Use Duct Tape to Label Your Kids Stuff for Camp

I get a little label happy when it comes to making sure my kids know which stuff is theirs at camp. We send our kids off with a whole group of other kids and their belongings are going to get jumbled. Unless, you have a super cool kid that is super organized – kids dump their stuff in piles and if things look the same, they mix up their items with others. So, we go crazy and pull out the sharpies and start labeling everything. However, I personally don't like to permanently label items. Passing things down from kid to kid, I don't want multiple names all over the place. So, easy solution, duct tape! It sticks nice and tight to most surfaces, is water resistant but also removes pretty easily when you want to take it off.

Labeling everything with Duck Brand Duct Tape

I recently took my middle kid to the store so he could pick out his own fancy label tape and we found this funny Macaroni design from Duck Brand Duct Tape – How cool is that!? The best part about picking a designed tape is that everything matches so your kids can spot their stuff easily. So now my son has a pile of his belongings with macaroni duct tape labels on them – I'm pretty sure he can pick his stuff out from the rest of the kid camping crowd.

Macaronia and cheese Duck Brand duct tape

Now follow my line of happy duct tape labeling…

I put the duct tape on all of this stuff and then used a black Sharpie to add his name or initials.

Duct tape label on the sleeping bag tag

duct tape label on the strap of a backpack

duct tape label on the tag of a washcloth

duck tape labels on all toiletries

And of course we wrapped the water bottle with duct tape, added labels to the inside of my son's hiking boots and stuck personalized labels to all his snack bags. I even put a tiny label around the end of his sunglasses. The only thing I didn't label was all of his clothing. I probably should have… but we're just going to hope for the best this time. If you want to label clothing, I would only use the duct tape idea if the clothes aren't getting washed in the machine until they come home so you can remove all the tape before you wash them.

If you have multiple kids heading to camp together or you just want to separate out their belongings at home, there is a wide array of designs and colors to choose from with the Duck Brand tape. I've found the tape at both Target and Walmart. Sometimes you'll find it in the home improvement section and sometimes it's in the craft DIY section… depending on the store.

Have you ever used Duct tape as labels? What's your favorite pattern?