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.

That Mother comes home from Paper Zone with some crazy textured paper. The That Bride 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?