Low Tech Labels

In an effort to make a habit out of posting, I thought I'd share more than just completed makes. And because I usually don't remember to pause my sewing to take process photos, I'm going to try to update the blog with cool tools or tutorials or fabric or I come across, or sewing ideas that I'm mentally toying around with. That way I'm already in the habit of posting if/when I finish pieces more regularly.

 

For a while now I've wanted tags or labels to put in my makes. Even though I'm not selling them, I guess I just want to mark my territory in a way. Like, I spent all this time on this, I want to claim it! I've looked up ways to make my own, because most premade labels aren't really appealing to me. Lots of them say stuff like "Made with love by Grandma" lol notme. I really do like the ones that say "this took forever!" I think Sewaholic sells them? Anyway, I've read tutorials on ordering fabric from sites like Spoonflower, but that seemed intimidating--I nearly always screw stuff up the first time I print. If I can't get the margins on my resume to look right, I don't want to buy fabric, pay for shipping, and then feel stupid that I did it wrong once it comes in.

 

So I went the at-home route!

The above is my finished product and I really like it, even though I designed it using a combo of Paint and Microsoft Word. Fancy, right? I'm not a techie and I don't have a Mac. My computer's kind of a piece of crap and it gets freezy trying to run newfangled, complicated programs. She can handle Paint and Word.

 If you, to want to make labels super-duper easily, this is the stuff I used! Got it at Hancock fabric, and the pack has 4 A4 sized sheets. There's separate packs for inkjet and laser printers. It cost $7 and I had a 15% off coupon (yay coupons!!!)

The directions are very clear: get your image perfectly perfect on the computer; print it out on the fabric side; let dry 10 minutes; iron on high heat 2 minutes (no steam!) and you're good! I used pinking shears to cut each one out, as the fabric is 100% cotton. it says dry clean only but I'm not sure if I'm going to honor that condition.

Besides my cute lil labels, I bought something else sewing related: a dressform! Look at her! Isn't she great?

 I haven't used her for an actual project yet; that cloth in the picture is just the product of me messing around on her making pleats. I will have more to tell about her once I've used her more. For now all I can say is I'm so excited to have a dressform and she creeps out a majority of my family members. If they ever see this post they'll probably be more creeped out by the fact that I refer to it as she. How're they going to handle it if I name her?