They say that necessity is the mother of invention. I have been scouring the craft and hobby stores around here for a tab punch or die and coming up empty-handed so I put on my thinking cap and tried to figure out how to make a squarish one for myself. I love to figure out how paper engineers do things with folded bits and bobs and a bright idea 💡 came to me when I was playing with a piece of folded food packaging.
1. Depending on how many folder tabs you need, you can calculate getting 6 (3 inch x 3 inch) tabs from 1 piece of 8 1/2 inch x 11 inch piece of cardstock. (Of course, you can make them any size, but I needed this size.) You also need a ruler and scissors or a paper trimmer, a pencil, a dry ball-point pen or a bone folder or ball-point embossing tool. You will also need a quarter (or large coin) to trace around or a circle punch. Measure and cut out 6 (or more) (3 inch x 3 inch) squares.
2. Measure 1 1/2 inches down from one side to find the middle of the square and score with either the dry ball-point pen, bone folder, or embossing tool. This will give you a crease that will be easy to fold. My paper trimmer has a little groove under the cutting knife that I follow with the tool to score the paper.
3. Place quarters about halfway on either end of scored fold, trace around and cut out or punch half-circles out. My circle punch has half-marks on the bottom, so I can turn it over and punch out by lining the marks up to my paper.
4. Fold and trim as needed.
5. All the examples above were made of white cardstock to show you where to cut and fold. The example below shows that you can make the tabs out of any heavy colored or decorative papers. Cut a few out from scrap paper to have on hand. Use glue or double-face tape to attach the tabs to the thing you need tabs for such as dividers in your notebook, address cards, file folders, recipe cards, rolodex cards in ascending order. You can computer generate, rubber stamp or use alpha-stickers for your labels and stick on. Viola, easy-peasy tabs!
