Belly Band Ripping

I knew the belly bands on my invites had to have a button. I didn't know what they would be made of, but the button was essential. We thought about sewing the wrap out of fabric. Did I want to do this 275 times? Fabric gone. We thought about creating dangling strings of buttons. Did I want to do this 275 times? Hanging buttons gone.

Mamacado comes home from Paper Zone with some crazy textured paper. The Avocado belly bands are born.

These sheets are huge. I was able to make 33 12"X2" bands. I tried cutting them, but as you can see, the edges have a beautiful frayed effect. I wanted all of the edges to look like this.

As with all of the That Bride DIY projects, I thought of a solution in my head, and just charged right in. I can get a little impatient sometimes, so once I come up with a way I think something can be done, I will usually charge through without stopping until it happens.

I decided I would rip the paper when wet, with the hope it would have the frayed edges I wanted it to have. I used the vinegar dropper that my mom uses when she makes salad dressing to put the water down.

I put the first strip of water down, and it looked pretty good. I was going to be able to rip that just fine.

I started to do more strips and realized that the plan wasn't working quite as well as I thought. The paper was so thin, and the water was coming out of the eyedropper so fast, that the whole sheet was basically soaked after a few stripes.

Like I said, I don't like to stop a project once I start, so I just kept going. I did about half of the huge sheet before I had a new idea. I would fold the paper over on top of itself in 2 inch sections and help disperse the water a little bit more evenly.

I used the dropper to wet the edges to make sure they would rip easily.

I then unfolded each 2" section one at a time and ripped it carefully off. Or sometimes not so carefully. I got a little impatient after a while. Sorry to those guests that got those strips!

I laid all 275 strips out and let they dry overnight. Once all of the booklets were assembled I took the belly bands, wrapped them around the books to know where to glue, and used super glue to apply the button.

How did you create your belly bands?