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I’ve been doing some sewing lately, and wanted to add custom labels without buying extra supplies. I found several tutorials involving iron-transfer paper (here), freezer paper (here), or other fancy supplies… but there IS a way to print custom labels with materials you already have on hand!
Materials Needed:
- Scrap piece of fabric (I used woven cotton fabric)
- Printer (with pigment ink*)
- Printer paper
- Duct tape (or other tape that adheres to fabric fairly well)
* Your printer cartridge ink is either made from dye-based ink or pigment-based ink. You want pigment-based ink, as dye-based ink will wash off the fabric. You can look up online for information about your printer ink, or you can follow the method below to test and see whether your type of ink will stay on the fabric.
Overview:
The general idea is to tape the fabric securely to the printer paper so that the edges of the fabric are not caught up in the printer, then print. After the ink dries, iron then wash the fabric. Voila, you have yourself a custom clothing label!
Step by step:
- Type up the text you want on your label in a Word document, or paste your design into Word. (You don’t have to have half your words upside down… it depends on how you want to orient your label later on)
- Tape the fabric securely(especially the edge of the fabric that is feeding into the printer) onto a piece of printer paper. (I took pictures after I printed)
- Adjust the zoom of the Word document on your screen, so that the width of the page on screen is the same as the width of your printer paper. This way, you can compare the position of your fabric to the position of the design in Word, and make sure that the design will print onto the right location.
- Put your fabric-taped-paper into the printer in the correct orientation, and print!
- After the ink dries, iron the fabric for 5-10 seconds so that the ink sets.
- Test whether the ink will wash off by washing the fabric.
- Cut your fabric to the size you want the label to be, making sure to leave a large margin around the text/design for hemming the fabric and sewing onto clothing.
There! Now you have yourself a custom-printed clothing label~ Stayed tuned for how the custom-printed label will be used in an upcoming project =)
Betty
Soli Deo Gloria