Epson LabelWorks Make Spring Cleaning Easy and Fun

It’s time to usher in the spring with a fresh perspective, which could be a new look, a hobby or even organizing your home or office. With the portable EPSON® LabelWorks™ LW-300 and LW-400, spring cleaning can be easy and fun.

Both LabelWorks printers support more than 40 EPSON LC Tape™ cartridges, which are available in a wide range of unique colors and materials such as glow-in-the-dark, metallic silver and pearlized blue. Combining these tapes with bold fonts, creative symbols or decorative frames and borders can make organizing toy bins, food containers or filing cabinets an enjoyable experience with a personal touch. In addition, the LW-400 features a two-line, back-lit display for effortlessly creating labels in dark spaces such as attics, closets, garages, and basements.

“Clearing clutter and getting organized is a great way to shake off the winter cold, and the LabelWorks printers are essential tools to add to any spring cleaning checklist,” said Eric Mizufuka, associate product manager, Epson America, Inc. “With a variety of specialized media, fonts, and durability for indoor and outdoor use, the LabelWorks make spring cleaning less of a chore and more of a creative way to spruce up your home or office.”

The LabelWorks LW-300 works with a variety of tape widths ranging from six millimeters (~1/4 inch) to 12 millimeters (~1/2 inch), and the LabelWorks LW-400 accommodates tapes up to 18 millimeters (~3/4 inch) wide. The tapes are available in a variety of traditional colors, as well as specialty colors and textures such as metallic, fluorescent, pearlized, iron-on, and glow-in-the-dark. Taking organizing to a new level, the label printers also offer 14 font types, 75 frames and more than 300 symbols, as well as provide dramatically smaller lead margins for up to 60 percent less margin waste1 for perfectly sized labels every time.

In addition to the convenient back-lit display, the flagship LabelWorks LW-400 features increased built-in memory for storing up to 50 labels. It also has expanded specialty print modes that include custom barcodes, cable and wire wrap, and a tab function that prints a mirror image for double-sided tabs to highlight pages in a notebook or for binder dividers.

For more information about Epson’s LabelWorks, visit www.epson.com/LabelWorks. For videos demonstrating the various uses of labels with LabelWorks, visit Epson’s YouTube channel.

Pricing and Availability

The EPSON LabelWorks LW-300 (MSRP $39.99) and LabelWorks LW-400 (MSRP $49.99) are available from a wide range of retailers as well as online from Amazon.com and Epson.com

All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by the company.  Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. Please refer to this site's Disclaimer  for more information. I have been compensated or given a product free of charge, but that does not impact my views or opinions.

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Special Spring Break Ideas

Spring break offers the last extended break for children before summer begins. This year, think about different ways to celebrate this time off from school with a special trip, vacation or family planned activity that will elicit smiles from the little ones – big or small.

Visit the Relatives
For families that live a long distance away from other family members, spring break can allow for a surprise visit outside of standard holidays and get-togethers. This spring, consider surprising your family with a special visit from the grandkids or nephews and bring everyone together again. During road trips, you and the kids can spot license plates from other states and try to name the capital of each plate’s state.  You can also play funny storytelling games where you start the first sentence of the story, your child has to make up the next part of the story and then the next person in the car takes a turn and so on. Soon you will have a wacky hodgepodge of a story that everyone improvised together.

Frugal Family
FunYou don’t have to spend a lot to have fun with the kids during spring break this year.  Try staying in and creating a life-sized self-portrait. Visit your local crafts store and purchase a giant piece of paper that is as tall as your son or daughter. You can even try using butcher paper from your deli, which could work also. Once you have your paper, lay it on the ground at home and have your child lie on it while you trace his or her entire body on the paper. Once you have the basic form, your child can go to town decorating it and drawing whatever he or she wants on the form. When your child is finished, take a picture of the self-portrait with the artist standing next to it.

Go Local

If a big trip isn’t in the cards this spring break, try something local. Consider taking your children to the premier of the newest movie they are dying to see. It will cost a little more than a normal matinee, but they will feel special when they know they have seen the film before anyone else and will likely want to brag about it. Doing this lets you show your child you understand their world, makes you feel like a rock-star mom and gives you the chance to share the movie details with friends who might be considering a film outing for their own family.



Thanks to http://www.kumon.com/ for the great tips shared above about Spring Break! For more information about them, visit their website or the other following accounts:
www.Facebook.com/Kumon

www.twitter.com/KumonNAmerica

All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by the company.  Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. Please refer to this site's Disclaimer  for more information. I have been compensated or given a product free of charge, but that does not impact my views or opinions.
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Clever Spring Cleaning Tips

I am happy to have the opportunity to have Karen Eschebach, Clever Container co-founder share her thoughts today with all of you on ways that you can work on your spring cleaning. Seeing that we had 60 degree weather recently, I can just see that Spring is almost here. My thanks to Karen for her tips. Hope you enjoy them!

