by Texas Homesteader ~
Use a laser printer & regular packing tape to make a custom label at home. I made labels for repurposed jars in my pantry, and even for customizing our Christmas gifts. It worked perfectly!
Repurposing Glass Jars In The Pantry
I’m always looking for easy ways to label repurposed glass storage jars in my kitchen or pantry. And I especially like the jars to look nice when they remain out on our counter top, such as our popcorn jar.
I initially saw this idea over at It’s Always Autumn. They were using an image label to personalize a candle. The instructions indicate a laser printer is needed so I can’t say whether or not this works on an ink-jet printer.
I’ve since made these labels for several repurposed glass jars in my pantry. I have one for beans, one for brown rice and many others too.
I think they’re cute! Here’s how we did it.
Making Homemade Customized Labels
Print: Print the words or design for your labels in fun fonts using a laser printer, making sure to leave plenty of space between words.
Tape: Stick a piece of shipping tape completely over each word or image printed and smooth it down where there were no wrinkles in the tape. (I pressed my thumbnail over the printing to make sure everything was completely attached.)
Cut: Now just cut the tape-covered images out.
But how do you make them stick on glass jars? Read on, my friends.
Soaking The Homemade Tape Labels
Soak: Place the squares of tape you’ve just cut out into a bowl of water and allow them to soak for 15 minutes. This step softens the paper and helps release it from the tape. When the soaking period is up take the wet, curled pieces of tape out of the water.
Separate: Pull away the paper from the tape. Don’t worry, it’s easy!
Rub: Then using your thumb rub the paper side until all the residual paper fibers are dislodged from around the actual printing. Give each label a good rinse.
Dry: Set the tape squares with the sticky side up on a baker’s rack to dry. As they dry the stickiness of the tape will return. (I allow them to dry for a couple of hours to make sure there was no residual dampness.)
Attach Homemade Labels To Jars
After they’re completely dry, stick the new labels onto your jars. Voila!
Since this is only tape, I’m able to quickly & easily (and CHEAPLY) change out the labels if need be.
Just packing tape and a printed word? You really don’t get custom labels any cheaper than that, y’all!
Homemade Labels To The Rescue At Christmas
Last year we even used this same method for personalizing our Christmas gifts. And that’s where making our own labels REALLY came in handy.
We searched and found a royalty-free clip art of a cute bee and printed it out. We then printed each of the kids’ family names in cute font to further personalize each jar of honey.
Then we followed the same procedure above to make personalized labels for each jar.
So each honey jar had a cute honeybee on one side, their family name on the other. It turned out really cute and the kids all loved it.
Give it a try, personalizing jars is really easy using this simple and surprisingly-effective hack.
~TxH~
This post categorized in 
Tagged in 
Other Christmas Posts You Might Like:
Gifts Of Food
- Cute Santa Sleigh Made With Candy
- Candy Snowman With Gloves (optional CASH Gift Idea!)
- MYO Snowman Treat Jar Gift
- Cinnamon Sugared Pecans
- Sweet/Crunchy Christmas Trail Mix
- Homemade Chai Tea Mix
- Easy Homemade Jerky
- Homemade Pumpkin Granola
- Apple Pie Filling In A Jar
Easy Homemade Gift Ideas
- Homemade Gifts We’ve Given
- Easy Last-Minute Gifts For A Group
- Personalized Oak Cutting Board
- All-Natural Beeswax Wood Conditioner
- Gardener’s Hand Scrub
- 3-Ingredient Beeswax Lip Balm
- Repurposed Denim Pocket-Sized Hand Warmers
- Photo Wall Hanging Using Reclaimed Barn Wood
- Wax-Dipped Pinecone Fire Starters
- Cedar Solar-Light Garden Feature
- Rustic Bois d’Arc Solar Light
Other Gift Ideas
- Gift Ideas For The Eco-Friendly Mom
- Gift Ideas For Dad
- Must-Haves For Any Home Cook
- 8 Environmentally Friendly Gifts For Your Friends
- Low-Waste Christmas Gifts We’ve Received
- Keeping Track Of Gift-Card Balances
- Experience Gift Ideas
Low-Waste Gift Wrapping
- Reusable Gift Wrap Ideas
- Fastest Zero-Waste Gift Wrapping – Using Cloth
- Low-Waste Gift Baskets
- Rustic Repurposed-Denim Baskets
- Make A Cute Gift Box Using A Christmas Card!
- Make a Customized Label With Plain Ole Shipping Tape
Holiday Cooking Tips
- Holiday Cooking Shortcuts, Tips & Recipes
- Quick Ingredient Substitutions (Eliminate a run to the grocery store)
- Easy Trick To Fill Resealable Bags
Christmas Season
- Simplify Christmas To Reduce Stress
- A Small Christmas Tree Can Be BEAUTIFUL!
- Feeling Sad During The Christmas Season
- The Truth Behind Perfect Facebook Posts
- Don’t Judge The Need Of Others
- Want To Keep Christ In Christmas?
- Thinking Of Adding A Pup To Your Home This Christmas?
C’mon by & sit a spell! Come hang out at our Facebook Page. It’s like sitting in a front porch rocker with a glass of cold iced tea. Lots of good folks sharing! You can also follow along on Pinterest, on Twitter or on Instagram.
If you’d like to receive an email each time a new blog post goes live it’s EASY to subscribe to our blog!
I didn’t know a laser printer could be good for customized labels. I’m glad you mentioned that you soaked the tape labels in a bowl of water. I’m interested to learn if all is needed is water and if the temperature of the water needs to be at a certain degree.
Neat idea! I will have to try this. Thanks for sharing.
It works great Cindy. And for personalization of gifts – the sky’s the limit! ~TxH~
This is so cool!! It’s a little bit of work but the end result would be worth it!
It was actually pretty easy Pam – I printed my design, put tape over it, cut it out, soaked it in water then rubbed the paper off the tape with my thumbs. I think it looks really cute on the jars in my pantry but WHEW – it was a big help last Christmas when our cute labels never came. No problem, we made our own! ~TxH~