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Using Custom Stickers to Achieve Your Decluttering Dreams

2019 custom sticker for organization, file folder

Minimalism is a trend that’s here to stay. People are finding happiness in letting go of unnecessary possessions. Having vast collections of bric-a-brac is no longer desirable. People want open living with clean, modern spaces. Marie Kondo has tapped into the trend with her book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and konmaring your life has become part of our vocabulary. It’s easy to get started decluttering your own home and custom labels can make you an organizing machine!

Sorting Labels: When you have momentum for going through your things, you can derail it pretty quickly. Don’t get bogged down finding new homes for items as you go. Instead use boxes, bins, or bags for categories of items and labels to make it easy. Some categories you may need are keep, trash, recycle, shred, return, sell, donate, and relocate. Being able to quickly make decisions about each item and addressing all like items at once will make the process easier.

Placement labels: Key to keeping any system of organization working is having a place for everything. Custom labels make it easy to know where items will ‘live’ in your home. It also helps to stop you from buying unnecessary things if you know you don’t have room for them. Here are a few areas where you can work labels to your advantage:

  • Closet labels: Label shelves and bins so you don’t have to search for seasonal or special occasion items. Keep kids’ closets organized with hanger dividers for sizes and seasons.
  • Art supply labels: Keep like items with like and label your drawers for paints, drawing supplies, glue, scissors, cloth, and miscellaneous craft items like popsicle sticks, googly eyes, and pompoms. 
  • Office supply labels: It’s unfortunately very easy to overbuy office supplies since these are items that need restocking. But how many binder clips, paper clips, and staples do you really need? After you clear out your drawers to a manageable amount you can use custom labels to separate items.
  • Tools: Why go rifling through a tool chest every time you need a screwdriver? Use custom labels to clearly mark where everything belongs and avoid the urge to throw everything together.

Label photos: If your important family photos are living on your phone you risk losing them or just never looking at them. You can easily organize your photos and create an album you can pass on to future generations. Print out your favorites and write on the back all the important information. Think of it like retro tagging. Create a label with headings and blank areas that you can fill in like names of people, date, and location. The label prevents indentations on the photo from pen and helps you stay organized.

Paperwork: Inundated with endless paperwork, bills, and tax records? Get it off your desk and file everything away. Use custom labels for each year and within the year, each category of bills: medical, credit cards, mortgage, etc. Most accountants agree that you should keep seven years of records so categorizing your papers by year will make it easier to shred the files at year eight. You can elect to receive paperless statements to eliminate some bills. Just make sure you back up your files because the bank often keeps only eighteen months to three years accessible. Don’t store those files on a hard drive only. Keep them backed up to cloud, Google drive, or on a flash drive.

Kids Toys: This is one of the most difficult areas to organize because children are constantly in motion. You may spend hours sorting toys, finding missing puzzle pieces, and matching doll outfits only to have a 3 year old immediately misplace everything. After you’ve gone through and eliminated all broken, outgrown, or incomplete toys, make it easy for your children to maintain an organized space. Custom labels are a great way to help little ones understand where everything belongs. Use large colorful labels with a picture and a word. A puzzle piece and a large word ‘Puzzles’ will help pre-readers know where things belong.

Custom labels are a great way to get started organizing your home. You can design colorful labels with modern fonts on square stickers that make you smile when you put your things away. The team at Blue Bee Printing can walk you through your label order and make sure you have the right sizes for what you need. Once you see how easy it is, you’ll be inspired to organize and simplify every area of your home.

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Design Your Business Cards to Get Noticed

example of custom business card, front and back

Business cards have been in existence since 17th century Europe. Despite digital takeover of every aspect of our lives, business cards remain strong. The expectation of a business card is that it conveys all of your information in once place. However their small size makes them easy to lose. Here’s how to make your business cards stand out and not get left in a trashcan.

Clean and modern design: If you’re using the same format your company has been using for years, it’s probably time for an update. Keep the design clean and easy to read. Avoid script or decorative fonts. It doesn’t do you any good if your customer can’t read your name clearly.

Front and back: Don’t forget to use the back of a business card. Including all of your information on one side makes for a cluttered design. Using the back frees you up to keep the important information on the front and secondary info on the back. It allows you to have a cleaner look without sacrificing important text.

QR code and other digital information: Business cards have stepped fully into the digital age. Contact information no longer has to be manually typed in by a card’s recipient. You can create a virtual business card or vcard. A vcard contains all your contact information, website address, title, and anything else you want to include in a virtual file that can be directly added to a phone’s contacts. How you convey your vcard to the customer is through a scannable QR code.

QR codes are free to create and you can use any QR code generating website to do so. Once you input the vcard information and generate the code, download the image file as an .eps file. Then add it to your design. QR codes have to be a minimum of 1 x 1 cm to be scannable, but you might want to go larger to be on the safe side. Print it out at home actual size and test it to make sure it works before you finalize the design.

The best part about including a QR code is that if your contact information changes, you can update the vcard and the QR code will still work. Instead of having to order new cards immediately when your email address or phone number changes, you can explain to customers that the QR code will have your updated contact information.

Minimal text: Nothing makes a customer’s eyes glaze over than endless blocky text to read. Sometimes people are tempted to include too much information on a business card. Along with company name, your name, title, mobile phone, office phone, website address, physical address, and email address, people will include a company slogan, description or listing of services, fax number, and more. That’s a lot of information to fit on a three-and-a-half by two-inch card. Keep it to the essentials. If someone really needs a fax number they will call your office number to get it, which gives you a chance to have a personal conversation with them and create a connection. Keep your list of services short or use images to convey the idea. Try to make the company slogan blend with the logo so it separates that text from the rest of the card.

Photos and logos: Clear photographs and clean company logos go a long way to making your card memorable. If you include a photo of yourself, use a professional shot where you are smiling. If you are using stock photos or taking your own photos, make sure you use a high quality camera. Be careful to upload the full image size. Print requires high-resolution photography, where as websites can take a lower dpi without losing clarity.

Use Professional Design: If graphic design isn’t your strong suit, you can browse the extensive template library at Blue Bee Printing. We have a variety of templates that are customizable to fit your needs.