Fun With Name Tags

Tomorrow is our 4th Utah Hook-In and I'm getting so excited! Rug hooking is still mostly unknown in Utah, but our numbers ARE growing all the time. We are expecting around 30 people to be in attendance which is HUGE for us. I know in the east there are often 500 people at a hook-in, and we might attain those numbers some day, but till then we'll be content with our 30. LOL Anyway, when we had our first hook-in a few years ago, I helped with the planning a little bit and also volunteered to make name tags. I knew it would be boring to use the classic "HELLO my name is ______________" stick-on variety, so I put my thinking cap on to make something fun & original, and I've done something different every time since. The money for making these comes out of my own pocket, so needless to say I have to do things on the cheap. I've been told that the name tags have become collectors items and that people display them in their studios - maybe I should start signing them! (chuckle) Here are the name tags I made for our gathering this year. I bought some chipboard drink coasters at Michaels (using a coupon of course) that were priced 12/$1. I covered them with fabric using tacky glue and then added a wool sheep using fusible interfacing - punched a hole and added the ribbon hanger. My penmanship is terrible so I talked a friend into helping me out with writing the names. Cute, huh?


These are the sunflower tags from last year. I had some super heavy thick wool that I couldn't use for rug hooking, so dyed it a golden yellow color. For the center of the flowers I used sheets of fun foam from the Dollar Tree. Stitched the petals on - glued on some buttons - and had a friend write all the names. I put pin backs on these instead of the ribbon hangers.


I wasn't able to attend the hook-in before that, but I still made the name tags. This time I went to Lowe's and got some formica samples from their display. I cut a hand stencil from a piece of contact paper and spray painted the hand on. Glued on the wooden red heart. I also made some small rug hooks using a 1/4" wooden dowel and a bent paper clip - it was glued on to the hand between the thumb and the pointer finger (mine seems to have gotten lost). The names were stamped, but I had to ink the stamps with a red marker cuz neither paint or ink would stick to the formica.



And this is the first one I ever made. Picked up some gift cards from Walmart - they're not worth anything till they're swiped at the register and a money amount is added on - so I just grabbed a handful of them for free! I then crumpled up some paper grocery bags, smoothed out the wrinkles and glued them to the front of the card (after I sanded it a bit to give the smooth surface some tooth). I punched holes to add the wool fringe at the bottom and stamped the name using a vintage set of stamps that I have. Inked the edges to add some detail.


I've had a lot of fun making these over the years - hope I don't run out of ideas any time soon!