Operation Family Ties branding is underway and there are some exciting new goodies in my office! As I shared earlier, I spent hours monday researching and getting inspired for the perfect packaging. While I love swirly doodles and rubber stamps of cute owls with huge eyes, I have been exercising discipline and opting for more classic details rather than whimsical ones. And I love the identity that Family Ties is starting to have. The bow ties themselves are super fun and youthful, so the classic logo is a nice balance.
Read this great article about branding from Etsy’s seller handbook.
When you purchase a bow tie from Family Ties, it will be packaged in a hand-stamped cotton muslin bag. I ordered a custom rubber stamp with my logo and voila!
A huge project for me was deciding exactly how I wanted to do clothing labels. There are many online suppliers, but I found that these are only “affordable” if you are purchasing huge quantities. After some research, I decided to make my own and wanted to share the step-by-step process:
Materials:
- 1 pack of iron on t-shirt transfers (about $8.50 at Wal-Mart).
- 1 roll of grosgrain ribbon of your color choice. I use off-white, and light colors work best. (about $1.50 at a craft store)
The Process:
- Using a word processing program, create your label by importing a picture, a text box, or whatever you want your label to look like. Size the image so that it will fit on your ribbon.
- Make your image a mirror image. (If your printer has this option, you can skip this step)
- Copy and paste your image and create a row of the same image, putting them close together, and repeating as many as possible. I like to then select every image in the row (by holding shift in MS Word and clicking each image) and then copy the entire row. Then paste over and over until it fills the whole page.
- Print this on copy paper and cut one image out to make sure it fits your ribbon the way you planned.
- Once you are happy with your image, print on the specialty paper.
- Cut out each image. (You want your cuts to be tight so that placing the image on your ribbon is easy.)
- Ready for ironing! Have your iron pre-heated to the highest setting before you begin, and use a hard surface that will provide resistance (not your ironing board!). I used a pillowcase on top of my desk. The instructions that come with the paper are very helpful, so I’ll just add extra tips. After doing a couple of practice runs, I began laying out two strips of ribbon, each with three images, so that I could produce 6 labels at once. I highly suggest doing this to speed the process, but make sure that you only use the amount that your iron can cover in one place. Most of the transfer happens by pressing the iron firmly in one spot for 20 seconds, so you want everything to fit under the iron.
- Let the ribbons cool while you begin your next set. (remove them from the ironing area and they will cool much faster!)
- Repeat!
- Grab your cool ribbons and peal off the paper backing.
- Cut them to the desired length
- Celebrate!
Finishing & Sewing:
- I use a lighter to keep the ends of the ribbon from fraying. This might take a couple of tries to figure out how to seal the ends without causing it to burn. I like to hold the flame still and move the ribbon towards the flame.
- I sew these on with my sewing machine, but you could also hand stitch them. I use a 1.5 straight stitch on each end and then backstitch.
Hope this helps and gets you excited about either selling your products or simply adding labels to things you own!
xo, Hilary
