Teacher Appreciation Day Pocket Tag Tutorial

After making a gift for my daughter's kindergarten teacher, I realized I wanted to make a little something for the auxiliary teachers at her school for teacher appreciation week. These water bottle pocket tags are all over the internet--I have no idea who was "the first" on this one! At any rate, these work well for a multitude of occasions and were easy to adapt to fit teacher appreciation week.
First I marked and cut my cardstock (use cardstock, not construction paper, because you need the stiffness) for the overall size I needed for the unfolded tag. This took a bit of trial and error, but ultimately I made them 8 1/2 x 3 1/4 inches.
Next I marked my folds and folded the tag. The top part (where you see the circle) will be the top of the tag that goes over the bottle top. The other folded part will become the pocket of the tag. My original plan was to adhere the blue circles (made from cardstock) and then use a different decorative hole punch to punch through the circle...but my second punch couldn't be centered properly. So for a couple of bottles I used a blade and hand-cut a hole through the circle...then I realized I could abandon the blue circle and just use a scallopy punch and it would look even better!

At any rate, I modified my folds based on whether or not I used the blue circle. For the ones without the circle, both folds were at the two inch mark--these are my favorite tags. Remember, you're folding one end down and one end up. It will look like a zig-zag.
Here you can see my hand-cut hole for the bottle lid...I don't recommend this approach! The light blue rectangle is 3 1/2 x 2 3/4 inches and is the background for the drink mix that I put in the pocket of the tag.
This tag has just a scallop punch for the bottle top to go through--much better looking than my hand-cut circles! I used the pokey tool to poke holes for the star shape brads. It is one of my favorite scrapbooking tools! Usually I use brads as decoration, but these are holding the pocket together. Here you can also see the note I added to the front of the tag. I printed the note onto cardstock so that the paper would match the rest of the tag.
I took the original labels off the bottles, added my tag and some Crystal Light, and that was it! I made these during my son's naptime. We gave them out on Monday and they were a hit!