write on them what color it is if it's dmc if it's a silk or if it's uh any other kind of floss that you want to use you can mark it let yourself know what kind it is and if you want to reuse them if you want to cover it up you can always put a label just get some white sticky labels or whatever and post it over you know paste it over it or tape it over to reuse it but a lot of people like to use background paper together so they've got a now this is not color coordinated but just an example but you could use these together put your paper together and now you've got a design on the front and back of the tag but like i said i like mine white because i like to write on the back but i'll show you how to do both so you're going to need a couple of punchers the first country you're going to need is a big one and this is what it looks like it measures is it six i'm going to put the measurements down below of the actual size of the machine so when you go to the craft store and you see the puncher you'll know you're getting it you can see on the back the size of the actual tag through the punch so this is mine comparing it to my hand it's about that big this is the style and the this shape of the tag that i wanted they have scallops they have different choices that you can get so it's basically just a puncher the next kind of puncher that you're going to need in addition to this one is the puncher for the center of the hole in to hold the floss and again i'll put all the measurements down below but you can see the size here according to my hand it's a little bit smaller and on the front of the puncher it reads 5 8 of an inch 1.59 centimeters so it's just a circle and it's a puncher so that you can punch the center of the floss tag for the for the floss next thing you're going to need is just a regular hole punch that you can buy in any office store it is for the ring that the floss tag or the floss ring goes through and the last thing you're going to need is a glue stick and a pair of scissors i like to make my floss tags thick so i have to use a piece of construction board now this thing is huge i got it at hobby lobby for 29 cents if you need the number it's seven four zero zero eight four on the sticker 29 cents at any craft store you can see it's giant you can get a lot of tags out of it it's nice and thick i chose one that's not shiny because be kind of watch what you're choosing because they do have more expensive construction paper like this or poster board that's shiny some of them have a design on the front of it you know like you can feel the little rivets on the side of it so those are like two dollars for just one piece and i mean unless you want to add some shine to say the back of your tag i only buy them that one because it's just fine for me and it's 29 cents so i've cut mine my board in half so it's a little easier to manage and so let's go punch some tags and i'll show you how to do it okay now is the fun part making the floss tags you've got your paper that you've picked out you've got your punchers you've got your little hole punch got your ring my glue stick everything's ready to go about a pair of scissors so let's talk a little bit about the punchers the punchers have different shapes so this is what my tag is going to look like when i punch it now i'll put all the measurements of my big tag and my small tag in the notes below on the actual size of the product and i'll also put the size of what the tag comes out to be i'm happy with this size so i'll let you guys know what mine is i want to say it's like two and a half or three and a half inches i think it's three and a half inches from top to bottom but whatever puncher you decide to get the top of it will show you what the shape is and i bought a scalloped one these are really popular too you can buy scallops you can make these into floss tags as well but the bad thing about this one is it's too small so i you have to remember you need space for the circle that's going to hold the floss and you need a little tiny space up here for the ring so this scallop size is way too small now floss tags they can use you can make these tags without the little center piece here pick just picture this filled in with a picture and you can make these for gift bags you can make them for presents and they're a lot of fun to use and not just have to use them for floss tags christmas here's some christmas ones i made and i plan on i plan on making these for my gift pack my gift bags and my presents my christmas presents so the first thing you're going to do now i like my paper thick i mentioned before mine are super thick so that this part here which is the delicate area where you're going to be pulling floss on and off you want this part right here to be sturdy so i'm going to make mine sturdier now i have a piece of paper that i chose i chose some victorian rose paper and you can see it's real just flimsy same with wrapping paper wrapping paper is even more flimsy so you're going to want to thicken it up a little bit and make it a real sturdy tag another thing i want to mention about the tag holder or the tag maker itself they come here like this this is the puncher this is what you're going to push down to use now mine you'll notice when i flip mine upside down it's missing the plastic part and i'll tell you why here's an example the on the scallop this still has the sliding plastic on the bottom now when you notice like i said mine this plastic's been removed now this part here probably is a safety issue so you don't get your hands in there and you don't cut your hands but it just pops down you you tap you uh punch your piece and then the paper stays inside you just flip this up and you take it out and it's a little bit time consuming and i took i decided to take mine off so