Belly Bands

After a ridiculous amount of hours spent making them, I finally finished all of the belly bands tonight. It's a good thing, too... because I swear, those last 20 of them, I was ready to just throw everything away and forget this DIY invitation stuff. I knew I was so close to being done, but they just were soooo tedious. For some reason, I couldn't stop though. I had 40 left to do, and I just had to get them done tonight.

So here they all are, in all their glory:

I made all of the belly bands by cutting the ribbon to length (about 11" to wrap around my pocketfold). I had a throw-away pocketfold mock-up that I was using as a "template" for the ribbon.

I wrapped each piece of ribbon around the template, and then ironed down the edges to make creases on either side of the pocketfold. Since the ribbon I'm using isn't wired, I found that ironing the edges helped make it better fit the pocketfold. Side note: I put a pillowcase over the ribbon before ironing it. I didn't want to damage it.

Then I attached the two ends of the ribbon together by pulling it tightly and securing it with two glue dots. After that, I used four glue dots to attach the monogram seals. Once complete, I slid the belly band off the end of the template and ironed each fold for like 5-10 more seconds just to make sure the crease was really good.

So with that, it is official: All individual components of the invitations are done. Now all that's left is assembly. The sense of accomplishment (already) is immense. I can only imagine what it'll feel like when I can drop these bad boys in the mail next week.