{Tutorial} Make Your Own Fabric Labels

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I was recently asked where I get the labels I use on the items I make, and the answer is I make them myself! So, I thought I would put together a quick tutorial and share how I make my labels. They are quick and easy to make. Whether you are making something as a gift or a new item for your shop, I think they are the perfect finishing touch for a handcrafted item. Enjoy and please let me know if you have any questions!

What you need:

• Sew-on Printable Cotton Fabric Sheets
• Printer
• Heat-n-Bond Iron On Adhesive (see notes below for which kind to get)
• Ruler, Cutting Mat, Rotary Cutter (Or Fabric Scissors)
• Iron

Step 1: Design
Start off by designing your labels with your favorite word processor/photo editing software. If you haven't checked out Picnik yet, you should! It is a fantastic photo editing site with lots of cool features, and the best part is that the free part of the site can often times be all that you need.

Once you have your design, decide how big you want your labels to be and then lay out the labels using your word processor onto an 8.5"x11" standard page.  For example, my labels are about 2" wide by 0.5" tall. I set my page up in the Landscape orientation and have 4 columns with 14 labels in each column, so I get a total of 56 labels per page.

Step 2: Print
Grab your Printable Cotton Fabric Sheets. You can buy these at your local fabric store (look in the "Quilting Notions" area). Typically, they cost about $10 for 5 sheets. There are lots of different brands available. You can usually find them in either white or beige, sew-on or iron-on. Pick whichever color you think would work best with your design.  For this tutorial I use the "Sew-On" kind, but you could use the iron-on sheets and skip steps 3 & 4. I will say that from my own experience, the iron-on sheets do not have as strong of a bond as the Heat-n-Bond will give you. That is why I iron on my own adhesive instead.

Follow the directions on the package for printing out your labels and heat setting the ink. If you are going to be putting your labels on something that can be washed (such as a quilt or clothes), I recommend following the instructions for colorfasting the fabric sheets as well.

Step Three: Iron-on Adhesive
I find it difficult to keep my labels exactly where I want them on my items when I try to stitch them on at this point. So, I like to put some iron-on adhesive on the backs of my labels first. Then, I iron the label in place and topstitch. I find that this helps me get a nicer, cleaner look in the end.

Once your fabric sheet is ready to use, grab your Iron-on Adhesive. You have two options with Heat-n-Bond: Sewable (Purple package) or Ultra-Hold (Red package). If you only want to Iron On your labels with no stitching, then go with the Ultra-Hold.

(Iron-On Labels with No topstitching)

If you want to topstitch your labels in place, go with the Sewable. Do not sew through the Ultra-hold - trust me - I learned this the hard way. You will get adhesive inside your sewing machine, and it will screw up your bobbin tension or worse. (And the money you are saving by making your own labels will go to getting your machine repaired!)

Cut an 8.5"x11" piece of the Heat-n-Bond and following the instructions on the packaging iron it onto the back of your labels.

{Tip: Put an old t-shirt down on the top of your ironing board before you iron on the adhesive. That way if your label sheet and the adhesive sheet do not exactly line up, the excess adhesive will get on the old-shirt instead of our ironing board cover. And, your husband won't get upset when he goes to iron his work shirts and ends up with an ugly, sticky glue mark on his shirt....}

Step Four: Cutting Your Labels
The final step is cutting out your labels. I find it easiest to do this with a rotary cutter and ruler, but it is also possible to do it with regular fabric scissors as well. I am just a bit challenged at cutting nice, neat straight lines with a scissor, so I use the rotary cutter. 

Once you have your labels cut out, all you need to do is iron them on to your item and stitch them in place.

Please let me know if anything is unclear, and I will try to clarify.
Have fun making labels!!

Starting Seeds

I like to do things from scratch. It gives me an incredible sense of satisfaction to bite into a piece of pizza that I made from scratch, especially if it is topped with veggies from our garden. It almost feels like a little bit of magic - that I can take flour, water and olive oil and turn it into something so yummy, gooey and delicious. So, when I got into gardening one of the first things I wanted to learn was how to start my own plants from seeds. I know that it is easier to just get transplants from a nursery, but I wanted to see if I could do it from seed. I did some reading and decided to try the APS system from Gardener's supply. All the reviews said it was a pretty idiot-proof way of starting seeds, and it was. In my first year, every set of seeds that I started in the APS germinated and grew to be a lovely vegetable plant that helped feed my family last summer. Overall it was pretty easy. I started my seeds last weekend, so for those that might be interested here is how I went about it.

Like I said, I use the APS system because it is very easy to set up and self-watering. I have the hardest time 1.) figuring out how much water plants need and 2.) remembering to water plants. My garden only works because we have a drip irrigation system set up on a timer. If I had to remember to water plants, we would have 4 raised beds full of weeds and sad looking plants. I also use the organic seed starting mix that Gardener's Supply sells. You can start seeds without grow lights if you have a sunny window, but our property has over 20 trees on .5 acre so we don't get much natural sun inside the house and we had to set up a few grow lights inside to start seeds.

