I am always looking for new ways to organize, and if there is a way to organize and make it look cute at the same time, even better!

If you haven’t had a chance to go over to the blog, I Heart Organizing, you have to take a minute and do it. You won’t regret it. I get a TON of organizing ideas from there, and she is so generous to share lots of step by step how to’s.

With our little guy flying through clothes so quickly, I’ve all of a sudden felt a huge urge to get all of the too-small clothes organized. I went to Target, got the big plastic see through tubs, and then decided I wanted to put some kind of label on it. Well of course I didn’t want to just hand write on the box, so I started to search for different labels online. That’s when I came across this blog post.  A whole new way of using excel that is so simple and easy! So exciting 🙂

After a few simple how to’s, I was able to create this:

To pay it forward, I will share my step-by-step how to in making these simple labels.

1. Open an excel document, and under the insert tab, and under the shapes tab, select the shape you would like to use. (I used the rounded rectangle shape.)

2. Click anywhere on the excel document and drag until you get the desired size you would like.

3. Right click on the shape, and select size and properties. Under size, you can specify the exact size of the image. For example, if you would like a 5″x7″ label, you can input this here.

4. Under the format tab in the tool bar, select shape fill, and this is where you can insert your background image. I just searched online under images until I found a pattern I liked. You can find the image I used here. Save whatever image you would like to use to your computer. Then, under shape fill, select picture.

You can edit and change how the image fits in your shape by right clicking on the shape again, and then size and proportion, and then you can adjust the scale by playing with the stretch options. You can also play around with the appearance of your background box by changing the color of the line (the outline of the shape) as well as thickness, etc. etc.

5. Once you have your background image complete, then you can begin your text area. Repeat steps 1-3. I selected a circle, changed the line color to orange, and set the size I wanted.

6. I then went back to the internet, to find the elephant image. There are so many adorable images online that you can find, so have fun looking for something to jazz up the label! I found the elephant here. Click on the insert tab, then on picture, and you can insert any image you have saved. You can then resize the image to fit into the circle.

7. The last step is to enter a text box for the label. Again under the insert tab, select text box, then click and drag on your image. This will allow you to create the size of the text area. From here you can edit your font, font color, the orientation, and size. The most important part of this step is right clicking on the text box, select format shape, and then under fill, make sure the transparency is at 100%. This is how you are able to see your image of the elephant behind the text.

And that’s it! You are then able to edit your text box to change the sizes…

Sure it takes a little time, but once you have the template made, you can keep using it for all the sizes! I plan on doing this, but in girly colors, if we ever have a girl. That way you can tell what kind of clothes are in the box without having to write boy or girl.

After you create the label all you have to do is print out (make sure to change your printer settings to photo printing to get a better quality) and laminate!

These are the sheets I purchased from JoAnn Fabrics, they are self laminating sheets and worked great!

I could fit 3 labels onto one 9×12 sheet.

And then I just cut them all out carefully! So easy and fun 🙂

Hope you enjoy and have fun playing around and making your own labels. Now that you have this how-to, imagine all the things you could add your own personalized labels to!