Some gifts under our tree, which I’ll show you tomorrow!
I made these last weekend
to go atop my gifts – gold leaf gift tags. You usually use a “size” for
gold leaf (basically a glue, why it’s not called glue I don’t know!)
but I figured strips of double-sided tape would do the trick if you
wanted straight lines. You could make shapes, chevron patterns or just
stripes with the tape. I went for random lines, which was a bit fiddly
at the start – I think stripes would be equally as effective and SO much
faster! I’m going to try them next as I’ve run out of tags already!
Anyway, here is how to add a bit of handmade bling to your gifts this
Christmas!
You’ll need:
Piece of white cardboard (this is actually a blank white card opened up)
Gold leaf sheets
Double-sided tape
A soft brush – I used a make-up brush
A pencil
A ruler
A scalpel
An eraser
A cutting mat or chopping board
How to:
You want the width of your cardboard to be the length of two tags end-to-end. So my piece was 15cm by 21cm. You could go longer, just make sure you don’t make the width too much more than 15cm or your tags will be too big! Draw a really thin line with a ruler and pencil about 3cm in from either long edge. The large space in the middle of these two lines is where you’ll be gold leafing.
1. Start applying your double-sided tape in the pattern you wish. I just went a little random, overlapping here and there (as you can see in the top right-hand corner. Don’t worry about this; we’ll clean it up in the next step).
2. Use your scalpel to gently remove all overlaps. Don’t cut too hard into the tape, just kind of press the scalpel into the top piece and it should be enough to come away. Do this on all overlaps and all edges along the pencil line – you might want your ruler for the pencil lines. Again, don’t cut too deep so you go into the cardboard.
3. Your cardboard should look something like this, above.
4. Peel away the backing strips from the tape.
5. Gently, gently remove a
piece of gold leaf from your packet and lie it on top of the tape. This
stuff is REALLY fragile – it’s a bit neater if you’re able to keep it
in one piece, but don’t worry too much if it breaks apart. You can still
use it.
6. Use your brush to
gently brush the gold leaf onto the cardboard. At first you will see the
pattern of the tape through the leaf and it will look like the whole
thing has stuck to the cardboard (like the left side of the above
picture), but as you brush over it, the leaf NOT on the tape will gently
fall away, as you can see on the right side.
7. Keep brushing until the
leaf is only on the sticky bits. It really doesn’t take long at all.
You can reuse the leaf that falls away on other sticky areas if your
sheet doesn’t cover the whole area (mine didn’t).
8. Gather up all your leaf
excess and pop in a small container – you might want to use for another
project another time. Now really carefully use an eraser to remove the
pencil lines. The eraser will also gently remove any strays of gold leaf
on your cardboard.
9. Find the centre of your
gold leaf pattern and cut in half lengthways so you have two strips of
cardboard with a gold-leaf pattern on the top and blank white space on
the bottom. Cut those to the width of the tags you wish – mine are 7cm
by 3.5cm.
10. Punch a small hole in the top of the gold leaf and attach to your gifts!
Individual sparkly gold tags!
And there you go! A little fiddly getting
the tape all ready, but a good start in gold leafing – the glue is
certainly stickier and more difficult to use if you’re trying for a
particular pattern. And I like how they’re all different and how well
they go with my gold baker’s twine and kraft and Ikea paper. I might try some stripes/chevron for my next lot…
{Images by Belinda Graham for The Happy Home}
Thank you so much for the inspiration!!