you'll notice mine are a little bit naked and it's just faster for me the tag comes out i just take it out it's a lot faster for me so i don't recommend taking this off for safety issues but again i like mine off so i can actually get a real clear view of what i'm punching and so i can make my tags a little bit faster okay so if you're in a bind say you don't have you want to make you want tags you want to stitch and what i did is i didn't feel like making i didn't have a lot of the stuff i didn't have any pretty paper i didn't have the construction board so i went on amazon and i bought some tags and again these are art for gifts they're for they're not very pretty but you can jazz them up with some stickers if you want but i got them off amazon they came really nice now this cording is for the tag itself to use for a gift or use to put on a present which is pretty but again the tags themselves and they even included some little ones here for gifts and bags i'll put the link below to that amazon if i can find it again so anyway this is what i bought because i was in a bind i had absolutely no tags i just wanted something cheap and easy to use so these are always available on amazon i've seen different holidays i saw some halloween ones so again if you want to make it into a floss tag you take your puncher again another thing you'll notice i punch upside down and what you could do you could easily stick it in just like this but i don't know where the circle is i like to know what i'm punching so i flip mine around and i line it up i make sure these sides here and this side here is even so make sure they're even that's what i like and i punch just like that i actually had two accidentally together so now i've got a really cute floss tag that i just bought off of amazon and punched my own hole for my floss they're not that sturdy i like them a little sturdier but you can still use them and it's fun to just do something quick something easy and this part's already done so just an idea next um next another easy thing to do is i was in a bind the other day because again i had no floss tags i didn't have much paper and i decided i wanted to just make plain easy white tags so again when i use my puncher sure you could put this in and you could slide it and make your punch but how do you know you're all the way down how do you know you're going to get the bottom of the tag i like to flip mine upside down and line it up and now i know i can move it side to side and i can actually see what i'm punching because see how do you know you're not going to be like this and get it crooked if you're punching it this way you know it's it's better it's easier to describe when i've got a piece of paper i'll show you so say you just want some quick and easy tabs that are nice and thick and sturdy like this poster board i just grab my tag i line it up and i punch and it comes out just like this now because i just had elbow surgery i don't have a lot of hand strength to grip it when there's extra paper on top when i glue stick it on so i'll show you how i i do it but in the meantime okay so now i've got a tag i this is a good example why i do it this way instead of doing punching it this way because now if you do it with it face down like this and you stick it in the machine you don't know how close you are i mean if you're over here you're pretty safe you're gonna make a good tag but i like i guess i'm cheap i like to use all my paper so i will hold it in one hand slip the paper in see obviously you're not going to punch it here slide it over just like this and punch and see the tag just pops out now with that plastic thing you have to slide it and then work your finger in there to get it out so what am i going to do with these boring floss tags or gift bag tags i'm going to jazz them up so the first thing i'm going to do i sometimes put them together just to save time again you could easily push these in just like this and punch but i like to do them this way so i know exactly i just line them up on each side here and over here so i know they're kind of lined up and i punch and there we go now we've got two floss tags so you want to make them pretty and you make want to do it quick grab a sticker book grab any stickers from target or from your local stores now you may have seen on brenda and the serial star this amazing sticker book i bought it i use stickers all the time i have always used stickers to jazz up my envelopes when i mail things and this book is perfect it's on amazon it's also available target.com had it so what did i do recently i just opened the book and i looked for a pretty picture now a lot of mine are used up so let's see gotta find one that fits so how about a flower here put it on your tab and now you've got a jazzed up little piece of a floss tag that's got a little something on it and isn't quite so boring again you can write on the back what your floss color is just like i did here let's see here 601 on the back and again you got yourself a really nice floss tag with something so easy as a sticker super easy idea and again you can put them on gift bags now i put the sticker a little bit too high because now you're going to need something to put the little if you're going to use it for a present or a gift and you want to use the little cotton [Music] holder that they sent in this little kit or you want to use a ribbon or whatever you want to do to hold the tag on i put the sticker a little too short so just line it up punch and there you go but see i caught the sticker you're going to want to move the sticker down a little bit so in this case let's do another one let's find a pretty design that might fit let's see if it fits it's a little bit big but you can turn it yep that one's a little bit too big let's find another flower