Cityscape Gift Tag DIY

I was debating whether or not to toss out these old gift tags when I realized that their silhouette looks a bit like the tall & skinny houses along a canal in Amsterdam. With some pens & imagination I turned them into something new!

Materials

• plain gift tags
• jell pens – I used these jelly roll pens by Sakura and I love how smooth they are!
• baker’s twine – I’ve always thought this stuff is a little pricey so I made my own. Here’s how you can DIY some baker’s twine.
• scissors – The tinier the better.

Drawing the houses (aka the fun part)

I gathered inspiration from the intricate facades of row homes in Amsterdam. Here’s a print I really like on Etsy that might get some illustrative juices (ew, kind of gross) flowing.

Amsterdam Lino Print from delightfullychaoticco

Here’s the process I used to draw my own row homes.

And finally, here are a few quick doodling lesson for making fancy looking doors and windows.

Finishing touches

I trimmed the gift tags carefully around each detail. I left some of the houses wide and made others a bit more narrow.

I added a loop of multicolored baker’s twine to finish each tag (see my post on how to make your own here).

Now these tags are ready to decorate with!

Thanks for reading. Happy Holidays!

This post contains affiliate links.