For the love of labels

Hello! How was your weekend? Ours was just great – it was our last “free” weekend before school starts for my hubby and the kiddo so we took advantage of it and had a blast. :)

Have your kiddo’s started school yet? Thanks for hanging in there while I blubber on about my boy starting kindergarten this year – your comments and emails about this post made me smile. :)

I mentioned last week that I planned on purging and organizing a bit this weekend and I did get a lot done. I have a few more spots I want to tackle tomorrow and then I’ll feel really good about the start of the school year.

Today I had to label a few of the Bub’s school supplies and it got me thinking…thinking about how much I LOVE TO LABEL. It’s such a lovely feeling to stick a good label on something, anything. (I try not to get ridiculous about it. But it’s so so hard.)

I was more than happy to pull out my dear friend, Dymo the label maker:

I couldn’t find the Sharpie marker and I figured this would be the next best thing. (Dymo carries both plastic and paper labels – sometimes I find the plastic sticks better, sometimes the paper depending on what you’re sticking it to.)

This little machine is a little bit of an investment initially (around $25), but I’ve had mine for years and years and it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Labels. To me. :)

I’ve used this one in the kitchen to label the spices:

I just print out the expiration date for each one and place it on the back.

I also use them to label storage bins in our linen closets:

But I love making labels too – a cute one pretty much sends me over the edge. ;)

I made some for the binders in my office with a couple paint chips:

You can find out more about those here.

I used some craft paper I had around the house and my craft puncher to create a few for our old laundry room:

Did I mention all of these were FREE?

Sometimes I use vinyl to point out the obvious:

I also used black vinyl (cut out with craft scissors) to make cute labels for our cereal:

And by the way, that’s not chalkboard vinyl, just regular black vinyl. No need to spend extra money on the chalkboard version -- with a chalk pen it works just as well. ;)

I used a cheapy, unfinished chalkboard from the craft store to label some of the books in the book nook:

I just drilled holes into sides and secured it to the box with twine. Totally cute for a couple bucks!

And sometimes I don’t use words at all:

That little bin in the Bub’s room holds…well. Airplanes. (Smarty I am.)

That’s just a sampling of my labeling love. I’m sure I’ve got more examples around this place but I’ll spare you the rest for now. Do you label or do you live on the wild side and love not knowing what you’re grabbing for in the linen closet? ;) Do tell!