I just wasted several hours, trying to “do it myself.”

Encouraged by a friend, I looked up the hashtag on Instagram, #52tagshannemade, by artist Anne Brooke. Here’s a link to her first youtube video about this project for 2021.

I had just completed another king-size block-of-the-month quilt; why I keep doing big BOMS, even though I don’t really need more big quilts, is something I will share at a later date. I was in the local quilt shop, getting backing for the quilt, talking to the owner and catching up. Sensing the overwhelm in my life right now, but knowing I enjoy a challenge, she told me about her tags, #52tagshannemade.

It inspired me. Make 1 small textile piece, using the prompt of the week by Anne Brooke, always in video form, and then attach it to a card with a hole punch in it, and tie them together throughout the year with a string or a 3” binder ring.

I could have just popped 100 card stock tags into my shopping cart, but I have a Cricut Maker, one of my impulse buys a year ago. I’m sure I justified it with a project I wanted to do, maybe even to create a gift. I operate a lot of different machines; my sewing machines, Gammill longarm quilting machine, computers, and so on. But, the Cricut machine was really daunting to me. Give me fabric and I am completely comfortable. I had to have a friend online, virtually hold my hand, just to turn the Cricut on. I subscribed to all-access for quite some time, because I didn’t want to spend time to learn how to design projects. But, that got pretty pricey for as little as I ended up using my machine.

What I should have done, and would have served me better for how I intended to use it in the first place, was spend time watching tutorials on the Cricut design space. That would have saved me countless hours of searching for svgs, signing up for libraries of svg designers so I could use their patterns, and so on. I can’t even tell you how much time I’ve spent looking for this simple tag. If time is money, I would have saved many dollars if I had just ordered the tags.

But, that’s water under the bridge. I did finally figure out how to make this simple tag shape, and managed to 60 of them, so I have a few extra, for the #52tagshannemade challenge on Instagram, . I am not a Cricut designer or affiliate. I love and use paper, but fabric is always going to be in my comfort zone. However, in case you are like me, own a Cricut and know you could cut tags from cardstock you collected intending to use your Cricut all the time, here is my simple tag.

Anne Brooke, the fiber artist who started this project, is using a tag about 2x3”. I wanted to make mine 3x4.”

LINK to Cricut design space for my free tag. Nothing fancy here, but it worked for me! And, I feel a teeny bit better about my impulse buy. Again, I’m not a designer, and if this doesn’t work for you, I can probably walk you through the steps to make your own, in way less time than it took me to figure it out.

When I spoke to a friend about Prairie Woman Arts, he asked me what that meant. Did it mean I rode a horse everywhere across the prairie or what? I said, oh no. But, it does mean, IF I needed a horse, I would figure it out. I often do things “the hard way” by modern standards, to save money or just to show that I can.
Now that I have created my first Cricut design, I’m kind of curious to try it again; maybe make some custom leather earrings that are so popular. Who knows where it may lead. I have NOT ordered earring findings, but I will confess, I have had them in my shopping cart many times.

Please tell me I am not alone in this “I can do that” frame of mind!

Blessings to you, online friend, for making it all the way to the signature!

Anne Dovel
@prairiewomanarts