Pendant tutorial: Personalize your tags!!

Ever wanted to write something special, custom, or downright ridiculous on metal tags?? Well this is how you do it:
Materials…here’s what you’ll need:

Aluminum (or any thin metal) tags…any shape will do
A small steel block (or other hard surface you can hammer on)
A Plastic, wooden, or rawhide malletLetter stamps

( you can find all of these tools at any metal supply store or super cheap online)

Step 1: Place aluminum tag on steel block and place first letter stamp face down but straight onto tag. Step 2: Take out letter stamps that have the corresponding letters to what you want to write and line them up in the order in which your word is spelled. We chose to stamp “Etsy” and “Etsy Labs” on our tags so we took out E, T, S, and Y letters. This step makes it easier when stamping to find what you are looking for and therefore you can get more done in less time.

Make sure the letter is in the right position and you don’t goof up by placing the letter backwards (like I have done several times in the past)!

Step 3: Holding the stamp on the tag with one hand, give the top of the stamp a couple firm straight blows with your hammer or mallet.

Then repeat this step by positioning the following letters where you would like them to fit on your tag and hammering them in place.

Step 4: Admire your new customized tag! If you would like, you could add a patina to the letters to make them stand out a bit more, but we chose the “just stamped” look for ours!

Happy Stamping, and keep in mind we have all the tools here if you’d like to drop by and customize a piece of your own!