I think every parent dreads having to name their child's clothes and belongings for when they start or return to school in September. First you have the dilemma of what to purchase - labels that iron-on, stick-in, need to be sewn or will you go the easy route and just write their name on the label?
Truthfully though after ten years of naming things for nursery and school I've not found any of the methods I've used to be easy and efficient. Sewn labels do seem to last the test of time - they wash well and they don't fall out but the thought of sitting there for hours putting them all in is too much for me.
I've not yet found an iron-on label that stays put more than a few washes and I tried labels that you attached with a little plastic pin a couple of years ago and they either abbreviated the girls skin or fell off pretty quick. So in recent years I have been writing on the labels with a sharpie laundry pen but even then it bleeds on some fabrics and I don't have the most neat handwriting, which also fades after a number of washes.
Recently I've heard a few blogger friends waxing lyrical about Stamptastic, a new way to name your kids clothes with a stamp and ink. I've not seen it done before but when I was handed a card at BritMums Live, I thought why not, lets give this a go!
I placed my order via the website, which was super easy and I like the fact that you get the true view of how your stamp will look with your child's name on it and thus you can check it looks as you want it to. You can also add a cute symbol like a flower or football and this is great for younger kids to be able to recognise their belongings before they can read.
The transparent stamp block is 38mm by 15mm and you can adjust font size to accommodate longer or shorter names. It costs £10 for your personalised stamp. You need need to purchase the special ink stamp pad. This ink dries water tight and thus stays on your clothes when you wash them, It also works on metals, wood and some plastics, it costs £12. So the initial kit you need to buy to use Stamptastic is probably more expensive than some clothes labels but the beauty is that it will last such a long time and you can also buy other name stamps to use with the same one ink pad.
I wondered how long the stamped name woudl stay on the item and I see in Stamptasic's FAQ they have done tests where some have asted 50 washes but ti does depend on the type (and roughness) of the fabric. I stamped some of the girls knickers as soon as it arrived and have been bunging one pair in with every wash. I'm now up to about 15 washes and there is no sign of fading yet.
JJ starts secondary school in September, so I have been busy getting new school uniform and bits for him as well as some things for the girls, so I enlisted him to do the stamping for me and he enjoyed it and found it easy.
You can see here some of the items that JJ named. The pens dried fine and have adhered as long as we did not touch it whilst the ink was wet. The lunch box however did not keep the ink at all and it was easy to wipe away, so it is not suitable for that but then I have plenty of dishwasher tight plastic labels, so that wasn't what I was after.
We did find that after using the stamp a number of times we started to get a line around his name where the edge of the stamp is. This isn't necessarily a problem but it does not look quite as clean and crisp as I would hope.
As the ink of the Stamptastic pad is black and thus you cannot mark everything with it and thus Stamptastic have started to sell a white labelling pen for use on dark items. I tried this out on JJ's trainers that he wears and two weeks later it is still holding fast. It was £4.99 and reminds me of the metallic pens I coveted when I was a small girl (do you remember, you had to shake them and it sounded as if there was a small ball inside). It is quite a large nib so would not be any good for small items but is perfect for shoes and bags.
In all I'm very happy with both the clothes stamp and the white marking pen from Stamptastic and I'll update this review in a few months with how things have been lasting.
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