by Jami Johnson                                  

Spark your teen's interest in machine embroidery with personalized tags that will leave their mark anywhere they go...from your fridge at home to their best friend's locker at school.

Supplies

Note: Finished size approximately: 4 x 2”

• Two sheets of card stock in coordinating colors
• One sheet of patterned paper to coordinate with card stock
• One 1/8”-diameter brad in coordinating color
• Two 1/8”-diameter brads in coordinating color
• Two 8” strands of lightweight cording in coordinating color
• Three pop-up foam dots
• Polyester organza fabric
• Die-cut letter of your choice
• Three embroidery designs of your choice no larger than 2 ½ x 1 ½”

Construction for all three tags

• Hoop one layer water-soluble stabilizer and two layers polyester organza fabric. Embroider one design. Repeat steps for remaining two designs.
• Remove stabilizer. Trim jump stitches. Cut around embroidery designs as close as possible without clipping threads.
• Use stencil burner according to manufacturer's directions to melt away excess fabric without touching the thread. Set embroidery designs aside.
• In a word processing program create your message within a 3 ½ x 1 ½” text box. Copy and paste two times. Print on one sheet of card stock. Trim around rectangles.
• Trim patterned paper to 3 ¾ x 1 ¾”. Layer printed rectangle on top of patterned paper. Adhere. Mat and adhere to second sheet of coordinating card stock trimmed to 2 x 4”.
• Create magnet with Xyron machine according to manufacturer's directions. Trim away excess.

Construction for LOL tag

• Die-cut the letter of your choice with Quickutz die-cut tool. Adhere this on the printed rectangle before running through the Xyron machine.
• Attach eyelet to top left corner of magnet. Tie embroidered design to magnet with cording.

Construction for scalloped flower tag

• Punch 1/8” hole through magnet. Push 1/8” brad through embroidered flower and attach to magnet.

Construction for cell phone tag

• Adhere embroidered cell phone to right side of magnet with three pop-up dots.

TIPS
Tip: The little things matter. Give special attention to the details. Choose embellishments that have meaning or share a story.

Tip: Stay simple. Create a unified look in a tag set by using coordinating colors.

Tip: Tags are a great way to use leftover scraps of paper. Few tags require full 8x10” or 12x12” papers. Instead, you only need a few inches here or there.

Originally published in May Special Paper and Embroidery edition of Creative Machine Embroidery 2006