DIY Brag Tags (April Monday Made It)

I recently talked about my experience with ordering brag tags, and I decided that I wanted to see if this was something that I could incorporate fourth quarter to help with classroom management. I am also trying out the Reading Olympians program as part of the Pass the Torch linky, and I think that they have beads and tags in that program, too.

My first thought was, "How are we going to know whose necklace is whose?" I thought about writing their names on the back of one of the tags. But they wouldn't have any tags yet. They have to earn them. Then I wondered if I could have tags made with their names on them, which would be expensive since each tag would be custom. Then I wondered if I could write their names on a piece of cardstock, cut them to shape, and then laminate them. And then I decided to mess with PowerPoint. End result... {names changed to protect the not-so-innocent ;)}

 
Here is how I made the template:


After that, it was simply print, laminate, cut, and punch a hole for the ball chain. I used a 1/8" punch. I can now make all of the personalized and custom tags that I want. Of course, the quality isn't the same as the original, but it's a good substitute if you want the motivation but don't have the budget for a bunch of tags. If I could figure out how to make a PPT template so that you can edit mine instead of creating your own, I would. So if you know of a tutorial or a way to do it, please email me or leave me a comment! :)

UPDATE:
I have uploaded some templates to TpT. Check them out by clicking on the following picture. They are $1.00.

My other project this month was to try to preserve my oldest daughter's favorite t-shirt. You would not believe the lengths that I went through to find this shirt. Her then-bestie showed up to daycare with one, and she had to have one, too! It involved trips to all areas Targets and desperate please for help on Facebook. Anyway, this shirt has been well-loved, and the holes in it showed how much I've had to wash this thing. There is no way that my second daughter would be able to wear this hand-me-down, and it certainly wouldn't have had the same sentimental value.
I bought a cheap white frame at Michael's. That was the only thing that I had to buy to do this. I took the frame back to use as a guide to trim the box the frame came in down to the correct size. This way I had a piece of cardboard to mount the shirt on. I ended up having to trim it a little more to compensate for the thickness of the shirt wrapped around the edges of the cardboard.
Then I cut up the shirt (which was a little painful/stressful - God forbid I should make a mistake to would ruin the project!) and folded it over the edges of the cardboard. I couldn't figure how else to attach it to the cardboard other than staples, which you can kind of see if you look under the edges of the glass. If anyone has a better idea, please let me know! There wasn't much material to work with towards the top where the sleeves and neck were. I guess that I could have done a spray adhesive or something, but I was leery of using something permanent in case I made a mistake.
I think that it turned out pretty well considering the shape that it was in, but the daughter was pleased, so that's what counts!

Classroom DIY
A Teacher without a Class

8 comments

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. Ugh, I got so excited I had too many typos!

      Oooooh, I loooooooove the DIY brag tags! Fabulous!!! I'm totally going to steal this and give you all of the credit!

      I think you can load the powerpoint you made as a google doc and then we can edit it. I've downloaded a PPT template from another blogger and it worked just fine as a google doc...I'm pretty sure anyway...

      I love it! Thanks for sharing!
      Amanda
      Collaboration Cuties

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  2. The brag tags are super cute! You coud make the brag tags shapes, fill them, save as .jpg, then people could open in PPT and insert their own text on top.

    Megan
    I Teach. What's Your Super Power?

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  3. Love the Brag Tags! Also love the T-shirt idea, we are redoing my son's room this summer and those would be a great project.

    Jess

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  4. Thank you so much for linking up! You just made my day! Come back again next month--it will be the 15th of every month!

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  5. Great idea! I could use a fresh new management technique to help with behavior. Thanks!

    Beth
    easy peasy education

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  6. Loved your idea, and in Publisher you can use autoshapes to make your brag tag the shape you want and format it to the size you want (2"x1.25" etc) then use the circle to create a small enough circle to show where to punch the hole. You can also add a text box to make it more formatable (names, phrases,etc). And if you link all those features you can just copy the first one to fill your page so you only have to change the names and or back grounds.

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  7. I love your idea and you can create the same or different shape tags in publisher by using autoshapes. Just create one autoshape the size you want your tag to be (rectangle, oval, star, heart, etc) and use a circle to mark the hole punch site. Then add a text box or word art. After you make the first one, group all the parts together and copy/paste until you fill your page. If you save it as a template you can always change them by just updating the text boxes. Hope this helps.

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