Photo Art DIY Luggage Tags

Transfer your personalized photo art to wood to make these fun and unique photo art DIY luggage tags!

Thanks to BeFunky for sponsoring this post, all opinions are my own!

So you guys, I’ve been wanting to try transferring photos to wood FOREVER! I love the look but for some reason I thought it was going to be difficult or that the results wouldn’t live up to my perfectionist tendencies (spoiler alert: not true!) I was drooling over wood photo transfers on the same day I was planning an upcoming family vacation and lamenting the fact that  I hate checking my boring black suitcase because it looks just like all the other boring black suitcases and trying to watch the luggage carousel and two small children is so stressful. So then I started browsing  luggage tags online and quickly came to realize that in trying to be unique in identifying our luggage we’re all doing the exact same thing and thus not being unique at all. Now instead of 1000 black suitcases on the luggage carousel, there are 500 black suitcases with a bright red luggage tag and 500 black suitcases with a bright green luggage tag. I think you see where I’m going here…we need personalized DIY luggage tags!

To make this entire thing even more serendipitous,  BeFunky Photo to Art effects came along at exactly the right time!  I think by now you guys know that I don’t do a lot of sponsored posts and when I do, I’m pretty picky. Luckily for you I have used a lot of online photo editing software and apps. The vast majority of them are hard to use or really limited in their capabilities so I was pleasantly surprised when I got the chance to try the BeFunky plus photo editor. It was super easy to use.  And I edit photos as my job so I know what I’m talking about! It did all the things I could do with photoshop plus had art effects. And not just lame art effects like you can get in free apps. Really cool art effects. I’m in love!

I took some of Aa’s instagram photos and used some of their fun digital art effects to create  some really cool artwork that I thought would make perfect personalized DIY luggage tags to stand out in a crowd. Here’s how I did it!

Photo Art DIY Luggage Tags

Laser printer and digital photo art

Blank wood tags

Mod Podge matte

paintbrush

Luggage loop or leather strap

1. First you need to turn your regular boring old photos to into art,  you can sign up for a BeFunky Plus account  to access all of the fun effects (it’s only $4.95/month or $2.91/month for an annual account) but don’t worry you can try them all out for free first before you subscribe. My faves were the  photo to cartoon effect  that I used to “cartoonize” this  awesome butterfly photo. This one was the hands down fave in my household. Here’s the before and after…

But I also loooved all of the Digital Art effects that BeFunky has .  The PopArt dlx effect is so cool, look what it did to this nice architectural shot of downtown Chicago:

And Aa was especially fond of the Ink Wash effect on his gritty industrial photo of a telephone pole from our alley…

I loved that the Digital Art effects aren’t one size fits all, you can adjust their settings and play around with their opacity so you have a lot of control over your finished artwork. You can even add cool things like lens flares or  graphics and frames to your photos!

2. Now before you start this project, the two most important things to know are:

-You MUST print your photo art on a laser printer NOT an inkjet printer. A laser printer is the kind that uses toner instead of  ink cartridges. If you aren’t sure what you have, try printing something and getting it wet, if the image smears you’ve got inkjet, if not, it’s a laser print and you’re good to go!

-And if your image contains text, make sure you reverse it before you print it!

I sized and printed my photo art images and then cut them out to be the same size as my wood tags. 

3. Brush a thick coat of matte mod podge onto the surface of your print and then lay it face down on top of your wood tag. Smooth out all bubbles and wrinkles.  4. Let your photo transfer dry at least 8 hours. I left mine overnight.  Then when you’re ready, wet the paper. I just dripped some water on it and let it sit for a minute or two to soak in like you would with a temporary tattoo. Then I just used my thumb to gently start rubbing away the paper.

(Note: Because you’re using matte Mod Podge, keep in mind that you will be able to see the wood grain and color through any parts of your image that were white. If you’d prefer the white parts stay white then follow the same steps but use Mod Podge photo transfer medium  instead!)

It may take a few passes to get all the white paper fuzzies off but when the paper is all gone your image will be bright  and clear when it’s dry! Repeat the transfer steps on the other side of the tag if you want. I put a quick contact info form on the back of mine so we could label our bags.

5. When the wood tags are completely dry, give  your DIY luggage tags a coat or two of matte Mod Podge to seal them. Then attach your luggage loops or leather straps (I had to make the holes on my tags larger to fit the leather straps).  And that’s it! 

This was such a fun project,  I hope you’ll hop on over and give  BeFunky’s Digital Art effects a try, they’re such a blast to use!   And here’s hoping your gorgeous and unique new Photo Art DIY luggage tags  will help you find your bags in a crowd!

How fun is that pink abstract one, that started out as a photo of fireworks! 

But really I can’t decide if the butterfly or the architectural shot is my fave…what do you think?

I also “cartoonized” a photo of O for his backpack and he was completely delighted…

And he had a hard time choosing, but Aa went with the indutrial electric pole ink wash art for his work bag. Hopefully that will keep him from leaving it and his computer behind in a random restaurant with no contact info on it…I mean…not that that has ever happened or anything…cough, #itdid, cough….

If you liked this, you may also like some of my other posts…

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Cassie May

Craft and Knitwear Designer at Little Red Window Design

Welcome to Little Red Window! I’m Cassie, a professional craft and knitwear designer working in the field for more than 10 years. I have a degree in Art History from Northwestern University and a Master's Degree in Architecture and Design from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I've designed more than 300 separate knitting patterns, hundreds of craft projects, and I love to bring joy to your crafts and knitting with well-designed, easy to understand tutorials and patterns.

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