Every Christmas I make the tags for my family’s gifts.  This year I decided I wanted them to be something that they could keep as ornaments.  While out shopping I saw these little metal tags in the $1 bin and my husband said, “These will work with your engraving tool for your Zing.”  Well they sat around my craft room for months and I finally got the nerve to try to engrave them.

Materials used

• Metal tags
• Engraving tool
• Blue painter’s tape (Not “Duck” brand.  It does not hold well enough)

Settings

• Force:  140
• Speed:  9/10
• Offset:  None
• Passes:  2
• Blade Height:  25 post-its

Steps:

1. I created my file in MTC and chose a font and the images I wanted to use.  Searching “Holiday clip art black and white” yielded numerous possibilities.
2. I imported and made a duplicate copy of my images and text so I would have an engraved outline.
3. I used a previous post from Michele to create the fill for the engraving and used Boolean join to fill one set of my images and words.
4. I stacked the two sets of images/words and placed them on the virtual mat where I was placing the tag on the actual mat (I also made a shape of the tag to ensure I had the correct size).
5. I taped the tag to the mat using blue painters tape to ensure it wouldn’t move.
6. I then placed the mat in the machine and used WYSIWYG to line up the engraver and let it do its thing.
7. Last, I flipped over the tag, re-taped, and engraved on the back.
8. Voila! You have a gift tag and an ornament.