here's one perfect or butterfly you can find a small one that fits so save room for the circle for your ring and just put your sticker on just like that so now you can just take your puncher and put it on your ring just like that and you've got a cute little tag with something so easy as a sticker super easy okay let's talk about making your paper a little bit thicker so i took one of these and i took one of these here's what i do grab your glue stick grab your construction board figure out what side you want to use well obviously this is really not that attractive these i want to use as a puncher and this paper this paper is perfect because no matter where you punch you're going to get a really beautiful tag so i'm going to go ahead and use the back i'm going to use this part here and take your glue stick and just glue the heck out of it make sure and get the sides because if you don't get the sides they will lift up off of your tab which is kind of a pain in the neck so get your get your sides especially and just glue stick glue glue glue now this blue is perfect because it goes on a color but dries clear so just like that flip it over and paste it on now if you're using wrapping paper especially wrapping paper is very thin sometimes you're going to get some creases all you do is take your hand like this push down and get the creases off of your paper and it should come off it should smooth out really nicely okay so now i've got my other piece of paper now this one as you can tell has specific areas that you have to punch for example we'll use this as an example this is why i like to do it upside down because if i stuck this in and punched it just the way it was actually that one comes out pretty good if you can see santa claus comes out pretty darn good but what about let's try the rabbit other rabbit too so see you know you're gonna punch exactly you know if you were over a little bit now you're cutting the flowers off i want to move it to the right just a little bit and get all those pretty flowers and cut them off this is a good example you've got your flowers down here you've got the candle top up there if you punch just like this you're going to cut the candle top off the flame off so what you can do i'll show you in a few minutes let's glue this down so that we can start drying so again lay it face down put a lot of glue glue sticks are so handy put a bunch of glue especially around the edges okay and put it down here there you go press them down so they stay nice and stuck to the paper okay we're going to let this dry and in the meantime what i've got going on here is i put some pretty paper this lighting makes it look a little bit yellow but i put some pretty paper down that is already dry so i can go ahead and punch and show you an example of how i punch and why i do it the way face you know upside down so this is super pretty i'm gonna no matter where i punch on this it's gonna be a really beautiful picture say i don't want this stuff down here you know the key is cool i like the key so you can just experiment and play around with how you want it to look so maybe you do want the key on there i think that looks pretty cool you're going to want to go off to the side a little bit like this you don't want to punch right right in front of the key at the bottom because keep in mind you're going to use the circle to punch your tag now you've lost part of your key okay so if you punch if you punch it without off centering it a little bit like say here and we're talking about the picture of the key if i were to make it in the very center keep in mind i'm going to put that circle down for the floss you're going to the key disappears move it over to the left a little bit just like this just like that right about there okay punch it down and now when you punch even when you line it up your key still shows came out really really good and then you're going to just take your hole puncher for the for the ring and you've got your really cute floss tag with your key showing okay now another thing i want to mention is this paper has been glued just like this okay so what i'm going to do when this dries i'm going to take some scissors cut i can actually do it now i'm going to cut here to make it a little easier to punch just like this that way when i use my punching machine it's a lot easier to use okay so these two are still wet we're not going to punch those right now these have been dried for some time so you can see i've got the construction paper on the back i've got the pretty paper on top so i'm going to punch some more stuff so i'm going to line this up and see what it looks like now i don't like the writing i don't nobody's going to really know what this says i think it's kind of ugly i would rather have the pretty picture down here so i'm going to take my scissors and cut this part of it off now no matter where you punch it's really really pretty especially this one and here and again you if you want that leaf right here offset it a little bit move it to the left a little because if you punch right in the middle you're going to lose the picture because keep in mind the circle is going right here and you're going to lose your picture so say you really want that leaf just move it to the side a little bit just a little and punch okay so now when you do use your circle line it up you've got your leaf here see otherwise here you punching it you would lose it and again just punch right here now you've got your floss tag nice and super thick let's talk about this one the alice in wonderland has been so popular and i really wanted alice to show now again when you punch her out she's going to lose part of her picture so you're going to want to line it up if i did it here all you're going to get her feet i don't want just her feet