Tupperware Label "I Made It at Techshop"

In an attempt to simplify my life, I have decided to pick one food storage shape and brand for my kitchen needs. Previously I had a huge mix of different plastic and glass round and square storage containers that wouldn’t nest and finding a match was driving me nuts.

Time for a trip to Techshop San Francisco - http://www.techshop.ws

Step one was to give away or recycle all one-off and round products.

Now with only Glasslock square storage, I was in a slightly better place, but I still had work to do. I still have several similarly sized storage containers, and I wanted to easily ID which tops match with their corresponding bottoms. Time for the laser cutter!!

I lay out all the containers on the kitchen counter and organized by size. When it wasn’t clear which size container I was dealing with, I used a measuring cup and poured water up to the lip edge and recorded the results. Now with ounce measurements for every container in my kitchen, I headed to Techshop to use their Epilog laser.

I created a 1” x 1” illustrator file with the appropriate number corresponding to the ounce size of the storage container. I then reflected the number as I would be etching the bottom of the glass and the number would be read through the top.

Place the numbers in the upper left portion of the illustrator file

Next set the focus height of the laser for the appropriate size of the glass storage

I set the x,y position of the laser to the upper left corner of the location on the glass where I wanted the etching

In print settings: confirm that the numbers are in the upper left portion of print area and determine the appropriate speed and power settings for a etching on glass with 600DPI. I used power of 50% and speed of 50%.

Send the job to the laser and hit GO Now with easily identifiable size indications on each storage bottom I wrote with permanent marker the corresponding number on the matching top. While my food might still not be the best, finding the storage device to store leftovers is now a lot easier