Labelling

I have a very good friend and mentor who insists I should sign every piece of art I make - even if it is just a tiny thing stuck on the front of a greetings card.  And so I do - at least, I initial them and make sure I attach a sticker with my details on the back somewhere. 

But my ffflowers have been going out into the world unlabelled, so this article in the etsy storque blog really got me thinking.  Since individual ffflowers are not high-priced items, any labels would have to be inexpensive and easy to attach without extra work.  And they would have to be unobtrusive too - if the first thing you notice when you look at the flowers in a vase is the label, you are probably going to cut it off pretty quickly!  I fiddled around with different sized bits of fabric, trying them in between the flower and stem, but if they were big enough to be readable then they really stuck out.  I finally discovered that - with a bit of practice - I could trap a narrow ribbon label securely in the wrapping at the base of the stem - no extra sewing - yay!

I made my labels myself using narrow cotton tape and printable t-shirt transfer paper, with the help of this great tutorial.  One little tip - you have to print a mirror image of your text - I spent some time trying to work out how to flip the text in a document and then found I had a 'print mirror image' setting in my printer options... doh!  So much easier!  The transfer paper is a bit fiddly to iron on to the tape but for me it's really worth the effort.  Actually, the hardest part was the shopping - finding the right width tape - I would have preferred a cream colour - I'll have to keep looking.

So from now on I'll be sending my ffflowers out into the world properly labelled!