Did you know that whether you have a printer or not, you can design your own return address labels? I’m not an Avery affliate, but I probably should be! I love to work, design and print from their website! Let me walk you through how you can make your own return address labels with Avery.com.
I came across this feature of Avery.com as I was shopping for printable sticker paper at Walmart. Maybe it has never crossed your mind to look for printable sticker paper, but sometimes I think WAY outside the box, and I wanted to add some Bible study information into the inside covers of books for a girls’ bible study…okay, I’m way off track. But there I was in the printer paper aisle, and I noticed all the different shapes that are available in Avery printable sticker paper. And right on the cover of each package, they advertise online templates available for printing on each size label and sticker!
We’ll be moving soon, so I thought I’d use this opportunity to show the step-by-step process of creating these return address labels. I’m using product number 8167, a package of 2000 labels that prints 80 per page and is currently $7.42 at Walmart.com. These are a little on the small size so if you prefer something a slightly larger, I’d recommend 18294 which has 60 labels per page. The process will be the same for each, but they have separate template numbers which are displayed right on the packaging.
Navigating to Templates at Avery.com
When you’re ready to design, you of course head over to Avery.com. There are several paths that will take you to template design, but I select Templates and then Find a Template.
This opens the templates page where you can either select address and shipping labels…
Or simply enter your template number right off of your label packaging (if you have purchased this for self printing). The template number for item number 8167, is 5167.
Next you will be given the option to Start Designing. Click this.
Create or Login to Your Account
Clicking Start Designing takes you to this page. You will need an Avery account in order to design and either order or download your design. This is a free account to create.
Choose Your Return Address Template Design
Product 8167 (the return address labels that print 80 per sheet) has 143 designs to choose from. You can find the dandelion design I used under Letterpress & Typography. The holiday design that I used is found under Whimsical, but each design can be found under multiple style selections.
Customize Your Label
I really liked my dandelion label as it is, but there are several options on the left panel for further customization. Just for fun, you can see that I changed the font to Shadows Into Light Two to demonstrate the possibility of customizing the font. As you can see you can import your own image, curve your text, change font and font size, and alignment. I switched it back again before printing my own labels.
For the Christmas return labels, they didn’t seem to print as clearly as I liked, so I went back and switched the font to Bold.
Preview and Print
Now that I have my design complete, I move on to Preview and Print. Here you can see that I have the option to select either Print Yourself or Let Us Print for You. I will continue with Print Yourself. On the left I can view how the design will print.
After I select Print Yourself I have more print options! I love the versatility here! I will select print all, but here I’m showing how I can print as many labels and whichever labels I want! Your sheet has 80 labels so maybe you don’t want to print all of them with this design. You can print any number; here I show how to select labels 1 though 30. If you wanted to print more later, just fill in the “from” box with 31 and the “to” box with any number between 32 and 80 and run the same label sheet through your printer again.
Next I choose Get PDF to Print and the website encourages me to Save my design. Of course you can choose Save or Don’t Save, but I figure there’s no harm in saving. Better safe than sorry, right?
When I choose to save, I can title my project name anything I want and then select Save to Your Account.
In order to print properly aligned labels, be sure to pay attention to the Printing Tips.
Here, I have followed the Printing Tips by choosing “Custom” under “Scale” and “100%”. I’ve blurred my actual address on my images; yours will look crisp and clear!
Be sure to put the Avery label paper into your printer in the right direction. You can test a regular sheet of paper first to know how to orient your label paper. Put an “X” on your printer paper and run it through with the design. This will help you determine the top edge of your paper and which side should face upwards when placing your sticker paper into the printer tray.
And that’s all there is to it! If you’re not modifying your template design, you can complete this task in about 15 minutes! Please comment to let me know if this post was helpful!
