Paint Chip Labels

I often have friends laugh at my love of labeling, but you guys, labeling makes me SO HAPPY! And if that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right!

But seriously, I can’t emphasize enough how important labeling is in the organizing process. It allows everyone in the house to quickly find what they need, and makes it so easy to put things away when you’re done.

I also love that labels allow me to add some personal style to all of my organized spaces. The key to finding the balance between style and function is to keep your labels flexible enough to suit your changing needs.

Take our newly organized garage for example. I know with certainty that the items stored in our rows of matching white bins will change over time. That’s why it was important to me to create labels for these bins that would be quick and easy to update over time. But I also wanted the labels to look pretty, so here’s what I came up with…

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After adding our shiny new metallic floor and rows up one rows of white bins in the garage to create a clean and streamlined look {a far cry from the chaos our garage used to be}, I then wanted to bring in some color to make it a fun and creative space for our DIY projects. And what better way to add color than with paint chip cards?!

I stopped at my local paint store and grabbed a wide variety of paint swatch strips {making sure to get more than I needed so I’d have extras on hand for later}. I also bought a package of long thin adhesive labeling pockets {the size made for labeling the ends of binders}.

The paint chip cards were a bit too wide to fit in the labeling pockets, so I used my paper cutter to trip them down to size.

I went ahead and trimmed down a bunch more paint chip cards than I needed so that I’d have replacements ready to go any time I need to relabel on of the bins or drawers in the garage.

Once the paint strips fit perfectly in the pockets, all I needed to do was turn them into labels by writing down the contents of the bins and drawers using a Sharpie. Something about the finish of the paint chip cards caused my Sharpie to stop writing well on every second or third strip, so I used a few Sharpies that I rotated through{each would begin working again after being left to sit for 5 minutes or so}. Just make sure you have a few Sharpies on hand when you sit down to create these labels {I usually buy them in bulk anyway because they’re cheaper that way}.

I could have also run these paint swatches through my home printer, but hand writing them was quick and easy.

Once I had created all the labels I needed for the garage, I simply slip each one into a labeling pocket and then peeled the pockets off of their backing and affixed them to the center of each bin and drawer.

I just love the way they look! Color always makes me so happy!

Paint Swatch Card Labels in Organized Garage

The clear pockets will keep the labels clean and firmly attached as we move the bins on and off of the shelves, but they’ll also be easy to slide out the paint chips and update or replace the labels anytime we need to.

You can read more about the shelving and drawer system that we installed in the garage in the full garage makeover post.

Of course, these paint chip labels aren’t just great for the garage, they would be perfect for labeling containers of toys, in a craft room or office, or in any other organized space where you want to add a little pop of fun and color, like the pantry or linen closet.

Paint Chip Labels

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