Maple Leaf Mommy

Last year I didn't buy school labels for G-Girl. I had a hard time deciding if she should go into Junior Kindergarten, and our last minute enrolment didn't leave me much time to pre-plan for things you order ahead of time, like labels. It was a bit of a shock for me to find that the school expected us to label EVERYTHING. Water bottle? Cardigans? Running shoes? You've got to be kidding me.  I got out my trusty permanent marker and did my best to label all of her stuff.  And she made it through the year without any major losses. But I did have to relabel some of her things, several times. And it turned out my trusty permanent marker wasn't quite as reliable as I thought it would be.

This year labels were definitely on my Back to School wish list, so I jumped at the chance to review a School Package from Oliver's Labels. But I have to tell you, I didn't expect to love them because how exciting can labels be, really? Apparently the answer is pretty darn exciting. Especially if you're five years old and super eager to get back to school.




G-Girl helped me pick out and design her labels. There were numerous very cool gender neutral design options available, but my daughter had her heart set on pink and fairies and I let her run with it. I was blown away by the fact that they offered over forty different designs to choose from. I also thought it was super cool that you got to choose your own font. And you could mix and match within the same package, for example a butterfly bookbag tag and fantasy themed labels --which is what we ended up going with.

The Oliver's Labels School Package costs $41.99, and that price includes free shipping within Canada. The package includes 20 original labels, 30 mini labels, 35 clothing labels, 3 lunchbag tags, a backpack tag, and enough shoe labels to mark three pairs of shoes.  It's really the perfect assortment for back to school.



They also have one rather amazing feature, which I actually didn't bother to take advantage of. Every time you design a label you have the option of adding in the Found-it feature, which is a nifty little code number that gets added to the label. If someone finds your lost labelled item, they can enter the code number and connect with you. All without publicly listing your phone number or address. Pretty neat, right? And it doesn't cost any extra either. I decided to skip it just because I didn't want to clutter up the label with the code, as I wanted them to be clean and easy to read for my five year old who is just learning to identify her own name in type.

Once the labels arrived and I had a chance to see them in real life I was very impressed with the quality. The backpack and lunchbag tags are printed on a thick hard plastic and include cords for attaching them. I was pleased to discover that I could use the mini labels on her lunch containers, as they are dishwasher safe. The shoe labels are also very cool. Made to sit on the inside sole of the shoe, they are shaped for the left or right foot which is pretty neat.  But the ones I got super excited about were the machine washable clothing tags! They are just the perfect size for sticking on the care tags inside clothes, and a much, much, better option then attempting to write my daughters first and last name in chunky bleeding marker as tiny as possible (All together her full name is 19 characters long, just not happening). Suddenly labelling every piece of clothes she wears to school (seriously, they request that, it's nuts!) doesn't seem like such a daunting task. Also, that moment at 8:20 am when you realize it's actually a bit chilly outside and your kid is going to need a sweater but you haven't labelled any is no longer a "wait don't put that on yet the marker might smudge, oh gods I hope we don't miss the bus" nightmare. Two seconds and her tag from Oliver's Labels is affixed and she's good to go.

Of course only time will tell how they wear in the long run, but my first impressions with Oliver's Labels are all on the remarkably positive side. The printing turn around time was surprisingly fast. The School Package made getting all of G-Girl's items ready for back to school so quick and simple, the cuteness factor is high and the printing quality is top notch. All of the labels, even the minis, are clear and easy to read and my daughter loves seeing her name posted all over everything. Overall, I would definitely recommend Oliver's Labels for labelling all of your kids' stuff.

To learn more about Oliver's Labels:
- visit their website.
- connect with them on Twitter.
- connect with them on Facebook.

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