Looking for info or suggestions on any expirience with label makers. I have a buddy that made kick ass labels for my homebrews. I want to be able to put his image/colors etc with ease on my bottles. In a nutshell: Looking to find a way to print high quality custom labels from home at a reasonable price(dont want the labels cost more than the beer if possible) Thanks in advance for your suggestions ~Andrew
Assuming you have a decent laser or inkjet printer, Staples (or other office supply stores I assume) have many colors and textures of paper. Use a gluestick to affix. That's how I used to do it when I bottled and it worked very well.
I design and print labels for all of my beers, and have experimented a bit to find easy ways to complete this project using an inkjet printer at home. But the best that I've come up with is to use Microsoft Paint to load 4, 6 or 8 copies of the label on a 8.5 x 11 inch template (the number of labels per sheet depends on the finished size of the label that I want) and print it on label paper that can be found at most home brew stores. You have to cut the labels apart and wipe the back of the labels with water to stick them to the bottles. (Some paper that can be found at home brew stores is peel and stick.) The labels on this paper are not water resistant against the ink will run from splashed water, etc. (unless you spray them first with a clear sealant before applying them to the bottle), so I searched the Internet and found a package of peel-and-stick labels (4 to a sheet, and I think it was around $35 for 100 sheets) that helps to minimize the ink from running (it kind of works), but I cannot get my inkjet printer to print the label design precisely in the pre-cut areas of the sheet of paper. The printing center at Staples did a perfect job for me on that paper using a laser printer when I wanted nice labels for a beer to use at my daughter's wedding, but that ended up being pricey. My inkjet printer is old and the driver has not been updated in years, so maybe a newer printer with a better driver would work better.
thanks for the suggestions been google searching all morning for something worth while online. Looks like ill have to think outside the box with your suggestions! We could make a nice some up money if we designed simple template software in coordination with some avery labels or our own label shapes and designs specifically for homebrewers to do at home.
I have ended up designing more labels than I have printed because of cost... I step up and pay for the good label material and use a color laserjet printer when I do actually print it. I do have current equipment, since I work in the computing business, but even then I am shy about buying labels for everything. Most of my beers get a letter or number that I understand (my historical beer recipes are the date of the recipe, for example), and that is written on the cap with a marker.
