Category: Daily Living
Ok, so there is your traditional ways to label or make objects accessible. One of my faves is the magnetic labeling tape for cans of food.
This is my situation...maybe you can help. I have a cute and simple apple kitchen timer and I want to make it accessible. It is one of those ones where you twist the apple to wind it up. So the lines on the bottom half of the apple need to match up to the triangle pointing down. I'm thinking dots may be too large to mark, say every 5 minutes.
Any good ideas to make raised lines? Lol, I remember when I was a kid, I had a wooden ruler that had spaghetti along it.
Anyway, suggestions are welcome, and post your own clever and creative ways you have adapted something.
PS. I have 2 pairs of pants that feel exactly the same. So, in the navy pair, I sowed a button to the tag.
With normal kitchen timers, you could get someone to put dots or something you could feel on the numbers. I know you can get tactile ones anyway, but just an idea.
You could have someone file notches around the rim. If five minutes are two close together, try making it every ten. Make some notches larger than others. If you file notches every five minutes, do like the braille watches do, and make the fifteen-minute notches deeper. If you go with the ten minute suggstion, try making the deeper notches at 20 minute intervals. The point is to be consistent.
Good luck,
Lou
Hi, I like the dots idea, as notches might eventually wear off. I like the idea of sewing a button in a pair of pants. I had two sweaters that were almost identical, but the colors were difficult for me to distinguish (I have a little bit of sight). So, I took one of the tags out so I could tell them apart. Also, if shampoo and conditioner bottles are difficult to distinguish, put a small piece of tape or something tactile around the base of the caps. Maybe a small rubberband. Also, if you don't want your socks to get mismatched, safety pin them together before you wash them. I arrange my clothes in my closet by color, so I always know what's available to wear and with what.
Grin, it turns out that that timer wasn't very reliable. So, I bought a talking one. It's pretty cool! Lol, it actually give too much feedback for cooking, so most of the time, I set it, then turn the voice off. It stills makes the sound when the time is up.
Does anyone have much experience with puffy paint? I know a friend use to use it for clothes labels. Now, there is puffy pens. I wonder if you could be more precise with that and how long would the paint stay on? Lol, maybe there is an experiment in my future.
never heard of the pens, but puffy paint is cool. it can get rubbed off easily, however.
I love puff paint. The only thing I don't like is that it's difficult for the blind person to apply to things. As for the deal with differentiating shampoo and conditioner, I suggest rubber bands rather than tape, because when tape gets wet, it no longer sticks. I put a rubber band around my bottle of conditioner and only on my bottles of conditioner. That way, I don't get things mixed up. Once, I needed a fast and creative solution, so... I had two sets of pajamas that felt exactly the same, but they were different colors, so I used safety pins and beads to mark them. I just put a specific bead on a safety pin and pinned it to the tag of shortsshirt. That way, I was able to match the proper articles of clothing even though they felt exactly the same. I'll have to look for the paint pens. I'm thinking that would be easier for a blind person to handle independently, though it's something that probably will never be super easy. Oh well--it's great when it's dry!
Ah, now the puff paint probably rubs off because you're using it with flexible bendy plastics and other materials. It does say that isn't advisable on the RNIB site when I bought some a while back. As for creative ways for marking things up, try masking tape on the back of the neck of your guitar when you're just starting out learning to play. I used to have terrible trouble changing chords and locating frets because there was absolutely nothing to tell you if and when your fingers were positioned correctly to play basic chords or scales, so my tutor who was teaching me at home at the time, suggested using masking tape and sticking pieces of tape at intervals down the neck of the guitar, opposite side to the strings of course, so I could easily locate the frets I needed by locating the pieces of tape with my thumb before attempting picking out the chords. I knew then that if my thumb was on a piece of masking tape, I was good to go.
Jen.
Hmmm. Jen, I'd have never thought of masking tape for that purpose. For those in the states, Judy Dixon's Label-it book was just released by NLS as a digital download. I don't know about the time difference between when that happens and when a title is available on cassette, but I just started reading it, as I'm probably one of the most disorganized blind people you'll ever meet when it comes to printed materials. I know lots of strategies, but am too lazy to do something about it. Just trying to get motivated. Sorry for the digression.
Lou
Well, I've always used a pocketknife to label things.
I just always have, I guess, my father used to make marks with his on things that were mine, or stuff that needed to be differentiated. Just use the smallest blade and make discreet markings where it won't get noticed; of course clothes that doesn't work but one bottle from another, things like that always works. I didn't even know about the marking things, what agency folks refer to as the "proper" way to mark stuff till I was an adult.
The only other thing I'd say is, if you're trying to tell the difference between yours and someone else's, mark yours with your knife and not theirs ...