I don’t know about you, but when I put a lot of effort into sewing something it is kind of nice to know my mark is on it. Making your own labels is so much easier than you’d expect. I like using my Silhouette to make them, but you could use regular iron on paper and scissors instead. I’ll walk you through the steps of how I make mine with the Silhouette.
You’ll Need:
- printable heat transfer material for light colored fabrics
- white ribbon
- printer
- scissors
- scrap piece of fabric
- iron & ironing board
First I turned on the registration marks. Since I don’t want to make a ton of labels right now and don’t want to waste a whole sheet of paper I adjusted a few settings. I changed the page height to 9″ and moved the bottom inset to 4″ for the registration marks. This way I’ll only use half a sheet of the heat transfer and I can save the other half for later.
If you search “handmade” in the Silhouette Online store you’ll find plenty of images that would make lovely labels. I’m going with the “cute handmade by tag“. Since my ribbon is 5/8″ wide I want the ironed on image to be about 1/2″ tall. I drew a rectangle 1/2” tall and resized the shape to fit inside it.
I typed my name in and then played around with the colors until I found something I liked. I filled my name in with green. For the tag shape I put the line color in green with a thickness of 0.005″ and then used white to fill in the rest.
So, I almost forgot the crucial step of mirroring my image. Thankfully I remembered before it was too late! So yeah, mirror the image and then copy and paste it until the page is filled up. Run the heat transfer material through an inkjet printer with the blank side up. Once it was loaded onto my Silhouette I made sure it was only cutting the red outline and selected the cut settings for printable heat transfer material.
The extra material on the heat transfer sheet peeled away easily. Then I used scissors to loosely cut around each design while being careful not to cut into the design.
I placed the label face down on the ribbon about 1/2″ away from the edge.
Using a scrap piece of fabric I placed it over the heat transfer material and then ironed it down for about half a minute. It has to cool before peeling it off.
If you want a label that you can place in the seam of a bag fold it over and iron it down like in the picture below. Cut the ribbon and repeat the process to create more labels.
I also like to have labels that lay flat so for some I cut each side about 1/2″ away from the edge and then ironed them down.
These labels look great ironed onto fabric too, but I love the ease of using ribbon. Just keep a stash of these ready to go and you’ll have one of a kind labels for everything you sew.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
Kim@NewlyWoodward says
May 15, 2014 at 12:14 pmThese look great. Such a smart idea. I actually have custom handmade by tags and I always forget to use them. (Or in truth, wait until the very last minute to finish something and am in such a rush, it just doesn’t happen.)
Kim@NewlyWoodward says
May 15, 2014 at 12:15 pmAlso – I’m loving the idea of just making my own heat transfer labels and ironing them right onto the item. =)
Analisa says
May 15, 2014 at 3:21 pmThanks Kim! If you try the heat transfer method please let me know how that works out. I bet those would look fantastic!
Heather says
March 21, 2015 at 9:09 pmI just got my cameo about a week ago and playing around with it. How did you get the letters green? I know you can play around with colors but how did it print green for you? Do I need markers or something to go in the machine? Prob a dumb question:)
Analisa says
March 22, 2015 at 9:56 pmNot a dumb question at all! There are soooo many ways to use the Silhouette that it can be overwhelming at first. For these labels you use an inkjet printer to print it onto the printable heat transfer material before cutting around it with your Silhouette.
Alyssa Duran says
July 21, 2015 at 2:49 pmi know this is a bit old but I just came across this page . I love the way you make the tags , but I’m super curios abou the computer program you use to make them . I’ve been trying to search for some good ones
Thanks a lot
ALYSSA Duran
Analisa says
July 22, 2015 at 1:30 pmThanks Alyssa! Since I used my Silhouette CAMEO to make them I used the Silhouette Studio program to design them. If you don’t mind cutting the labels out with scissors, you can still use Silhouette Studio to create them. It is a free download for the program, but you pay for the individual designs you want to use. You can find the basic edition of Silhouette Studio here.
Mims says
September 8, 2016 at 7:45 amHeat transfer material where can I buy it?
Analisa says
September 8, 2016 at 8:29 pmI know that Michaels and Hobby Lobby usually carry it. Amazon has it in a ton of different colors too!
Trisha says
December 28, 2016 at 4:08 amWhat a quick and easy idea! And great tip about remembering to mirror the image. That is something I would have definitely forgotten, lol. Thanks!
KoRussia Slaughter says
January 12, 2018 at 8:16 pmThank you for this. It was sewww helpful! I wanted to make my own labels. I am starting small and would like to do all that I can on my own until I can afford to pay someone to do it for me.
Carol says
March 27, 2019 at 2:33 pmCan you share what font you used for Annalise? Thanks, carol