i want her right about here so i'm going to cut start low that way you don't lose too much picture line her up okay that looks pretty good now keep in mind you're going to need a room up here for your puncher for the whole for the ring and you're also going to lose a little bit right here so if you want to see alice's hands move it over a little bit that way you can see her hands now keep in mind you're going to have a circle here punched out you're going to lose part of your picture so depending how much say hair you want i want more hair than that so i'm going to move her over a little bit i don't mind if some of her hands are cut off but let's offset it a little bit another thing about punching so i'm ready to go i've got it held down that's the picture i want take a towel because when it's thick like this it's hard to punch i can't punch it with my hand i have to use the help of a table like this put it down and i punch like that okay so now we've got this picture came out really cute i'm going to use this circle to use for my floss tag center it punch and look i've got her hands right here and i've got her hair i really like this tag so now i'm going to use this and again just line it up to where you want sometimes i like my if you want your tags to hang all the same you want this here to line up on your ring some people it doesn't matter they don't mind they don't mind if it's like kind of like this on your ring i like mine nice and centered especially if i'm selling my floss tags so what i do is i get a tag that i've already punched line it up and put my puncher you can actually line your puncher up and feel where the hole is and punch now your holes line up perfect okay and you've got an alice in wonderland you've got a pretty tag and keep on punching so sometimes you do want some wording you know sometimes wording looks really pretty maybe i want one where it says wonderland is better so i'm going to figure i'm going to need to cut my paper probably right around here but i have to remember the tag you know it's all about playing with the tag machine and figuring out so this was pretty the tree and the flower again keep in mind you're going to lose this part of the picture right here so just line it up how you want it to look and punch okay and there it is and again line this up center it on both sides let's see this side you can see i've got too much move it over so it's nice and even on both sides here and here and punch okay take your thing here again i like mine to line up pretty good i put these together i take my hole puncher put the little punching head here and just kind of move it around you can feel it and punch okay now i've got all kinds of tags sorry guys i keep moving the camera okay let's take a look at these now these are pretty specific to where you need to punch now obviously these are separate pictures so what i'm going to do is cut right along here it doesn't have to be even now these are specific because they're its own individual picture you have to line these up a little bit better okay here you've got the cat you're gonna cut off her hat if you don't cut a little more down off the bottom so it depends do you want to cut off her hat or do you if you don't mind losing this part down here and i think her purse is really cute i would like to move it over a little bit and see if i can save her purse and get that in so i'm going to cut a little bit more down here real close to the perch but not too much so i can get the puncher higher there we go okay so that now it has brought this part down now keep in mind you're going to use this to make the ring up on top so you're going to want to bring her down a little bit more so i'm probably going to lose a little bit of the purse but it's going to be close and i also want to keep in mind i'm losing this part here because i'm going to punch it out so i might want to move it even over a little bit more to the left so when i punch i lose this part and not the purse hopefully you guys can see that there's a shadow on it and i'll hold it a little bit closer so you can see so you don't want to cut off her hat you don't want to cut off her purse right about there might be perfect you're going to lose just the bottom part of the purse but you can still see she's holding it so put this down on it it helps to put a towel down so it doesn't slide and punch and there you go now you've saved her hat you've got her little bit of her purse now you're gonna punch the circle here probably going to lose some pause but that's okay you can still see she has paws and i'm going to turn the light on behind me a little bit more so you can see there we go and you can see she we've saved some of her hat and again just punch a hole right about here you want to go down you know up a little bit because you don't want to get too close to the edge and there we go you got a really cute floss tag same with these you want to depending how much of the tree you want to see do you want to see the top and that pretty victorian part up here i think i do so put it in your puncher if you punch here you're going to lose the top totally and you're going to lose this part here because you're going to have to cut the bottom in order to bring it down so when you put it in your puncher now this is again a very good example of why i like to punch this way so i can see what i'm punching i want that top of the tree i want it to show so you're going to have to lose some of the bottom okay now put it in your machine see how you did okay there we go so now you can see hopefully you can see around the shadow you can see the top of the tree is showing and the victorian looking little arch here is still showing as well now if you really wanted you have to keep in mind you're probably going to lose this part right