I started 24 plants last weekend, so I used the APS 24. To start off, I mixed about 3 quarts of seed starting mix with lukewarm tap water - enough for the mix to feel moist, but if you can squeeze it together in your hand and it stays together like a ball then it has too much water (so just add a bit more mix). Then I got the APS ready by wetting the capillary mat thoroughly, filling the reservoir with room temp water, putting the peg board down, then the capillary mat, then the planting cells. I filled each cell with the moistened seed starting mix, leaving about .25 inch of space at the top. I pushed down on the mix in each cell to make sure that it was making contact with the capillary mat & drawing up water, then I added more mix to fill the cell back up to top (again leaving about .25 inch). Now I was ready for some seeds!

I usually put 3 seeds in each cell and then thin them out once the first true leaves have sprouted. Thinning is painful - I hated doing it last year because I hated to cut off one of my precious little plants, but I learned that it truly does make healthier plants in the long run, so I just have to suck it up and do it. As I put the seeds in, I put plant markers in each cell. Last year I thought that I would remember what I put where, but by the time I finished putting seeds down I had completely forgotten which variety of tomato I put where, so I ended up with some "surprise" plants at transplant time.

Once all the seeds are in and each cell is marked, I sprinkle a light layer of mix on top of the seeds and pop the APS cover on to create a mini-greenhouse environment. We set our grow lights up in our laundry room on a counter we have next to our water heater, so I put the covered APS next to the water heater. The extra warmth is said to help speed up germination a bit (some people put theirs on top of the fridge). You can also buy a fancy "seedling heating mat" to bring your seedlings up to optimal germination temperature ... but next to the water heater seems to work just fine for us. Then, I just leave them alone. It took 6 days for my tomato seeds to emerge. Once they did, I took the APS cover off and moved the whole tray under the grow lights - leaving the lights on for about 12-14 hours each day and I keep the lights about 3 inches above the leaves. Other than making sure that the reservoir has enough water in it periodically, that is about all the effort it takes to start my own seeds.

To me one of the most amazing things about starting your own seeds is seeing how something as tiny as a tomato seed can turn into a monstrous plant that helps feed us for almost 5 months out of the year - again, it feels like just a little bit of magic.

Planting Lettuce & Broccoli in a Sandbox

We had the best of intentions to do a full spring garden this year, but newborns seem to magically eat time, so we never got around to preparing our raised beds in time for a late winter/early spring planting. When I got the email last week from the local farm that I ordered some transplants from this year that our lettuce and broccoli seedlings would be ready soon, I had to find a place to put them - fast.  So I turned to our neglected sandbox planter.

This was the site of our first vegetable garden two years ago. We took a sandbox that our daughter didn't play with very much, drilled holes in the bottom, layered some rocks for drainage and filled it with potting soil - voila! instant garden space. Last year we bit the bullet and built four 8'x4' raised beds on a sunnier patch of our property, so this little planter went unused and the weeds decided to move in. I had some clean up work to do before I could put the lettuce and broccoli in here.

First, I cleared out all the weeds, acorns, twigs, sprouted acorns with surprisingly strong roots, and then I used my trowel to mix up the soil a little bit since it had become pretty compacted. While I was at it, I mixed in about a cup of pelletized chicken manure to give the soil a little nutrient boost. I probably should have let all that settle for a week or so, but the plants were ready to be picked up, and they needed a new home asap.

I let it sit overnight, and started planting the next morning. Last year, I learned that I am horrible at keeping up with weeds. So, this year I am determined to get things off to a good start and mulch, mulch, mulch from the get go. I had learned about this newspaper mulching method last year, but never tried it out before so I thought I'd test it here. Basically you lay down a fairly thick layer of newspaper, make cut outs in the newspaper where the plants will go, plant and then mulch on top of the newspaper. Sounded simple enough and it was fairly straight forward (although thick, soggy layers of newspaper don't tear quite as easily or neatly as I thought). But after wrestling with the newspaper a bit, I did finally get all 12 plants in the bed.

Next, it was time for mulch. I could have gone to the store and bought some mulch, but another thing that we never quite got around to doing last fall because of our new arrival was raking leaves, so we have LOTS and LOTS of leaves in our yard right now. I decided to use shredded leaves as my mulch. Shredded/chopped leaves are a great organic mulch that actually feed your soil as they help to suppress weeds and keep the soil moist (reducing the amount of watering that you need to do as an added bonus). It would have been best if I had trekked out to our "composted" leaf pile (i.e. big ol' pile of leaves from the last two years) and used the oldest leaves we had back there for the most fertilizing power, but I was a bit pressed for time so I just used what was at my feet. My hubby built a "leaf shredder" that fits on top of our garden cart out of 2'x4's and some chicken wire, so after a bit of sifting we end up with finely shredded leaf mulch.

By this point, my little buddha baby was starting to loose interest and patience with being outside watching mommy garden, so I quickly spread out the leaf mulch and watered everything and, ta da!, we have ourselves a little spring garden:

Pirat Lettuce

Jericho Lettuce

This is our first attempt at lettuce and our second try with broccoli (attempt #1 didn't go so well, which is why I opted to go with transplants instead of from seed this year). So we will see how it all goes.  We are looking forward to some yummy salads and some delicious roasted broccoli with garlic, which is hands down the best way of prepping broccoli that I've ever found. 

Up next ... starting our seeds for our Summer Garden!