Labels Gone Bad

Toys. Can’t live without them, can hardly see your floors, furniture, etc. because of them. I’m pretty much on a never-ending quest to keep the toys organized and in check. As I mentioned in my post on the dress-up boutique, I did a decent job after Christmas this year of cleaning out the old toys that we don’t play with that much anymore and finding homes for all the new toys. Part of my strategy had been using those colorful canvas bins meant for closets to store groups of toys on the bookshelves in the basement. They’re great for that purpose, being relatively cheap, colorful, indestructable, and offering plenty of storage. There was just one small flaw with the plan. I noticed that when the toys went into these bins, Lindsay didn’t ever play with them anymore. I finally realized that since these bins are so tall, she can’t really see into them, and she didn’t remember what was in them. So I decided that they must be labeled, like at preschools and day cares. (Actually, you can learn a lot by watching these places…)

But how could I label them? They did not come equipped with slots for labels, and anyway, I would want large labels with words and a picture. So I came up with a velcro strategy. I would get velcro for fabric for the bins and regular velcro for the laminated labels I would make. I got all of my materials, and last week I made the labels. I snagged pics from the web and put names next to them, printed them, reinforced them by gluing on a piece of cardstock, and then laminating the whole caboodle. Relatively childproof, or so I hope. Today, I was ready to complete the project. I gathered up all of my velcro, labels, and my iron and headed into the basement. After letting the iron heat, I put the first fabric strip on one of the bins and put the iron on the reverse side as indicated by the instructions. And this is where a great idea went very, very, very wrong.

For, you see, I did not check the fabric composition of the bins. Probably did not matter, because I would have tried it anyway - I didn’t intend to hold the iron on there for 60 seconds as indicated. I was going to try smaller increments and try to achieve the same effect. But it took only a microsecond for the canvas to melt all over my iron. It immediately began to smoke and the smell was atrocious. Poor Jason, he was actually trying to work in the basement and the smell alone about drove him out. Clearly, it was time to move to plan B.

Only, I didn’t really have a plan B. So I hopped in my car and headed to the Michael’s near me to investigate options. There were some adhesive sheets that would have worked perfectly, but their bond was permanent. Not what I was looking for. Eventually, I decided on continuing with the velcro, but using the kind you’re supposed to sew and using fabric glue instead. Getting the velcro on with the glue was more difficult than I anticipated, because the glue sets over time. I had to hold the velcro pieces on for quite a while to get the adhesion I wanted. I’m not sure the strength of the bond of the velcro to the labels and the bins is all that great, but it seems to be enough for now. The labels are on and already seem to be a hit with Lindsay. I’ll just have to be quite careful when and if I need to change or reposition the labels.

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