How to Jazz Up Boring Storage With Custom Labels

Let's just face it: homeschoolers have a lot of stuff. Just like any classroom, you accumulate things over time. One of my greatest downfalls is buying cheap school supplies in the fall when I already have an ample supply at home. If your storage isn't organized, you can fall into this trap. Custom labels help bring some fun and design into your room, as well as helping things get put away when it's time to clean up.

I think I reorganize every January. Last year at this time I was reclaiming my school room. This year, I'm building a library! While I prepare for the construction to finish, I've been working on sorting and purging things I don't want to move into our new school space. My new year's resolution is to organize in such a way that I can find what I need, and know how much of each supply I have before the sales hit again in the fall.

I have fallen in love with the KUGGIS series at IKEA. They are simple white boxes with lids that stack perfectly. Even better, they fit perfectly into my BILLY bookshelves from IKEA. It's as if they were made for each other!

Finding What You Have

While I love the simplicity of these white boxes, if I just left them all white, I'd be continually digging through them to find what I was looking for. Even worse, my kids would just throw left over supplies in any box, because they don't care about the rhyme or reason of organization.

While I don't label everything I own, I do appreciate a great label when it's fitting. Since these boxes will be visible in my library, I wanted fun labels and not just the little tape strips that come out of my label maker.

Custom Labels for Storage Boxes

I purchased some clear labels for shipping—the full sheet variety (make sure you buy the ones that match the printer you have: inkjet or laser). Then I designed my labels and added the images to a word file.

Word Swag is my current favorite app for fun font and word art.

The font I used is "Wet Paint". If you tap the dice, it will keep redesigning your words until you find the look you like.

I printed three of each labels off so that I could label the lid and two sides. I love how they turned out, and the kids love that they can find what they need at any time!

And I'm really hoping that this will help with the cleaning up when the time comes!

Happy labeling!