1. Out with the Cold in with the Hues!  It’s time to clean out our closets and get ready for spring and summer. Get yourself into a mindset that you are setting up a boutique just for you.  The clothes in your closet should be the clothes you wear and love.  They also should be the clothes that fit you.  If you’re hanging clothes that are too large or too small, box them up for now and see where you are size wise next year.  If the clothes are still too large or too small, don’t peek inside the boxes, just donate them and take the tax write off.  Try putting outfits together and taking digital pictures of them.  Make sure you include accessories such as jewelry, shoes, purses, belts and scarves.  Print off the digital photos; hole-punch each one and slide an “o-ring” through them.  Hang the “o-ring” from a hook or hanger and you’ll always have ideas on how to get out of the house quickly and stylish.
   
2. Go Vertical!  Many people forget to use wall, closet, and door space.  We’re so used to binning everything that sometimes it makes sense to just hang it up.  For instance, hang pegs and hooks up to hang coats, backpacks, totes, leashes, and purses.  If used in a family room, these same hooks could hang your lightweight blankets your family cozies up to or in the bathroom your everyday towels.  Also, using vertical storage in any closet whether hanging from a hanger or attached to a wall will keep things nice and tidy and out of sight.
3. In the kitchen do some clever clustering.  Cluster all the tools necessary to make lunches each day or cluster all the accessories required to do baking such as bowels, mixers, measuring cups and baking soda.  This will save you time by not having to walk across the kitchen or open up numerous cabinets and drawers.
   
4. Set a timer while decluttering and do not accept any interruptions during this time.  Let the phone go to voicemail, don’t answer the email that just came in, and avoid all distractions that don’t pertain to your decluttering effort.
   
5. Organizing a room full of stuff can be overwhelming to say the least.  Break the job down into smaller pieces.  I prefer to work in a clockwise manner.  I enter the door and immediately break the room down into twelve sections representing one o’clock through 12 o’clock.  I begin by organizing and cleaning just the 12 o’clock to 1 o’clock space.  If I can’t move forward that day, I keep the area I already organized neat and tidy and I know exactly where I need to begin the next time I’m able to conquer this task.
   
6. Not only do we put away our winter clothes, but our coats, hats and mittens need to be stored as well.  First off, make sure everything is washed or dry cleaned so that you are ready for next year.  Sort through your coat closet and see if there is anything you can donate.  I store all my hats, mittens and scarves in a clear, plastic 3-drawer container.  Each person has their own drawer for this purpose.  I either keep the drawer in the bottom of the coat closet or I store it in the basement.  Coats can stay in the closet if there is room.  Consider storing the coats in hanging storage bags to keep them fresh and out of the way.  The quickest tip to making your coat closet appear organized is to have all the same hanger, not a hodge-podge.
   
7. Our automobiles could also benefit from a nice spring clean.  Begin by gathering everything that is trash.  Next remove all the items that don’t belong in the car and put them away.  Wipe everything down on the inside of the car and vacuum the interior.  Lastly, put everything back in the car that belongs there.  There are so many wonderful products to help keep your car organized such as a cargo tote, a hanging office organizer, or media storage.
8. Spring is also tax time.  Decide which bills you want to keep on hand for historical purposes and box them up by year.  Most credit card companies will send you an end of year statement which means you can shred each of the individual statements you have on hand.  Many of your bank statements are also consolidated.  If your cable, home phone, and internet bill are the same each month then there is no need to hold onto your statements.  Only keep the changes such as increases so that you have bargaining power when you go to make changes.  Purge as much as possible but be careful to shred anything with personal information on it.
   
9. Books, magazines and catalogs tend to gather heavily during the holidays and for those of you who do not go through and purge them regularly, now is the time.  For books that you’ve read, but you’re not going to re-read, consider logging them onto to www.bookcrossing.com.  It is a website dedicated to logging your book and leaving it in a public place for someone else to pick it up, read it, and journal online about it.  It’s a great way to track where you’re books have been.  Magazines should be purged monthly or as a new issue comes in.  If you haven’t read the one April’s issue, odds are you probably won’t get to January’s.  Same goes for catalogs.  Many catalogs are outdated within two weeks.  If you have a computer you’ll find more styles online as well as the opportunity for better pricing and potentially free shipping.
   
10. Spring is also time to spruce up the garage.  Store away all the snow shovels, sleds, and snowmen kits.  Do quick bike checks making sure the tires have air and they are ready to go.  Take inventory of the fertilizer, plant food, and tools that you have on hand for the spring summer planting season.  Utilize www.craigslist.com and www.freecycle.com for all the items you are ready to let go of. 

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