Anyone who's sold pottery at an in-person event knows the drill: peel off a price sticker from your freshly sold pot, wince at the sticky residue left behind, then reach for the Goo Gone®. Colleen McCall found a better way, and it started with an accident. When she ran out of price labels at a show, she improvised with vinyl electrical tape and a Sharpie®, and the happy accident turned into a permanent studio hack.
In this post, an excerpt from the September 2026 issue of Ceramics Monthly, Colleen shares how this simple swap eliminated sticker residue for good, kept her pricing system organized, and even let her reuse the same tags three or four times over. –Jennifer Poellot Harnetty, editor
PS. Browse all of the incredible articles in the September 2026 issue of Ceramics Monthly. Not a subscriber? Subscribe today!
Vinyl electrical tape and a fine-point Sharpie® will change your life. No more fighting sticker residue on the bottom of a freshly sold ceramic pot, I promise. Just jot down your prices with a fine-point Sharpie® and snip with scissors. Placing these cut labels on slick backing paper from a shipping label keeps them organized and ready for use. These electrical tape tags are reusable and even stick to bare clay surfaces. Although ink pens and fine-point Sharpie® markers smear, standard Sharpies® create a bold price tag that customers can easily find and read.
As someone who sells the same inventory at in-person events, online, and in my showroom, I am constantly peeling off stickers for purchases and to photograph work for my website. I can now easily peel off the sticker, take pictures, and replace the sticker. Since discovering this new hack, I have reused some stickers three or four times. None have lost their tack yet.
If you have a vinyl cutting machine, I’ve heard they work well, too; you can also design labels in fun shapes in a lot of colors. I am so grateful I ran out of labels at a show and was forced to improvise with what I had on hand. Here’s to less time spent with the Goo Gone®.
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Published Dec 1, 2016
In this post, an excerpt from the September 2026 issue of Ceramics Monthly, Colleen shares how this simple swap eliminated sticker residue for good, kept her pricing system organized, and even let her reuse the same tags three or four times over. –Jennifer Poellot Harnetty, editor
PS. Browse all of the incredible articles in the September 2026 issue of Ceramics Monthly. Not a subscriber? Subscribe today!
Vinyl electrical tape and a fine-point Sharpie® will change your life. No more fighting sticker residue on the bottom of a freshly sold ceramic pot, I promise. Just jot down your prices with a fine-point Sharpie® and snip with scissors. Placing these cut labels on slick backing paper from a shipping label keeps them organized and ready for use. These electrical tape tags are reusable and even stick to bare clay surfaces. Although ink pens and fine-point Sharpie® markers smear, standard Sharpies® create a bold price tag that customers can easily find and read.
As someone who sells the same inventory at in-person events, online, and in my showroom, I am constantly peeling off stickers for purchases and to photograph work for my website. I can now easily peel off the sticker, take pictures, and replace the sticker. Since discovering this new hack, I have reused some stickers three or four times. None have lost their tack yet.
If you have a vinyl cutting machine, I’ve heard they work well, too; you can also design labels in fun shapes in a lot of colors. I am so grateful I ran out of labels at a show and was forced to improvise with what I had on hand. Here’s to less time spent with the Goo Gone®.
To see more tips and more of McCall’s work, find her on Instagram @colleenceramics or at her website
colleenmccallceramics.com.
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