Garden Tags

I posted this in our other blog "Lucky Us Ranch", but I thought it turned out so well, I would do a step-by-step on it here.

You will need:

• an aluminum can
• a wire hanger
• something to cut and bend the hanger wire with. We used pliers.
• a dead pen or dull pencil
• tragic old scissors that you don't worry about.
  

1. Use the scissors to cut off the top part of the can (make a starting cut with a knife to make it easier). The aluminum is really thin and easy to cut. It is also sharp, so be careful.

2. Cut off the bottom of the can (either by cutting straight down to it with the scissors and making a sharp turn, or by starting it with a knife.) Cut down the side of the cylinder to make one flat rectangle of aluminum.

3. Decide how big you'd like your tags to be. I made mine an inch tall, 3 inches wide. Cut one out of the aluminum (you may want to draw for very straight lines). Cut a second rectangle a little bigger, about a quarter inch all around (1.5 inches tall, 3.5 inches wide).

4. Write your tag name on a thin piece of paper, then turn it over and put it on a window to trace the word backward.

5. Put one of the pieces of aluminum on a magazine or other surface with some give, then put the backward word on top. Using the dead pen or dull pencil, press hard and write in the name of the plant. Do this on both pieces, with the painted part of the can facing up.

6. Turn the aluminum over and make sure you can read the label. For texture and emphasis, I pressed my pen around the raised letters to lower the surrounding area. You could also probably write directly into the shiny side, but this would indent, rather than raise, the letters.

7. Put the two tags together, shiny side facing out, then crimp the larger edge over the smaller tag. (To make this easier/neater, cut a square off each corner, so the flaps only have to fold up once.)

8. Make a stake by cutting the hanger. I made two by cutting the long edge in the middle, then another cut just past the shoulder bend. This way, all I had to do was make a loop at the end and I was done.

9. Either poke a large hole in the top of your tag (use a hammer and nail) or a smaller one, and use wire or jewelry links. Since I wanted mine to dangle, I put in loops.

10. If you want to dangle beads, poke holes in the bottom using the hammer and nail method, and loop the beads using wire, old fishing line, whatever works.

If your sign isn't going to turn around, you won't need to write on both sides. I like the sturdiness of the doubled aluminum, and the smoother edges, but you could probably get by with a single edge, maybe sand the edge a little.