Braille and Raised Print Labels

If you don’t read Braille, you can make puff paint letters on the index card instead. Puff paint can be purchased at most any craft or discount store. It is often used to decorate T-shirts and sweatshirts. It takes a couple of hours to dry and then you will be able to feel the raised paint letters.

These index card labels that you attach to things by a rubber band work well for sorting out canned food, frozen foods and anything in a box or bag. They are also nice because they are really cheap to make, reusable and versatile. If you wanted you could add cooking directions, ingredient amounts, nutritional information or anything else you need.

Another helpful thing about marking your cans and boxes in this way is that once you use up a can, you can take that label and set it aside. Then when it comes time to go shopping again you can use the labels to make your grocery list. If you take your labels with you to the store, you can put them on the cans and boxes as you put them in the cart.

I have also gotten labels from: Labels for Literacy. I like that these are already done. That’s really convenient. They also have large print on them, which is helpful if a sighted person is helping me with labels. Also I don’t have to worry about sticking the Braille label over the original print one, just in case one of my sighted family members might want to cook something! Probably won’t happen, but you just never know!

I also divide up my shelves putting canned fruit on one side of a shelf, canned veggies on another, all the same kind of boxed food like craft dinner or hamburger helper all together on another shelf. I keep all my baking stuff together on one shelf, like flour, sugar, baking soda, vanilla etc.

Most stuff in the refrigerator I can identify by the shape of the container. For things like salad dressing, where the bottles are all very similar, I use a Braille label. Cans of soda are separated into different parts of the refrigerator. So for example, Diet Dr. Pepper goes on the door shelf and Coke goes on the top shelf of the main refrigerator area. I separate cheese and lunchmeat by a small cut off of a corner of one package, leaving the other package whole. For example if I have both Cheddar and mozzarella cheese I will cut a small bit of the wrapper of the cheddar cheese, not enough to let air get into the package, but just enough so I can feel the difference.

If you don’t want to bother with making Braille or raised print index cards to label your foods, you can mark lots of stuff with rubber bands, tape, staples twist ties or similar items. You might put one rubber band around each can of green beans, two rubber bands around each can of corn and leave the peas like they are. The thing here is that you have to remember what each notation stands for.

I think organizing the kitchen is about as varied as labeling clothing. Every blind or visually impaired person has their own individual way of doing it. As long as it works, go for it!

Would you like to share your ideas?