Preparing for Boarding

[ChildrenOftheFarawayTree]

It's that time of the year again. We're getting ready to go off to boarding. By far the most onerous task being labelling things. Are people doing this themselves or are you using someone else e.g a dry cleaners? If you are how much do they charge? So far everywhere I've called have said £1 per item . We've got socks, underwear, tops, trousers, beddings, towels etc all needing labelling.luckily school have done the uniforms for us, but just curious what other people are doing.

Doing it myself, starting a few weeks ago on a long train journey! (Well, got DS to help a bit, on principle.) I'm finding it not onerous in the anticipation than in reality, and it's nearly done now. It doesn't actually take that long per label, even for me as the world's worst seamstress, and given that all the uniform gets labelled for us, there's not really so much. I'm sure there will be some last minute things we've forgotten.

I think the biggest thing we still haven't done is buy shoes: I wanted to put that off till the last minute, but we're nearly there now.

sorry, garbled that: more onerous in anticipation than in reality

I am doing all myself as well (in batches). Don't think £1 a label though is too far wrong. Can you rope in any relatives?

Does the school uniform shop offer a labelling service? Visit shop. Buy uniform. Leave for labelling. All delivered to house on day one. Sorted.

Do you have a sewing machine?
You can sew into the label, then that just leaves things like socks.

I did all the sewing on for ds1 and vowed never to do it again. I've just used a sharpie pen to write on all of them in the last hour. .
We'll wait and see what school says, I'm hoping there will be some leeway since we've labelled the uniforms.

Before anyone says so, I know this is a horrendous idea, I just couldn't face it.

In case anyone is interested, they are doing a nice sale at Peter Jones on some black shoes in the men's section but with rubber soles, so ideal for school. cheaper than Clarks.

I haven't labelled anything yet. DD is boarding for the first time for Sixth form and I don't want to touch anything until we know what her GCSE results are?

Any tips on anything I should buy or might have overlooked?

cash's labels I would suggest. Label absolutely everything

My tip is black knickers. Any other colour and they'll end up grey anyway!
My real tip is name it name it and name it again! It will save you a fortune in the long run. Second tip is to pack a few empty ikea/big blasting laundry bags. They are invaluable at the end of term when it comes to getting everything home. However much stuff they take in September you can guarantee they'll have 3x as much to bring home at Christmas.
I love sewing name tapes! Sad I know but strangely therapeutic! (I'm on the the south coast and happy to undercut the dry cleaners!)

Name labels... aaaargh! The first time by DS boarded I roped in family and between us we sewed around 120 labels. Sounds excessive, but when you are labeling every sock, pair of pants, shirt, piece of sports' kit, pillow case, CCF uniform etc., it soon adds up. Every sch hol involved a repeat performance!

socks label by folding the label over and sewing at the top of the sock

get a strong sock bag and train the child to use it! I haven't named socks and pants for a while now. If he loses them, then he'll have no socks and pants to wear. It's in his interest to make sure the bag is secure before he puts it in to the laundry!!

Or buy the socks from the school shop so they will label them for you.

We use the sticky label name tags - mynametags.co.uk
These were fab last year - just as hard wearing as the sew on ones and so much easier.

Iron on for the neck /waistband / main label then Sharpie / Biro somewhere inside. Get DC to do the latter.

Anything that needs external embroidering like names on P.E. tops I would outsource (luckily our - day - school doesn't require that on any uniform items).

I find iron on never stays on (unfortunately). LockedOut if you have found some that do, I would definitely be interested!

I have always used sew on labels so that I can cut them off afterwards and recycle the clothes.

Do it in batches and reward yourself after each session.

I used a great company for sticky shoe labels but I've forgotten the name of it. Woven Labels IIRC....

My mum used to make me do my own!

Iron on all the way! Have totally given up on sewing. #lifechanging #moretimeforgin 😇😂😇

I used mynametags last year and it was good. Bought another set this year and also got stamptastic

Once it's done on things like towels and beddings, it's done! Although I did buy DD another duvet set this summer as one of her two sets had disintegrated a bit in the school wash 🙄 £8 from primark though for a better quality replacement. Yet to label that!

Things for their bed area is essential to think about as well. DD has a couple of cushions, some postcards, and a battery operated light box for messages. She also has a mini printer for her phone and can print passport size photos out which is fun. And the obligatory tuck selection box from Amazon to start her off, along with a box of Lucky Charms cereal.

DD started packing a week ago which is much easier in terms of adding/taking away and checking naming. She has one suitcase of books and papers and folders and then is taking plastic storage boxes with clothes in.

I gave her a laundry pen to write her name on purchases she gets during term time (although there is no primark in her town, which is a huge disappointment to the entire school 😂😂😂) She has an underwear bag so that doesn't need naming.

I named her school shoes last night. It's starting to feel real and I am sad already. The first three weeks were the hardest last year 😔

PS our nametapes had to have the House initials on too, so worth checking on that before ordering.

Can't you just write the names on with a sharpie?

We sewed loads on ourselves but anything we missed the matron did.