Homemade clothing tags

In a few days my daughter will begin full day preschool. This is our first experience with real childcare as she has always come with me to work or gone to grandma’s house during the day.

Today we picked up all the first day forms, and as I was reading through them I realized I have a lot to do in a short amount of time! They require we have two sheets, two pillow cases, and two extra sets of clothes at school… And they all need to be labeled with my child’s name. Not to mention any clothes she wears to school. A quick search on Amazon showed a bunch of cheap iron on labels or some really expensive custom fabric sew in labels. I don’t want to put on cheesy labels that may or may not come off later. We pass on all our clothes to our cousins/friends.

So, me being the slightly crafty person I am decided that there must be a good way to make my own. After another search, this time on Pinterest, I came up with the seed of an idea. Another person used twill ribbon and an iron on transfer. That seemed like a lot of supplies that I might never use again. Plus, you have to have ink in your printer to print things… So, I decided to go with the twill ribbon and a custom stamp with my daughter’s name. You can get a mini stamp on Amazon for $9. It’s worth the investment! I’m sure my daughter will use it long after clothes labeling days. If your kid has an especially long name try the small stamp for the same price!

You will need to get an ink pad that is suitable for fabric. I recommend StazOn. And then you just stamp, let it sit for a few minutes, and iron to heat set it! mini stamp on Amazon for $9

Either fold back the raw edges of the ribbon and machine sew the tags into each item, or cut the twill ribbon on an angle and attach by hand-stitching an “x” on each end of the tag. The twill ribbon will probably fray on the edges, so it would be wise to top stitch the edges before you install the tags if you opt for the raw edges look.

These options look really nice and are easily removable when the time comes to pass on clothing items to the next person.

See how cute that fabric is!! Check out Fabricworm for other equally cute textiles!