{How to} Make your own Fabric Labels

Is it Monday? No... Well shoot. It feeeeeels like a Monday morning. Your probly wondering what kind of looney writes a post at 5 in the AM? Ya. I'm that kind of looney, but I was always a looney tune anyways ha! So yesterday I managed to squeeze in a trip to the craft store and a trip to Jo-Ann's, all in one hour [traffic was seriously on my side luckily]. My mission was to find the supplies to make some nifty little fabric tags and here I am today to show you how you can easily make some inexpensive fabric tags for all of your sewing projects!

First up is to create your image. As you can see in the photo above I have created a small image and pasted 18 of them on one document. Depending on the size of your twill tape, you will need to create an image in your photo editing software [I use Photoshop], in my case, since my twill tape is 1" wide, I created my document to be 1" wide and 2.5" long. Once finished I copied the label and created a new document. See the arrow at the bottom? That's showing you the size of the new document. 8.5x11 which is the size of the printable transfer sheets. The last step before printing your page is to 'mirror' the image. In photoshop you just go to Image>>Rotate>>Flip horizontal.

In case you were wondering what transfer sheets I used? I used These iron on sheets for light fabrics and ink-jet printers.

Document done in PS, load the sheets [with the usable side down] into the printer and click print.

When it comes to cutting you can use anything really. A ruler and some simple scissors? Sure! I used my Paper cutter for faster cutting and measuring.

Almost done! Next is the fun part. Gathering your twill tape [again, color and size is totally up to you, just make sure that if you get a darker color twill tape that you buy the transfer sheets for darker fabrics], ironing board and iron and your ready to go. The ironing part is easy, for mine I just laid my tape out on my ironing board and placed one of my labels on the tape and using the iron, just press down for about 10 seconds and wiggled the iron around a bit for a few more seconds, peel off, trim and Presto!

You have your new labels!

There you have it. A complete tutorial on how to make your very own fabric labels. All in all it was pretty inexpensive and as far as time, really didn't take all that long either.

My sewing machine has been collecting dust the past couple of months and I have missed it dearly. I'm really excited to get back into my 'studio' and start working and making more projects. How about you? Do you sew? Any new projects in the works?

Do you RAW?

If your anything like me you just absolutely love to take photos. All kinds of photos, of anything and everything. I'm not sure how you shoot your photos but I use manual mode on my camera. I broke away from the flash about 2yrs ago and let's just say once you go manual you never look back. It's amazing and the quality of images are so much more fun and vibrant.

But today's post isn't about taking a photo. Today's post is showing you how to *fix* a photo. Even though I shoot manual now every now and than I get an underexposed photo [dark].

Here is the photo I am working with today for the example. It has super potential but because I was rushing trying to get that shot before Jayden decided to move for the 1-billionth-time, I went ahead and just took it. In the end it ended up being a bit to underexposed and now we are left with a 'dark' photo. [This was taken last Fall around Sunset].

So what you want to do it open up your Photoshop [assuming you have PS]. I currently have PSElements 7 [which is super inexpensive in case you were in the market for some PS].

When you have your program open, go to File >> Open As.

The reason we are 'opening as' is because we are going to open a RAW photo so we can manually adjust the exposure and lighting that we did not do in the camera before taking the original photo.

Once you find your photo, it will open in a separate window. Like shown. This is where the fun starts. Basically all you have to do is to just start playing around with the settings to the side of the window [that the arrow is pointing to]. Adjust them until you reach a photo that you are satisfied with and that's it!

So there you have it. A dark photo, given new life. Perfect for those frame-worthy photos that just seem to dark to actually frame yet you don't want to discard them because their just to good. Now you have a simple and easy way to correct them and give them a brand new perspective.

So go ahead... Give it a try!