here because you need to punch the hole for the floss ring and there's some room right here but you're probably going to lose the top of it so put it in your puncher and move it around and see see what you like i want the top of the tree to show for sure i think this is a pretty good area here it's nice and centered the top is centered with this top so i'm okay to punch so i put it down on the table and punch and here it is so i am going to lose a little tree because i'm going to punch this here and i still have a little bit of room up here let's hope we don't lose a lot of the rose let's see just line it up and i did lose a top of the top of the rose but you can still see it's a christmas tree it's really pretty you can write on the back now some people they want paper on both sides you've seen a lot of people do that in etsy shops and i don't have an extra piece of paper really with me but say i wanted this rose color on the back and i wanted this on the front all you would do is before putting the construction paper down you would put these back to back and see how you feel does it feel thick enough for you with just paper you know like this um no everything i have has already got construction paper on it but put the papers back to back see how you like them and if they're thick enough for you glue stick the paper back to back if you're not happy with how thick they are add a piece of construction paper so you got your christmas paper on this side and you've got your roses on this side and all you have to do is glue stick those together put construction paper in the middle and now you've got a really really thick tag which might be a little hard to punch but at least you've got a pretty tag i'll see if i can punch it let's just take this for example this might be really hard with this much paper yep too hard so you're going to want to just take two regular pieces of paper put them back to back and glue stick them and see how you feel if that feels thick enough for you guys so in the meantime i've got some really pretty paper going now because i tried to punch it and didn't work i'm gonna have to cut it off actually it's just this part right here so put the paper in just like this punch and keep going i'll go around it and now i have two tags that i just glued on it should be dry by now i don't have any problems with the glue and i like to do two together you can do two together if you have the hand strength nope doesn't work too thick so just do one and if you're happy where the hole is put the other one next to it and put your little puncher in the hole and punch now you've got your floss tags the victorian rose floss tags so that's it everybody we've made some really cute tags today and where did alice go alice has been really popular uh the paper is expensive so i don't do a lot of alice in wonderland but the paper is really cute we've got these i wanted to show you i did show you those i punched the candle out and we were able to get the candle top let's see no i didn't i started to and it was too thick so i'm gonna cut just the bottom off of that one tag because i want this this is one of my favorite favorite tags so if i put this in here just like this the candle flame is going to get cut off so i'm going to have cut damp cut down a little bit more [Applause] put it back in the machine and see what you think now the flame is not it's not going to get cut off looks like we have enough room i might need to this paper is really um it's so such a small piece that's why i'm having some trouble with it so right about there i'm going to get the bird i might move it to the left a little bit i've got the bird i've got the flame and i'm ready to punch and there we go put the circle on put the floss tag or the ring holder on and you've got the prettiest little tag so i hope you guys enjoyed seeing all the tags that i've made and how i hope it makes sense on how to line them up i've got some there we go let's do one more how about the rabbit the really cute christmas rabbit let's line him up perfect now i don't want to lose that bow see the blue bow and again hopefully you can see with the with the shadow there but there's a real pretty little bow i don't like this much white showing so i'm going to cut part of the bottom off and realign it there now we're going to have the bow the basket is perfect i'm real happy with how that looks hold it down that's your image right there at your picture hold it down and punch so now we just add the circle we add this here for the ring and we have made ourselves some of the cutest floss tags ever so i hope i gave you guys some ideas on making the floss tags and making it fun what to do if you're in a bind and you just want to make white ones with stickers or on amazon you can just buy them just like this and again punch them punch the bottom super super super easy you've got yourself a floss tag with something so easy as something off amazon and again they're not that thick but at least we have some ideas here and if you guys have any more thoughts or questions please ask me in the comments below but in the meantime you guys i will be back next week with a regular flosstube video and i hope i answered all your questions here as to what the floss tags look like and how to use them again this is just the floss tags here and our new tags that we just made here just a few minutes ago i love that rabbit put them here and we can just use them for the next next time that we need tags thanks everybody and i'll see you guys next week with a regular flosstube video bye guys

Channel: nineoneonestitcher

Views: 12,600

Rating: 4.9256082 out of 5

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Id: haYUiy-yKxE

Length: 43min 36sec (2616 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 12 2020