Making a Rug Label

Yesterday on my blog mentioned making labels for the last few of my rugs ~ a girl has to start somewhere, right?  Well I did it for the Magdalena rugs but nothing else. 

This time I just used Microsoft Word program instead of Photo Shop which was used to make the Magdalena rug labels.  Now I wish I'd downloaded the Photo Shop program on this computer and used that instead (had the program downloaded on my old computer).  It came out okay but a tad small and with Photo Shop I could add a fancy border.  Here's what I made.

And here they are trimmed.  A little small and not much to turn over the edges and stitch so I used pinking shears to cut to retard raveling. 

Here is what the Magdalena labels looked like using the Photo Shop Program and you can see it has a border and more room for trimming; that plus the fact I only did 4 labels per sheet.  Initially I thought it would be a smart idea to make a template and just fill in the information which would be different for each of the Magdalena rugs.....like size, name, date, etc. 

 In retrospect I should have just saved the printing of the labels until all four had been hooked and the appropriate information typed on the label document before printing out.  It would have given a nicer aesthetic to the label than you can see here.  Perhaps one day I'll have a do-over and replace them with better labels.

Now, you're wondering....'so tell me how you made them?"   There are many ways to make labels I'm sure.  I do know you can purchase sheets at fabric stores and they may even be better than what I do because I'm always afraid of jamming up my printer. 

I used muslin which had been soaked in Bubble Jet purchased at Dharma Trading but may be sold elsewhere.  Then let the fabric dry and iron out the wrinkles in the fabric.  Next I cut a piece of waxed freezer paper the same as regular paper 8 1/2" x 11" and trimmed the treated muslin on the straight of grain then ironed the fabric onto the waxed side of the freezer paper with a DRY iron.

Then it is breath holding time as you press the PRINT button on your printer and hope it doesn't jam.  Of course you will need to learn which side up it requires for the fabric to go on your particular printer.  On mine the fabric side was down.

So, I know there are people out there who have made labels which look much more professional than mine.  If there is anyone out there who would like to share or blog about it, please let me know so I can do a better job on the next go around.  Or, heck, if you have a blog put the info there and give me your link.

Thanks for dropping by and reading my dribble.  Stay cool and remember for you working folks (I'm retired ya know), enjoy hump day.

Saundra