DIY Scratch Paint Gift Tags

DIY scratch paint is fun and totally easy to make. If you haven’t tried it yet, gather up your black tempera paint and dish soap and prepare for some fun. And check out my original DIY Scratchboard post, with lots of ideas for using tools you probably have at home.

Materials:

• White card stock
• Large hole punch (we used a 2″ punch)
• Foam brush
• Black tempera paint (not washable)
• Dish soap
• Crayons

First you can punch out (or cut out) your circles from the card stock. I suggest card stock, since regular paper tends to curl up, and the card stock will stay nice and sturdy. Color all over the circles with crayon. We used red and green, and pressed hard to get maximum color.

Mix up your paint with the soap. I did an experiment with 2 different recipes this time. The first recipe was from my DIY Scratchboard Project post, and used half paint to half soap. The second recipe called for adding a little water to the paint and then a squirt of soap to that mixture. This recipe was less goopy than the first, but essentially both did the same thing. The moral of the story is that you don’t have to measure precisely.

We used a foam brush to apply the paint/soap, because it leaves no brush strokes. Slather on 2 layers, letting it dry in between.

We found it was good to let it dry a little while longer than after it just looked dry- it tends to smudge off easily if it’s not totally dry.

Take your pick of scraping tools and make your tags- we actually used a nut pick for ours this time, since we have a big bowl of Christmas nuts sitting around. This makes a fine drawing tool. Older kids can of course get more detailed with their drawings.

Use a small hole punch to punch the hole out of the top and string ribbon or yarn through it to tie it onto the package, or just tape it onto the package if you don’t want to make hanging tags.