I think I need a label maker. I have one of the old dymo ones that create an impression on a plastic strip, but it’s not working well… And I find that sometimes the strips don’t stay stuck for ever. Even though I love the retro vibe.
And I love things organised in boxes, so I think I need a label maker. Something that does not depend on a printer.
Any suggestions?
I have a Dymo Letraset that works very well. You can adjust the size of the font, capital and lower case letters, do two rows, use all manner of punctuation. There are a few types of label cartridges: paper, plastic in white and clear, an iron-on. Like the other Dymo machines i have used, the keyboard is not QWERTY which I find a bit… well, irritating. 
I have a Cricut for larger things and a p-touch for basic labeling. I love it and I can get tape in many colors and ink choices! You can adjust size, width, fonts etc
I’m reading good things about the p-touch and @TheMistressT dymo is also a good brand
But a lot of the ones that I’m seeing are thermal printing, does that last? Or is it like till receipts that fade in a year.
Or with the other ones, are you constantly buying consumables.
Of course i could just use my daughter’s cricut with some sticky vinyl.
I have one of the basic Dymo label makers that works well enough but I find it annoyingly slow to use. I labeled a bunch of mason jars we use to store bulk items 10+ years ago and they’re holding up really well but do have some fading. We had a few labels that started to peel off after a couple years. I think the key is to make sure you burnish them really well when you first apply.
They absolutely do not fade like receipts. I have only had mine a handful of years, so I can’t say about long term fading; mine have not faded yet, though. I agree that it can be annoyingly time consuming if you’re going to print a lot all at once. I think you would gain some economy of scale with Cricut for doing a bunch at once, but it not sure it would be faster for doing just a couple.
I think for me, because I don’t use the cricut, there’s a whole relearning process each time. I guys in thinking that a quick and easy machinr would avoid that. But then once most things have a label, it might just be another device to gather dust.
Hmm
I’ve had mine about 15 years now and no fading and never have issues finding replacement cartridges
Good point, but there are always more things to label! For instance, if I leave mine out, Eric will joke-label things! Or maybe it’s spite-label… 
wait? you eventually get to the point where there’s nothing to label???
Once you’ve labelled the label maker and labelled the labels, what else is there??
They are really slow, I think that puts me off a bit
You are always buying or making things which then need labels!!! Mine isn’t slow really and I can have it print several copies at once and can choose the distance between each label as it prints out a strip with like 10 of them
I had an old fashioned dyno label maker, and discovered it would emboss plain paper if you cut strips the right width. it would probably work with thin plastics, too.
Unfortunately, I never found a good use for paper embossed with words, and dumped the label maker.
If I need a nice label, I usually print it on the inkjet. Most stuff isn’t labeled, or has a hand-written note on painter’s tape, like “Ready,” “Need,” or “Pieces.” (That’s a stack of cookie tins full of 3D printed furniture.)