Learning To Label Part I

Consider yourself fortunate that you can look at your clothes and pick out the one you want and that you can open the freezer door or refrigerator door and pick out the food you want. These are such visual things, and when one is blind, like me, you must find other ways to distinguish item; that’s why labeling has become one of the most important words in my vocabulary.

I recently ordered a book through the National Braille Press called Label It! It was written by a lady named Judy Dixon and it focuses on the importance of labeling, and on strategies for labeling different products.  It begins with a poignant scenario which illustrates the importance of labeling.  Going through a person’s morning, it shows how not having proper labeling makes every task twice as arduous. For example, when you choose your clothing for the day, you might reach out to find your favorite silk shirt, which goes with any color skirt and pants. But then, you realize you received another silk shirt for Christmas, and that shirt only goes with certain colors.  So, which one do you have? Which skirt or pants should you pick? You might get lucky and match or you might not.

Or, what if you decide to put on some music but none of the CD’s in the rack are labeled? You could take the time to search and put each one on until you found the one you want to listen to, but doesn’t it make more sense to label them so you know which CD you’re getting?

There are a number of ways to label, from putting a rubber band around one bottle to differentiate between it and another, to use puff paint or to use a Braille labeler. There are different types of labeling tape, depending upon what you are labeling. For instance, if the object you are labeling is going to be exposed to hot water, you might want to use aluminum labeling tape instead of ordinary labeling tape that is made of a light plastic.  

Puff paint is an excellent way to label stoves, microwaves, or containers in which you keep seasonings.  For example, one friend of mine uses puff paint to label her salt and pepper shakers, as well as the separate containers where she keeps her dry meat seasonings. That way, she doesn’t have to make new labels every time, she just pours the new seasonings into the containers when she gets home from the store.

The rubber band technique works great with liquid soap, shampoo or conditioner.  For instance, you can use one rubber band for soap, two for shampoo and three for conditioner. You just have to be sure to remember which is which.

As for objects like spice racks, there are two labeling methods.  You can either label the bottles themselves or simply label the place on the rack where each spice would sit. Of course, when you run out of a particular spice and buy new, you have to make a new label, but since you don’t use some spices that often, it could be a long time before you would have to.

Over the next several articles, I’ll be outlining strategies for labeling everything from clothing to food to medicine bottles to appliances. My new book has given me some great new ideas and I would recommend it to anyone who is blind or visually impaired. For those of you with blind friends, this would make an excellent Christmas present too.  Just go to National Braille Press and look under new releases.

Until next time, take good care of yourself, stay in a safe place, and take time to smile!!