You Asked: Label Me!

One of the most popular questions I have ever gotten here at IHeart Organizing is.....

"How do you make all your labels?!?!!?!"

Everyone who knows me, knows I am a little label fanatic.  In fact, you have seen my label episodes pop up all over this blog, from our playroom to the kid's drawers to our garage to our snack bins....

Oofta, so sorry my friendly readers, I know this is SO overdue!  I was without my program of choice for a while, which had put me out of the "how to" option, but now I am back in business!

My secret weapon, Microsoft Excel!  It is SO user friendly, which is just what a gal with three kid's and little time for learning fancy editing programs needs!

So here is a quick step by step play of what I do to make a quick label, or 542 of them...

For this quick play by play, I am going to make a label for little girls play clothes, since it's a label I have never personally been able to make for my family of boys!

{Blogger shrinks down my images, however, at any time you can click on it and it should enlarge for you to get a better view if necessary.  Also, please note, I use Microsoft Office 2007, however, most versions of Microsoft Excel have similar options and verbiage}

1.  Open Microsoft Excel, and select "Insert" and then "Shape".  Select your favorite shape to use for labels.

2.  Once the shape appears on the screen, you can right click it.  A green button will appear that can be dragged around to free rotate the object.  You can also right click to see a menu and select "Size & Properties".  I do this to ensure the size selected is proportionate {height x width}.

I had chosen to rotate the label straight up and down, using the green button.  I also updated the size to be an exact 3 x 3 scale.


3.  Now is where the fun comes in.  Anything is possible when you right click and select, "Format Shape".  You can select the shape outline and fill. 

I chose to do a Picture fill and select a pre-saved pink floral background to fill in the label {I found a background image through Google, saved it to my computer and found the file to use as a label filler}.  Then I selected the "Line Color" to update the line color to pink and selected "Line Style" to update the line's weight and make it dotted vs. linear.

4.  Because I created a label with a fill, I need to add another shape to the top, that is of a solid color, to ensure that the actual label wording or pictures are visible.  I do this by repeating steps 1-3.

This time I went with a simple white circle, no line.


5.  There are times when I choose to add a picture to the label.  This is typically how I handle kiddo labels, since the younger munchkins can't read yet.  Since this label would be for a little gal's dress up clothes, a picture is in order!

I will just use Microsoft's embedded clip-art, however, more can be found here at Microsoft.com.

I just clicked "Insert: Clip Art" and searched for "ballerina".  I then sized the clip-art down and dragged it into my desired location.

6.  It's time to add some text!  This of course is also completely optional, but for the sake of the tutorial, I will do a quick play by play of how I add some font to the label.

I select, "Insert: WordArt"

Then, using the formatting option, I select the color, outline, font, etc... for the WordArt.

For this example, I went with a "BlackJack" font type and pink fill.

However, it didn't fit perfectly, so rather than shrinking down the font, making it harder to read, I decided to curve it instead...

Giving me the end result of an uber adorable girly "Play Clothes" label!

And there you have it!  A couple of easy peasy steps and you are ready for some life changing, room enhancing, extremely organized updates!!

Of course, the options are endless, and nothing is permanent, it's always easy to make changes within the program as the label is evolving.  All of the things I have learned is through playing with the program, reading help tutorials and seeing what the program can offer. 

I also use Microsoft Excel to make all of my spreadsheets and monograms, I just heart that program to pieces! 

Happy label making!!