Make Your Own Iron-on Labels
Does your child come home with one shoe, sports shorts two sizes smaller, and a tatty jumper instead of the brand new one they were wearing when they left home that morning, even though every single item down to the last sock has a name label?
One of my sons lost his entire school bag including sports shoes, only to have it returned one year and two shoe sizes later when the school lockers were moved. My other son became a regular visitor to the local bus depot to reclaim his bag of footy gear – always the morning of the game, thus missing the laundry for the week. By the end of the season the jumper could practically score goals by itself and the bus depot was considering allocating him wardrobe space!
Make clothing easier for your busy kids to identify by labelling jumpers, blazers, hats, sports clothes and bags with handmade, colourful themed fabrics. It won’t stop them leaving their bag on the bus but just might mean a few less mix-ups.
• Then grab some fusible webbing (Vliesofix is one brand) from your local craft store and iron it to the back of the fabric.
• Cut out large pieces for labels using pinking shears.
• Stitch or fuse a smaller plain piece on top and use this plain patch to write their name.
• Then iron the whole label in place; if you want to get decorative, stitch around the edges by hand or machine.
• For bag tags: apply fusible to fabric, remove the paper backing then fuse the piece to another layer of fabric.
• Cut out a tag shape using pinking shears.
• Punch a hole at the top, add an eyelet if you want, then thread the hole with ribbon.
• Write the name and telephone number on the reverse of the label using a Sharpie pen.