Stamped Metal Dog Tag

We recently added a furry addition to our family, which gave me the perfect opportunity to try out metal stamping for the first time.  I grabbed the circle blanks from Joann's in the scrapbooking/embossing section, and I got the stamp set last year at Harbor Freight.

My setup was masking tape onto a piece of wood.  You don't need the masking tape, but it was nice to hold the metal steady and give me a straight line to follow.  After a couple of not-so-nice attempts, I found that the best impression is made when you firmly tap the stamp once.  It's no good if you don't pound enough or if you do too much.  Once you are done stamping, color the impressions with a sharpie and wipe off the excess.

After I finished our pup's name, I added our phone number.  (Don't try calling that number... I did a little bit of Photoshop magic to change some of the numbers.)  I love the personalized feel of this tag.  The imperfections-- like where I double-stamped the "S" or pounded the "7" a bit too hard-- all add another piece of character to the tag.  When I was completely done with everything, I pounded on the back of the tag a little bit to flatten everything out nicely.

The best part about this project is that you don't need a real animal to make tags for!  My next tag stamping will be tags for stuffed animals.  You could even make these into pendants for necklaces, which are really popular right now.