How To Make Labels For Jars and Containers

To create personalised fancy labels for jam jars, sweet jars or other containers, you can use simple, but effective designs.  You can vary the layout by using different mediums and nib sizes to create beautiful patterns for boarders.  Make sure your lettering is central by mapping out your labels using a faint hard nibbed pencil and using a ruler to work out the centre line of your label.  For small labels, use a finer nibbed pen and simple and legible lettering styles.

Label For Loose Leaf Tea

How to Produce Labels for a Tea Box or Tea Caddy

This simple project shown below, is an idea for producing a label for loose leaf tea, such as Black Tea, commonly seen in tea shops.  You don’t have to stick with formal layouts and letterings to produce labels. You can use any design you like.  In the example below, is an ornate label for a tea caddy.  You can use different shades of grey, black or pencil colors to set off your work.

In the picture, shown below, is a mapped out design for a label for tea.

 

Mapping out your work

I chose a wide Gothic font style so I can introduce some ornate patterns inside the upper case letter form.  I mapped out the outlines of the work in pencil, and drew inside the letterings, using a fine nibbed pencil.  I then drew a simple plait pattern design inside the upper case letter, but you can make up any pattern or design you like.  It is important to keep the ornate design balanced with the letterings, so the pattern does not distract from the letters and that the calligraphy style is kept legible.  I used a 2H pencil and a fine nibbed black marker pen to draw the outlines of the letters.

How to Make Colored Labels for Jars

In the YouTube example shown, I used some watercolor pencils for this pencil tuition, but you can use other mediums as required.  This pencil technique can be used in other project, but you can use watercolor and pastel colors too.

Personalised Labels for Gifts

You can use self-adhesive labels, colored labels or commercially produced labels for your work and you can use any calligraphy fonts you like.  You can also draw some ornate borders around your work.  In the project example, I have used a variant of the Gothic style and a Celtic upper case letter.  The letter is a capital ‘T’ but it can look like a ‘C’.  This letter form, is a typical example of Celtic styles, commonly used for tattoo designs.  The upper case letter used, gives a bold statement, which introduces sweeping curves and ornate patterns.