This tip comes straight from my oldest daughter.  She’s a soccer player, and at her practices there are 50+ girls who all have water jugs that look alike.  So every time they take a quick water break, each girl is trying to locate her own jug in a hurry.  When we recently got her a new one, she said, “Mom, let’s put some fun duct tape on it so I know it’s mine!”  I thought that was so smart!  I told her that I loved the idea and that we should put it on my blog, too!  She was so proud–she even helped me set up the little photo shoot–it was her idea to tuck the soccer ball into the corner of the shot.  So cute.  :)

(As a side note, she’s heard me talk about giving proper credit when I blog, so she wanted to make sure I gave a shout-out to her friends’ mom for coming up with this idea first!  Her friends are sisters, so their mom used duct tape in order for the girls to tell their water jugs apart.  My daughter then passed the idea on to me–and now I’m sharing it with you!  So kudos to you, Carla!!)  :)

This is such a simple way to mark your water jug (or anything else you can think of!) so it’s easy to spot it at the field or park–and it will keep others from grabbing your gear by mistake, too.  It also adds some color and fun to your stuff–kids will love it!  We went ahead and marked all the jugs our family uses–cute!  :)  There are plenty of “boy options” too, so don’t feel like this is just a girl thing…

We also have labels on the water jugs as you can see–I recently had some made with only our last name (so we could all share them) at Mabel’s Labels.  I also ordered some labels here at Label Your Stuff years ago through a preschool fundraiser (super idea!), and you won’t believe how well these things stay put!  (The quality is comparable between the two label companies in my opinion, so you can’t go wrong!)  They’ve even held up after going through the dishwasher countless times–it’s pretty amazing, really.  As I mention in this organization post (worth the read with over 100 tips and ideas to help you organize your home and your life!), I mark all our stuff with labels like these.  I have them on my kids’ backpacks, lunch boxes, water bottles, umbrella handles, sports gear—even on the inside of my sunglasses!  They are so handy, and it’s better than using a Sharpie that just rubs off!!  (Clearly I’m a big fan!)  I also just ordered some labels like these for the inside of my girls’ jackets–hopefully they will find their way back to us the next time they (inevitably) lose them!

Between my handy labels and my daughter’s idea to add the fun duct tape, nobody is going to mistake our stuff for theirs now!  :)

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Simply add some duct tape to your gear.  It comes in tons of fun colors and designs these days!

You can see that I marked them with stay-put personalized labels, too.  The bright pink ones were just ordered from Mabel’s Labels, and the purple one came from Label Your Stuff more than 7 years ago when I ordered through a preschool fundraiser… a pack lasts a long time!  Only recently did I start to run out of labels.  The quality is comparable between the two companies, so you can’t go wrong!

I hope this simple idea gave you some inspiration–I may start taping up all our stuff around here!  :)

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How do you mark your stuff to set it apart?